“If you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes.” Portland weather is fickle. One moment, divine sunshine beams on evergreen covered hills. The next moment, torrential downpours send you running to the nearest overhanging branch. C’est ma cite. In first grade, I lived less than a mile from my elementary school and would walk to […]

His eyes looked extra blue today. It may have been that slim fit white polo with light blue stripes or the glasses he wore because he knew it would make me happy… and he probably didn’t want to deal with his contacts, but for story sake, it was for me. I even got to try […]

The barista steamed some milk from behind the counter as he and I shared a conversation and exchanged our words. From time-to-time, some words would roll across from his corner. “Sin jadfjal jdfa dfasf asf blessed. Asd kfajdf dfjaldfj Eternity sdj kfj akdj salvation.” I’d slip them under the table, discreetly trying to dispose of […]

Give me a large body of water and a night sky, and I’m gone. Mid-July amidst the summer heat of the Pacific Northwest, my high school youth group drove your typical yellow school bus almost 400 miles to the Dworshak Reservoir. The expanse of pure Idaho water runoff covers sixteen and a half acres amongst […]

For this Oregon boy, the sun was scorching, and the air was humid. It was an hour before the championship race of the 400-meter hurdles at the NAIA national championships in Marion, Indiana, and I could hardly keep my head on right. He and I were jogging over to the indoor facility to warm-up, and […]

She and I had just enough room to sit and talk. We were in the nook of the stairway of the coffee shop, the spot where the stairs go up mid-level and then switchback-like the trails I hiked back home in Oregon during the summer. A few days ago, she emailed me about some research […]

The summer following my senior year of high school, my youth pastor invited me to be a counselor at a Bible camp located along a beach in Washington. My good friend (who had done it the year before) and I would be sharing a cabin of eight rowdy six to eight-year-old boys. This would be […]