I’m sitting in a coffee shop on my day off. OK, fine. It’s a Starbucks. Yes, I’m that guy. But it is literally the closest to my home. And I have a ton of stars, so they give me free coffee. I’ve been going to this same store for the ten years I’ve lived here and they know me and what I like, and I think that is important, too.

The ambient noise today is louder than usual. That could be because of the lack of noise-canceling headphones over my ears. They’re back home charging. So I’m here listening, thinking about something to write. Noticing the trio of young women to my left who are praying at a table together, which today feels less like a trie-hard thing and more like a genuine need. Especially after hearing about a newish evangelical celebrity pastor who made his bones during the pandemic talking about buying lots of guns and opposing the mask mandates who talked about the things we all need to do, like defend our country and stuff, and, if there’s time, maybe pray. Unbelievable — is what I want to say, except that it totally is.

The opening to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” came over the speakers and for geeks of a certain age, this sound is a delight because there is always a small hope that what will arrive is not the original track, but the Weird Al parody, “Eat It,” which was so sonically perfect, it is hard not to want to hear that one instead. But, for some reason, it never arrives.

I wanted to write and I didn’t know what to say. In part because there is a vibe to the blogging I did back in the blogging era and the craft writing I’ve been doing for the blog lately — writing to Christians who want to explore the text more than we are used to doing. And because I started blogging twenty years ago and never actually stopped, I’ve seen the waves crest and recede and life keeps shifting the expectations of what counts as the shoreline.

For years now, I’ve worried about email and the future of communication. I’ll probably dig back into that at a later date, but I want to tell you today that I value your reading this. Especially if you’re reading it in your email box. Man, that takes a kind of dedication. Of course, for analytics, I’d prefer if you clicked the link and read it on the website itself. Just FYI. But that doesn’t matter nearly as much to me as your being with me on this journey.

I’ve chosen to keep my main website religious for the moment and my new newsletter on Substack more reflective of the other side of my life: the MFA student who is studying Creative Nonfiction. It isn’t not religious. It’s just not about Scripture or the lectionary. And yet, this website has never been about that exclusively, and I feel kind of bad that it’s shaped up in this time like that.

These days, I’m busy and trying to make things work. I’m still podcasting (though deadlines make that harder to keep up) and writing essays about stuff that you’ll see later, I expect, but for now need some work and probably the chance to be in some important periodical that 127 people read.

This is what I’m thinking about. How weird the internet and art and creativity and writing and praying and being a living, breathing being is in the here and now. And it makes me go, hmm, maybe I could write about that.

Hope and love, friends. That’s what we’ve got.