Category: Uncategorized

Roughly three years ago, I woke up one morning and decided to be fashionable. This sudden conviction came after an entire lifetime of commitment to a steady diet of t-shirts, hoodies, and flare jeans. It didn’t derive from a desire to please potential lovers, or because of societal pressure to be beautiful (at least not consciously). What actually happened is that I somehow stumbled into a genuine love for my body and it made the idea of developing a style identity seem like fun rather than exhausting self-torture.

I observed people around me whose sense of style I admired, and then I started shopping and thrifting and putting together my own outfits. I bought dresses and blazers and chunky jewelry. When I came out as queer in seminary, I felt free to explore other fashion impulses. I embraced androgynous and traditionally masculine clothing, and of course, vests. I kept wearing…

Children, the young ones, like to be helpful.  I like to hand you the disk (throw it at you as hard as possible), or removing and forcing the disc into the player over and over.  One time my youngest placed a “shoots and ladders” person piece (cardboard) into the PS3, and when turned on the disc that currently resided there had circle of scraping.  Scratches, and love can make any DVD not useable.

Image 1. All rights reserved, and use common sense.

Storage (See Last Blog)

Scratches, Smudges, and Fingerprints

The DVD or a CD are sturdy, especially the ones that you do not record, and most scratches will not screw up the laser that will read the DVD.  The older the DVD player and poorly built players will have a harder time, so it’s not always the DVD, but the player as well.

There is an error-correcting coding…

Anytime Facebook gets momentum on profile pictures being changed for advocacy reasons it creates tension.  Last time I experienced this with the red equal signs for marriage equality and I, after a FB exchange, blogged about why I did it, here.

Yesterday, again with marriage equality, the denomination in which I serve – The Presbyterian Church (USA) – made way for marriage equality through two efforts: one immediately allowing pastors to use discretion and perform same-gender marriages, and the other a constitutional change to the definition of marriage affirming its traditional understanding as between a man and woman but also changing to two persons to recognize a larger understanding of marital covenants. Then a lot of Presbys took FB profile pics by storm changing our seal to some version of rainbow.

Today I heard (indirectly, but I heed her voice) from another person who didn’t appreciate the “rainbowing” of…

Having attended General Assemblies of the PCUSA since I was 10 years old, they have become family affairs for me and my family. I often see them as a family reunion, celebrating the connectionalism that we hold so highly in our words and deeds as a church.

Now that I am a father and on this day in which we celebrate fathers I have been frustrated with the lack of support and care for families and especially children for those attending the General Assembly. Two years ago, as the church gathered in Pittsburgh and my wife and I began to plan our trip to observe and celebrate our family, church and biological. We were met with hurdle after hurdle and flat out disdain for the desire to share the expereince of General Assembly with our two small children. I am a lucky one. My mother and father, love General Assembly…