Category Archives: Faith & Witness

Dove flying in Lisbon, Portugal

The House

101 Charlie Smith Drive. It’s a beautiful, sprawling ranch style home nestled among the back-roads of rural southeastern Georgia. Its 3,000 square feet of open space are inviting. Ghostly aromas of cookies, chicken dinners and midnight snacks still haunt the now still, vacant air of

Dove flying in Lisbon, Portugal

Finding Harmony as a Married Gay Man: Part 2

A little more than a year ago I asked “Can I be in harmony being gay and married to a woman?” It was a tough question to answer. In the months that have passed, I told my ex-wife that I am gay. It hurt us

Dove flying in Lisbon, Portugal

Created Blessed, Not Condemned

If we are created in his image then why then are we condemned? When I was 18-years-old, I accepted Jesus into my heart and life. God always made me feel loved and accepted by him, even when I decided the “straight life” wasn’t for me,

Two people holding hands

A Seal Upon My Heart

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If

Wedding rings on dictionary

Imagine

Imagine a song with only one note, A rainbow with only one hue; A world where people all look the same, and everyone sounds alike too. Then look at the colors around you, thank God for each various shade; Tune in to the beautiful voices,

Dove flying in Lisbon, Portugal

No Ordinary Epistle

The letter looked innocent enough, sitting there in my mailbox. A simple white envelope, with the return address of my Episcopal parish stamped in the upper left corner, in incomplete ink. Probably a reminder that they wanted my annual pledge, I thought. Maybe I should

Dove flying in Lisbon, Portugal

Exodus and Beyond: Hope and a Future

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen

Child laughing holding Bible

The Best Medicine

I’m automatically suspicious of anyone who seems to possess either an extremely limited sense of humor or, even more so, none at all. Life without a sense of humor to me would be very dark and depressing, and I honestly feel that along with the

Dove flying in Lisbon, Portugal

Father Taylor, the Sailor’s Apostle

Note: Numbers in brackets refer to pages in Father Taylor, the Sailor Preacher by Gilbert Haven and Thomas Russell (San Francisco: BB Russell, 1872) When you hear the tone, the year will be 1854, and the place, Boston. In Albany, NY, Elizabeth Cady Stanton (the

Apple on Tree in Orchard

On Target

There was a saying that my father had when I was younger, which I recall clearly, as he often used it to try and push ultra conservative fundamentalist theology on me. Most often his insistence that anything we wanted to accomplish or have for ourselves