Just Another Saturday Night at the Races

Until It Wasn't

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.

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.

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

The Glove Left Behind

By On Baseball, Absence, and the Sacred Ache of What Never Was • May 28, 2025
I never had a catch with my dad. Not once. Not even close. He chose to leave pretty much, long before I knew what to do with a ball or how to spell “mitt.” One day he was there, the next—he wasn’t. No goodbye. No warning. Just gone, like a foul ball that disappears into the stands and doesn’t come back. I didn’t even know what I was missing at the time. You can’t grieve what you don’t understand. But as I got older and saw other dads playing catch with their kids—heard the thump of leather in the air, saw the high-fives and the laughter—I started to understand exactly what I didn’t get. Then one day, years later, I was digging through an old box when I found it. Inside among papers, certificates and other stuff, was a baseball glove. His glove. It was worn and dusty, creased like it had lived a life. I slipped my hand inside. It didn’t fit quite right. No way it could fit, he was left-handed. He was a southpaw. And I never knew. It hit me, standing with his glove, that I didn’t even know what hand my father threw with. That glove had never been mine and never would be. It wasn’t a gift. It was just… something he left behind. I kept it. Tucked it back into the box. Closed the box and returned it to the shelf. Funny enough, there’s another box in the same closet. That one holds his ashes. So now I’ve got a box with his body, and a box with his glove. One for the man who left, one for the game he never played with me. Now, if you know me, you know I love baseball. For me it is the metaphor for life, The long season. The rhythm. The fact that you can fail seven times out of ten and still be considered great. That’s probably why Field of Dreams always hits me like a fastball to the chest. Especially the end—Costner turning to his dad, voice a little shaky, asking, “Hey Dad… wanna have a catch?” Every single time, I lose it. Doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it. That moment wrecks me. Because that was my dream. Always. That was the moment I never got. But here’s where the story turns. Not long ago, I was in the backyard with one of my sons. We were messing around; we grabbed gloves (both right-handed ones, thank you very much) and I him tossed a ball. He threw it back. And there it was. We were having a catch. Just like that. No soundtrack swelling. No ghosts in cornfields. Just a dad and his kid, throwing a ball back and forth. And I’ve gotta say—it was one of the best things ever. That backyard moment didn’t fix what I missed growing up. But it rewrote the story. It baptized the ache. It reminded me that I don’t have to pass down what was handed to me. I get to choose something different. I get to show up. That glove—the one that never quite fit—still sits in the box. But lately, I’ve thought about taking it out. Maybe even setting it on a shelf. Not because it’s sacred, but because it tells the truth. That even something left behind can hold a thread of redemption. It’s a reminder, of the father who disappeared, of the son who chose to stay, and the backyard catch that said, this story isn’t over. I never had a catch with my dad. But I get to have one with my boys. And maybe that’s enough. Maybe it’s more than enough. Because I still believe in baseball. I believe in gloves that don’t fit and grace that does. I believe in showing up—even when it wasn’t shown to you. And I believe that when this life winds down, and the lights go soft, I’ll hear a voice—quiet, kind, and holy—“Hey kid… wanna have a catch?” And I’ll know exactly who it is.