Last Saturday, Ray received a call that a water main had burst above our church in Hollywood, and water and mud had poured into the kitchen, bathrooms, the flower room, two main rooms of the parish hall, and the priest’s sacristy inside the main church. Outside, almost 9 inches of silty mud covered the space…
Tag: faith
A Place Where Love is Found
Yesterday, Ray and I drove into town to attend St. Thomas the Apostle, Hollywood, the parish that has been our spiritual home since 1994, when we first moved to Los Angeles. St. Thomas is part of the same Anglo-Catholic, “high-church” tradition as Holy Trinity in Bonham, Texas, where I grew up, and St. Stephen’s in…
The Path I Didn’t Know Was Waiting
Earlier in my life, I thought I was being called to be an Episcopal priest. Sarah and Elizabeth were both little, and I don’t think Rachael was born yet. We were attending an Episcopal church out in Pottsboro at the time, and I was close to the priest, Father Forrest. When I spoke to him,…
In Memory of My Friend, Deacon Walter Johnson
Today, I am reposting my friend Deacon Walter Johnson’s eulogy that I had the honor of writing and delivering at his Requiem Mass two years ago. This is in honor of his passing and also of his birthday, which was yesterday. Walter was a good friend of mine through St. Thomas the Apostle, and I…
Remembering Leonard Cohen
When Leonard Cohen died back in 2016, I felt as if I’d lost a lifelong friend. He was eighty-two then—still spry the last time I saw him perform, first in Las Vegas and then in Los Angeles. Ray and I even flew to Denver to hear him again, though that concert was rained out. We…
What My Brother Taught Me About Grace
I was thinking today about how my brother George faced one of the greatest adversities of his life shortly after he got sober. His life changed abruptly after a small, non-healing sore in his mouth was diagnosed as cancer, and two weeks later he was at M.D. Anderson preparing to have his jaw and the…
From History to Fiction: The Priest Who Inspired Father Briggs in Hope in a Time of Dying
Father Briggs, the priest in Hope in a Time of Dying, draws inspiration from the life and ministry of the Rev. Carroll Barbour, longtime rector of St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Hollywood. In the 1980s and 1990s, when fear and stigma around HIV and AIDS ran high, Father Barbour opened the doors of St….
We’re More Than Labels
Today, I did something a little unusual. I was tired and while resting I started mentally listing all the people I knew growing up. I’m from a little Texas town of 7,000, and there were 125 people in my graduating class. Most of those people started with me in first grade and went all the…
The View From Here: On Family, Writing, Faith, and the Peace of Enough
When I was younger, I imagined that by the time I reached this stage of life, I’d have quite the list of accomplishments. Surely, I’d be well-traveled, widely read, impressively fit, financially successful, and the proud author of at least three books—all while raising a wonderful family and enjoying a happy marriage. The reality looks…
A Meditation on Joy
Joy is a visceral reaction that is for me less frequent than happiness and also less easily obtained. There is no product to buy that will automatically produce joy – at least to my knowledge – and there is no advertising campaign that aims to sell joy (except, ironically, for a dishwashing liquid). Every consumer…
20 Minutes a Day 