The Holy Trouble-Maker

For Pope Francis, who found God in the margins—and reminded us we could, too.

Word is, Pope Francis has gone home to God.


And while the world mourns the passing of a spiritual giant, I can’t help but picture heaven trying to get him to slow down. St. Peter probably met him at the gates saying, “Francis—rest.” And Francis, grinning, replying, “Rest? There’s still work to do.”


Because that’s who he was.


A holy trouble-maker. A pastor who smelled like his people. A man who traded red shoes for orthopedic ones and golden vestments for the grit of real life. He was more interested in carrying the wounded than in being carried on anyone’s shoulders.


As a United Methodist elder who grew up Catholic, my memories of the Church are stitched with sacred things: the quiet weight of the rosary in my mother’s hands, the heavy sweetness of incense, the silence of Good Friday that somehow said everything. I may wear a different stole now, but that tradition still lives in my bones. It taught me to reverence the mystery.


And when Jorge Mario Bergoglio stepped onto that Vatican balcony and chose the name Francis, it didn’t just feel like a name. It felt like a signal. A shift. A turning toward the dirt and the poor and the birds and the broken.


He was invoking the barefoot saint of Assisi—the one who kissed lepers, talked to sparrows, and prayed with his feet. And just like his namesake, this Francis pointed again and again to the margins and said, “That’s where Christ is.”


Not in palaces. Not in power. But in the places where people ache and sweat and scrape by. In refugee camps and rehab centers. In storm drains and soup kitchens. In the lives that don't make the news but make up most of the world.


His theology? It wasn’t flashy. Which made it radical.


Love the poor.

Welcome the stranger.

Protect the earth.

Tear down walls.

Build longer tables.


That’s not just doctrine. That’s dinner-table gospel. That’s altar-in-the-wild kind of holiness. We Methodists call it social holiness—faith that doesn’t stay put in pews, but goes walking. Pope Francis lived it. Preached it. Modeled it. Over and over again.


And now? It’s our turn.


We may not be able to canonize him (yet), but we can canonize his way. In our kitchens and classrooms. In voting booths and food banks. In how we listen, how we serve, how we show up and stay put.


We pick up the torch. We live the prayer of St. Francis until it becomes the rhythm of our steps and the shape of our days.


Lord, make us instruments of peace.

Of joy.

Of holy mischief.


Rest well, Francis.

You found the sacred in the unlikely places.

Now it's our job to keep looking.

Better Than a Dragon

By Where Fairy Tales Fall Short, Love Steps In • June 15, 2025
When I was a kid, my father was a mystery—real in theory, but invisible in practice. Kind of like the dragons in the storybooks. ( Thank you, Don Miller for this idea ). I knew fathers were real. I saw them in my neighborhood. At school events. Sitting in the stands. Telling bad jokes over dinner at my friends’ houses. I just didn’t see one in my own home. And for a long time, I assumed that meant there was something wrong with me. I’ve written before about my biological father and the worn leather baseball glove he left behind. How that glove held more than its shape—how it held absence, too. A reminder of what wasn’t there. That glove sat packed away in a box for years. Not flashy. Not mysterious. But quietly full of memory. It didn’t hold answers. Just questions. Who was he? Did he ever think of me? Would we have tossed this ball around, had things been different? Looking back now, I realize that old glove was the first thing that hinted at something bigger—something sacred hidden in the ordinary. Maybe that’s what theology really is. It taught me that absence can be tangible. That love, even when missing, can still leave a trace. That longing is its own kind of prayer. But this story isn’t only about what wasn’t there. It’s about what came to take its place. One day, my mom brought home a man who seemed enormous. Over six feet tall, driving a Chevy station wagon that felt like a spaceship to a kid who had only known a one-parent universe. I remember looking up at him and thinking, Is this what it feels like to stand next to a mountain? At the time, I didn’t know how to name it. But something began to shift. He didn’t try to replace anyone. He didn’t make promises or declarations. He just… stayed. Through the slammed doors, the smart mouth, the years when I gave him every reason to walk away, he didn’t. He never wore a cape. Never rode a dragon. But he showed up with groceries and grace. With quiet patience and fierce loyalty. And he caught more than baseballs—he caught my older brother and little sister. His name was Warren. He never asked to be anyone’s hero. But as I think about it he was mine. He passed away a few years ago. And while I told him thank you in a hundred little ways over the years, I don’t know if I ever said all of this. I hope he knew. I think he did. Because love like his doesn’t go unnoticed. It sinks in. It stays. It shapes the life it touches - - just like that glove shaped a hand that once wore it. And now I have two boys of my own. Connor. Zach. They are both dads themselves. You didn’t come with instruction manuals. You didn’t ask for me to carry all my old questions into fatherhood. But you gave me the gift of becoming a dad—not in theory, not in longing, but in full, beautiful reality. And I want you to know this: Being your father has been the greatest grace of my life. I hope you know. I think you do. Because that’s how love works. Passed down not just through blood, but through presence. Through staying. Through choosing. Through gloves handed down and hands held on the hardest days. This Father’s Day, I’m thinking of the man who stepped into the gap for me— And the sons who have filled my life with more joy than I could have imagined. None of it is a fairy tale. It’s better. It’s real. And it’s sacred.

Just Another Saturday Night at the Races

By Until It Wasn't • June 14, 2025
The Belmont Stakes usually comes with less noise. Unless there’s a Triple Crown contender, it’s quieter. Fewer hats. Less hype. No trumpet fanfare announcing history in the making. And maybe that’s exactly why it matters. Because sacred doesn’t require spectacle. Sometimes, the altar isn’t at the front of the crowd, draped in roses, or blanketed in Black-Eyed Susans, or waiting for a crown of carnations. Sometimes it’s in the back row, in the shadows, in the space where no one’s keeping score or waiting for glory. Sometimes, holiness just looks like showing up. If the Kentucky Derby is the grand stage—fanfare and fever dreams—and the Preakness is the scrappy sequel full of fight, then the Belmont, in years like this one, feels like a regular Saturday that most folks scroll past. But that’s the unlikely altar, isn’t it? Not the headline moment—just the kind that quietly holds the whole story together. The Belmont was run anyway. And wouldn’t you know it—same result as the Derby. Same top three. Same come-from-behind winner who waited until the final stretch to surge past the leaders again. There’s something sacred in that, too. Because most of life isn’t Triple Crown moments. It’s ordinary time. Quiet faith. Long, slow miles when no one’s cheering. When you run not because the world is watching, but because the race is yours to run. I watched the race while babysitting my granddaughter, who was making a glorious mess of the spaghetti I cooked just for her. Not a big night—just a full one. Full of sauce-stained joy, soft wonder, and a little magic spilled across the living room. And after she was tucked into bed, we raised a glass—not a mint julep or a Black-Eyed Susan, but a Belmont Jewel. And that felt right. The Belmont Jewel has never been the star of the show. It doesn’t come with its own silver cup or folklore. It’s just bourbon, lemonade, and pomegranate. Unassuming. Refreshing. It shows up late in the season, after the crowds have thinned and the stakes have lowered. And yet, somehow, it’s exactly what the moment needed. Maybe that’s the message of the Belmont itself: There’s beauty—even blessing—in what gets overlooked. And maybe that’s why Dan Fogelberg’s lyric landed hard again: “The chance of a lifetime in a lifetime of chance.” It’s not just about chasing big dreams—it’s about noticing small ones. The little flashes of grace that show up in spaghetti smiles, in late surges from behind, in ordinary days when no one’s paying attention. It’s about how sacred chances don’t always come with fanfare. Sometimes they arrive like a whisper. Sometimes they’re handed to us in the form of a child, or a quiet evening, or a race that doesn’t seem to matter—until it does. Because maybe the chance of a lifetime is simply the chance to live it. To show up. To keep running. To keep loving. Especially when no one’s watching.

This Is Still Holy Ground

By A Pride Month reflection from Texas—where love is louder than legislation. • June 3, 2025
To my LGBTQ+ siblings and neighbors, whose courage humbles me— Happy Pride Month. I want to say something that should’ve been said a long time ago, and said more often: You are loved. Fully. No exceptions. Not in spite of who you are, not as a “God-loves-you-but…” kind of thing. Just… loved. Period. And while I say this with my whole heart, I’m also carrying sorrow—and yes, heartbreak—again this year. Because in Texas, where I live, lawmakers have passed Senate Bill 12, a law passed earlier this year, set to take effect September 1, 2025. It bans school-sponsored LGBTQ+ clubs—stripping away vital spaces where queer students could gather, be seen, be safe, and know they belong. My heart is broken. Again. As an ally. As a person of faith. As someone who believes school should be a place for growth, not shame. Let’s be clear: this isn’t about protecting children. It’s about erasing the ones who don’t fit someone else’s definition of “acceptable.” And as someone who follows Jesus—the Jesus who welcomed the outcast, who defended the excluded, who never once asked someone to shrink to be loved—I can’t stay quiet. I won’t. We were called to be people of love and instead, far too often, we’ve chosen fear dressed up in religion. We’ve preached inclusion and practiced exclusion. We’ve claimed grace for ourselves and forgotten to offer it freely. There are so many ways we’ve gotten it wrong. And if you’ve been hurt—by a church, by a Christian, by a culture shaped by both—I just want you to hear: you did not deserve that. You are not a mistake. You are not a disruption. You are not someone God is disappointed in. You are a gift. Pride is about joy. About presence. About refusing to apologize for being beautifully, wonderfully, unapologetically you. It’s about surviving when the world said you shouldn’t. It’s about taking up your space in the world—and in the pews, and at the communion table, and under the stars where God saw you and said, “This is very good.” If the Church or the state has made you feel like there’s no room for you—I want you to know: that wasn’t Jesus. That was us, missing the mark. Again. Pride Month gives me a chance to say what I should say all year: You are beloved. You are sacred. You belong. And if no one’s ever said it to you from a pulpit or a pew or a prayer—hear it here, now, from me: I see the holy in you. And I’m standing with you. Maybe this is the Unlikely Altar: a broken heart that refuses to give up on love. So, to every LGBTQ+ person— To those in Texas and beyond… To those who’ve been made to feel like your existence is “too controversial” To the ones who wonder if it’s safer not to be yourself at all, To the ones who’ve lost a safe space but haven’t lost your spirit— Here is my prayer for you: May you find allies in unexpected places. May you never believe the lie that your life is less than sacred. May your identity never be a source of shame—only of strength. May you be met with fierce kindness, quiet solidarity, and loud joy. And may you never, ever forget: There’s nothing wrong with you. There’s so much right with you. With love, An ally, A Christian, And a work in progress