Fallow Ground

Busyness is in my blood. My father is a high school teacher and coach. When I was young, and still to this day, my dad would be up before the sun and out the door working. He’d go first to tend to his pigs if there was something that needed to be done in the…

Love is an overlooked view, a quiet thing, a forgotten happening. When it occurs, we miss it. When we do it, we don’t notice, and neither does anyone else. The great transgression of our Christ, the thing which impassioned the Roman whips and drove him to the cross, was that he brought to light, his…

You are doing enough. I don’t know where you first heard the lie that you’re not. It doesn’t matter really, because since hearing it, you’ve absorbed it as your own, made it your own thought, your own condemnation. That voice, screaming in your ear, distracting you and destroying your confidence? That’s your voice. Those are…

Maybe it’s because I just came back from Paris, a place where I was out of my element and every day was an adventure. Maybe it’s because I’m just now finally adjusting to my new work load. Maybe it’s because I’m honestly very comfortable in Pasadena, as comfortable as I’ve ever been anywhere. But for…

Napoleon III wanted Paris to be the most beautiful, the most well organized, and the most diverse and peaceful city ever known to humanity, so he gave control of all city planning to an architect named Haussmann, and he set about trying to make that a reality. The most obvious of Haussmann’s many reforms are…

Call me names. Call me Elijah. Call me Son. Call me Brother. Call me Smart. Call me Crush. Call me Coach’s Kid. Call me Grandson. Call me Honest. Call me Nothing. Call me Pharisee. Call me Back. Call me Mature. Call me Slow. Call me Fat. Call me Second To Last. Call me Lineman. Call…

Let it rest. The years before have taken toll. The future calls for more – more tilling, more sowing, more crop. So for now let the land do the good, slow work of rest. Let it be. Let excrement and detritus – so unwanted, so uncouth – be transformed ‘til earth is fertile and fierce.…