​At the beginning of this year, I challenged myself to read at least 2 fiction books in 2026. Mainly because for the last decade I have read exclusively non-fiction books - a lot of them - fueled largely by a desire to learn as much as I can about subjects I am passionate about.

But recently, I found myself wondering, is it possible I've forgotten how much we can learn from fiction?

Is it possible that great truths can be found as much in fiction as in non-fiction?

Inspired by some friends who'd shared their appreciation for the book "Theo of Golden," I decided to make that my first fiction read of the year. If you haven't read the book and plan to, you may want to stop here, even if one article can't begin to capture the hundreds of individual moments and brilliant writing in this book.

But I want to reflect on the general message I personally took away from a book filled with many of them.

I want to reflect on a great truth.

The story is built largely on portraits. Portraits of faces. And an old man's capacity to see the pain in the faces in those portraits, largely driven by the deep pain that lived within the old man.

Theo used these portraits as an avenue to enter into the lives of those painted onto the canvases. And once there he used the portraits to help people see beauty in themselves they'd long forgotten existed.

Our pain does that to us, you know. It blinds us to beauty. Beauty in the world and in the souls that surround us.

I felt the book begging a question of the reader - at least this reader.

What do you do with your pain?

Do you hide from it? Or do you fully grab hold of it with hopes of better understanding the pain of others? Is your pain the reason you hide, or is it the reason you demand of yourself to become more fully alive?

The people of Golden who came to treasure the old man thought he was a saint. But in reality, the most saintly thing about Theo was his capacity to deeply understand people others had long lost interest in trying to understand.

I'm sure many of us get that. We've had people show up in our lives with a curiosity - a compassion - a longing to discover who we truly are. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

The sadness.

Not to tell us we shouldn't be sad, but to allow us to find comfort in knowing they too are sad. And to assure us that together we are going to find the beauty that surely lives in the midst of sadness.

Is that a saint?

One who so truly believes there is beauty in sadness that they will live out with unrivaled determination a commitment to enter the sadness of others?

And if so, if that is sainthood, what keeps us all from becoming saints?

I couldn't help but be warmed by Theo of Golden.

And I couldn't help but wonder - in a non-fiction sort of way - how much better would the world be if we were all a little more like Theo.

​WHEN DOES THE ROAD TO SECOND CHANCES OFFICIALLY CLOSE?

I am a fan of Tiger Woods, even if I haven't always been a fan of Tiger's choices.

I wonder how many people could say that of me? I am a fan of Keith, even if I haven't always been a fan of Keith's choices?

I wonder how many could say that of you?

I have watched Tiger Woods grow up. Literally. In 1978, when he was 2 years old, Tiger was on the Mike Douglas television show hitting a golf ball with Bob Hope looking on. Many of us watched Tiger grow from that moment into arguably the greatest golfer ever. (An argument I'm not here to argue).

We also watched Tiger fail. Make many mistakes. Reveal his frail humanity.

I was caught off guard this weekend when news broke of what appears to be another frailty. Tiger was involved in an automobile crash and charged with DUI. Few facts about the circumstances have been released; I say that while suggesting that everything written on social media is not facts.

I was caught off guard because Tiger seemed to be beyond some of the demons in his life. More than once lately I've listened to Tiger talk and thought, he's really turned into a solid and thoughtful human being. Wise.

But then this....

As always in these high profile circumstances, social media has been divided into two camps. Compassion and humiliation. Prayers for recovery and memes poking fun. A rush to understand and a rush to judge.

It is interesting to read how many people suggest that Tiger has run out of second chances. It made me wonder - can we really run out of second chances?

Is there a day when that road closes?

I suppose that is why I am such a follower - a giant needer - of the Jesus story. Jesus came to tell us all, ONCE AND FOR ALL, that we will never run out of second chances. We won't run out because we won't ever stop needing them.

I can't picture Jesus standing at the face of the road to second chances making sure I can't enter. I also can't picture Jesus standing there holding a meme poking fun at my mistakes. Especially the mistakes that come with great burdens to me and the people in my life.

Maybe I can't picture it because I don't want to picture it. Mine is a life built on the foundation of second chances. I've awakened to over 20,000 new days in my lifetime; a very high percentage of them have started with some sort of longing for a second chance.

I understand why people grow weary of giving second chances. We tend to grow weary of giving second chances because we give them from a place of limited resources.

Our patience runs out.

Our trust gets thin.

We start to keep score.

But Jesus isn’t drawing from a limited well. If anything, the Gospels paint a picture of someone who is more weary of people staying stuck in shame than of people needing grace.

Our capacity to give second chances is nowhere near the capacity Jesus has to do so. Lord have mercy am I thankful for that. Because for as long as I live, I know one thing for certain:

I'm going to need that road to second chances to remain wide open.

​I led a three-day learning experience this week. Yesterday, at the end of the three days, I asked the group to present the core curriculum they'd learned in our time together.

Each participant was assigned 2-3 slides. Over the years of leading this experience, it has typically taken a group an hour to do the presentation. But this group, it took them 2 hours and 20 minutes - 80 minutes longer than I'd allowed for on the agenda.

At first I felt anxious. I had a plan. An agenda. The longer they went the further we'd get behind.

When groups stick to the script for the presentation things flow much quicker. And though the group was technically sticking to the script - they were going way off script.

They were leading the group in songs. Activities. They were teaching each other to breathe. To identify people in their lives who'd made a difference to them. Made them resilient.

They were off script, but they were not off purpose. In many ways, I was sitting in the most purposeful presentation of this material I'd ever sat in.

They'd taken over the presentation. It was if I was invisible.

It is hard to allow yourself to become invisible when you are trying to lead. It is hard to throw your agenda out the window and embrace what is being created without the pressure of one. But in my invisible corner in the back of the room, I couldn't help but discover the group was not abandoning the material, they were living it.

The material had become a part of them.

Could a leader ask for anything more?

I don't think we give each other enough room sometimes to share our humanity. To share our creativity and our thoughts and our hearts. I don't think we do that in trainings or in conversations or relationships.

We rush each other.

We edit each other.

We move each other along.

But human connection - and most certainly healing - it often requires space and time we didn't plan for.

We went over on our agenda by 80 minutes yesterday. And what at first felt like a problem, became a gift. The most beautiful part of the training - of my entire week - was 80 minutes that was never supposed to happen.

It wasn't on the agenda...

Sometimes we pressure ourselves into believing we are falling way behind in life. We feel pressured to keep it moving. Well, I learned yesterday - sometimes falling behind is exactly where I'm supposed to be.

Sometimes the best plan is to leave the plan behind. 

​Elliott and I went to see the movie "Project Hail Mary" Sunday. I will issue a spoiler alert for the following article, but I don't think what I'll write could spoil the experience of this movie. To me it's spoil-proof.

The main character in the movie, Grayson, is forced into an act of heroism. He is forced to sacrifice. He's forced because on his own he wasn't about to choose sacrifice or heroism.

One of the characters in his life explained this by saying it's difficult to sacrifice when you have no one in your life to sacrifice for.

It's true. Grayson came across as a bit of a loner. Because of this, I related to him in many ways. Although, I have sons, so I do know what it's like to have something I'd be willing to make ultimate sacrifices for.

But in the midst of Grayson's forced sacrifice, he meets a friend. A most unexpected alien friend, but a friend nonetheless. And in the midst of this new friendship, Grayson is presented another chance to choose sacrifice.

And this time he seizes the chance.

In reflecting on this movie, it's occurred to me that we often hesitate to take leaps in life not because we are afraid to leap, but because we don't have a good reason to leap. When we live life alone - disconnected - life becomes about self-preservation and not about taking risks.

This idea of a "Hail Mary" - a prayer - one last long throw downfield hoping for a miracle catch - well, hope intensifies when you actually know there will be someone downfield trying to make the catch.

If there's no one downfield, who even begins to throw the Hail Mary pass?

I don't know that we take enough chances for one another these days. A lot of us are acting in self-preservation. We see too many of the people around us as aliens.

I wonder if good things happen when we open ourselves up to the possibility that aliens can be our friends.

Can good things happen when we find our reason to start taking more chances; start making more sacrifices.

I know it sounds like a Hail Mary. But I've seen many Hail Marys answered.

​Friday morning, I went to my local bank branch to open a small business account. It's been a long time since I've been inside a bank branch. Online and mobile services have made such visits unnecessary. But I felt a little out of my element in this particular endeavor, so I thought it would be wiser to get personal guidance.

I'd barely made it through the door when the bank manager asked me if she could help me. I told her what I was aiming to do and she immediately led me to her office.

We sat down and she asked me questions about my business. I told her I would be doing consulting work that will help build healing-centered communities.

"That's fascinating," she said. "When people tell me they are going to be consultants, I'm always curious what they will be consulting on."

She continued digging deeper into my work. She sounded genuinely curious, and for some reason that threw me off. Aren't bank managers a little too busy to be so curious?

It turns out I didn't have all the paperwork I needed to open my account. She took the information I did have and told me once I got the additional information a simple signature would finalize the process.

I asked her if she could deposit a check in my personal account that I'd brought to open my business account. She took my check, walked out of the office, and came back shortly with a receipt for the deposit.

She then asked me why I stayed with their bank. She acknowledged I'd been with them for well over a decade and wanted to know why.

I told her, "Quite honestly, I'm a creature of habit. If it ain't broke I don't go looking to fix it. You all have never given me a reason to believe you're broke." (Pretty important thing in the banking world!! 😊)

She answered, "But really, what could we do better to make you a happier customer?"

Then I said - feeling like she probably felt obligated to ask me all these questions, "Listen, I am nowhere near one of your BIG$$ customers. If I leave tomorrow no one will notice. So honestly, you don't have to do much to keep me. Just keep doing what you're doing"

She quickly responded, "But to me you're as important as every other customer."

Ok, what bank manager wouldn't say that? Surely that's on a customer service script taped inside her center desk drawer. But honestly, if I was ever going to believe someone saying that, she seemed very believable.

Yesterday morning I got up and checked my bank account through my online banking. The deposit I'd made the day before was nowhere to be found.

Panic and more panic. It was Saturday - the banks aren't open - I'm going to have to wait 48 hours to find out where my money went 😳.

I had the bank manager's contact card sitting next to me with the information she'd given me the day before. I grabbed it, typed out an email to her explaining my situation, figuring I'd at least be ahead of the game come Monday morning.

Last night. Saturday night. Well after dinner. I received an email from the bank manager telling me she'd gone into my account, made the deposit available, apologized, and told me she'd get back with me Monday morning once she'd found out exactly what had gone wrong in the deposit process.

I recalled that she'd told me she was taking one of her children prom dress shopping that day. It occurred to me she was likely having a family day on her day off. And yet.....

And yet, somehow, she saw a need to treat me like something other than an ordinary customer. She felt the need to respond to my rather ordinary deposit like it was a million dollar deposit.

She somehow found a way to have a Saturday evening walk with her Friday banking hours talk.

We live in a world where it is easy to believe we are much too small to be noticed in a great big world.

But - we also live in a world where we all have the power to remind someone they are much bigger than they know.

Sometimes that is good for business. But it is always good for humanity.

​I had to drop my car off at the auto repair shop this morning for some brake work. I live close enough that I could walk home while I wait on the mechanics to complete the work.

On my walk home along Broad Street here in Short Pump, I saw a GRTC bus stop. I stood and watched the people unload. The people looked like moms getting a ride to work, older people showing up for medical appointments, families coming to do some shopping.

I watched them unload and felt beauty. But - sadly - I also felt the hate I've recently heard and seen written about the very same bus service.

Last weekend, there was a 'teen takeover' at the Short Pump mall. Seems there's some national trend of middle and high school students using social media to plan large gatherings at public places.

I've read up a bit on these takeovers. They don't sound like a great idea. But they also sound like a far better idea than some of the ideas this former teen used to come up with.

In the aftermath of this event, I made the mistake of reading the comments on social media. Sometimes knowing where the mines are planted doesn't prevent you from walking through the mine fields.

A surprisingly large percentage of the comments suggested the bus system is to blame. The same bus system I observed this morning. The veiled (and not so veiled) suggestion was that since the bus system started bringing people from the city to Short Pump, Short Pump has somehow become less desirable.

As in, we had a good thing going here until those people started showing up. It is many of these same commenters who loudly oppose government initiatives and services that would meet people where they are, and save their fellow humans the 2 and 3 hour round trip bus rides to get them elsewhere.

I walked with a friend last night. A young lady who interned for me years ago. She told me she had deleted all of her social media. She said the aftermath of that has been refreshing. She said it has helped restore her mental health and give her hope.

I am not a perfect person. In fact, I am quite flawed. But one thing I do treasure about me - it's something I look in the mirror and can actually love - is that I do not feel hate for anyone. And when I begin to inch toward feeling even a hint of it, it makes me very uneasy.

Jesus does not scold me louder than when I begin to feel unkind toward any human.

I am discovering that social media, in all of its forms, has us on a runaway bus to a place where we will all hate one another. I have always sensed social media WANTED to do that, but I believed in the idea that love could win out.

I do still believe that love can win out. I really believe it will. But it won't on social media. The social media army and its AI allies is a force online love cannot defeat.

In the real world watching people getting off a bus and living life is a magical experience. I can't imagine how that could ever be an ugly thing.

Until I go to social media....

My young friend wanted to walk with me last night to tap into any wisdom I might be able to offer. This morning I think it was her wisdom that spoke loudest.

​When I was in my mid-twenties, I went to work part-time for a Mennonite carpenter. I was a drunk and a gambler looking to make a little extra money to gamble more and stay more drunk.

Not long into this experience, at lunch one day, the carpenter started talking to me about Jesus. Not in a preachy way. Not in an invasive way. It was more like he was introducing me to his family - like he was opening his wallet and showing me pictures with infectious love and admiration.

In that moment, I was infected. Jesus appeared in my life. Like family. Family I'd had my whole life but was meeting them for the first time at a family reunion.

Sometimes people will ask me to prove Jesus. Show the evidence. And I turn around and point to him, following right behind me.

Almost always they don't see him. Which I get. No judgement here. Because until that lunch with the carpenter, I'd never seen him standing behind me either.

But he was there.

I have followed Jesus since that day. Only - if I am truthful - some days I forget that I am following him. Some days it looks like I am following me more than him. Thankfully, though, Jesus never lets that stand in the way of choosing to follow me.

There are days when life begins to feel very challenging. Hopeless. And out of the blue I will hear it: "We've got this." I hear those words and look up and see him, the Jesus I met at that lunch with the carpenter.

And some days life can be going quite well. Goodness coming my way in ways I'd never imagined. And out of the blue I will hear it: "We did it." I hear those words and look up and see him, the Jesus I met at that lunch with the carpenter.

It is true that I follow Jesus.

But the truth is, there are more days when Jesus reminds me that he is still following me than I assure him that I'm still here following him.

I am working on that. Hard.

But I am working on it with the peace of knowing that for over twenty years of my life, I completely overlooked the Jesus standing right behind me. Twenty years...and he never budged. Not one inch away from me.

Jesus waits for me to follow him with all the following I have in me.

He waits - right behind me.

​I reflect a lot on things that have happened to me. Our brain is good at that - holding on to things we've experienced in the past to help us make sense of the things we are experiencing in the present.

But it occurred to me lately that our brains are NOT great at remembering the things that didn't happen to us.

I'm sure many of you read the story recently about the high school teenagers who were rolling toilet paper in the trees of one of their favorite teacher's houses. It was a school tradition.

As the students escaped, they accidentally ran over the teacher, who had tripped and fell in the street as the students drove away.

The teacher died.

A big part of the story is the family of the deceased teacher asked prosecutors to drop charges against the driver of the car. The prosecutors honored their wishes.

I have certainly thought about the grace the family of the teacher offered these students. But more, I think, I have thought about all of my high school choices that could have gone woefully wrong that didn't.

The direction of life can change in an instant. Many times we think about how the things that DID happen changed our lives. And often, we look back on those things with some regret or sorrow or what-ifs.

But I have found myself looking back this week on things that did NOT happen. I've felt great gratitude for those things.

I thought a lot this week about the countless times I drove under the influence of alcohol as a high school student - or drove with a friend who was. It wasn't once or twice, it was many times. And every single one of those times I somehow avoided killing myself or someone else.

There's a different kind of feeling I get when I think about the things that didn't happen that could have. It feels much closer to gratitude. It feels much closer to life's sense of grace.

I am sure these students who were involved in an innocent prank gone wrong will never be rid of the weight of what happened that night. They all stopped and tried to save the teacher's life. Some things in life you can not unsee.

I feel thanks for the family of the teacher who made a choice to make sure some things did NOT happen to these kids. For maybe one day when they are wrestling with the events of what went down that life-changing night, they will find it comforting to reflect on what did not.

Our memories are great at drifting to all the things that have happened to us. Especially the worst of those happenings.

I think it's kind to give our brains a break and reflect on a few things that didn't happen. At least it sure feels more kind in my case.

​Every year on March 14, mathematicians celebrate Pi Day - the day that honors the number 3.14, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.

Pi is a strange number. It never ends. It never repeats. No matter how many digits we discover, there are always more hiding beyond them.

For centuries, some of the smartest minds in the world have tried to “solve” it. Computers have now calculated trillions of digits, yet we still haven’t reached the end.

And we never will.

Which, if you think about it, might make pi less like a math problem and more like a metaphor for life. Because I don't know if you've seen it, but I feel like we live in a world that can be pretty obsessed with solving people.

Scroll through social media for five minutes and you’ll see it everywhere. People reduced to headlines. To labels. To one bad moment. One bad opinion. One bad decision.

A slice.

We live in a culture that is constantly cutting people into slices of pie and deciding which ones deserve to be thrown away.

But life isn’t built in slices. It’s built like pi. Infinite. Complicated. Always continuing beyond the part we can currently see.

The more years I live, the more convinced I become that most of our problems begin the moment we start pretending people are finished stories. But they aren’t. None of us are. Every one of us is still adding digits.

A mistake isn’t the end of a person. A failure isn’t the final chapter. A painful season isn’t the whole equation. It’s just another number in the sequence.

The challenge, of course, is that the world prefers clean endings. Clean conclusions. Clean judgments. Pi refuses to give us that. It keeps going. Which is probably why circles have always been one of the most powerful symbols of life. A circle has no clear beginning or ending point. You can start anywhere and keep moving forever.

The circle of life, as the song says.

Some of us fall by the wayside.
Some of us soar to the stars.
Some of us sail through our troubles.
Some of us live with the scars.

And yet we are still part of the same circle.

If pi teaches this giant circle call us anything, it’s that some things were never meant to be finished. Not love. Not redemption. Not grace. Not the human story.

Maybe that’s why something as abstract as a math constant has managed to capture human imagination for thousands of years. Pi quietly whispers a truth we struggle to accept:

There is always more to the story.

More digits. More chapters. More chances to become something different than we were yesterday. Which means the person you are today isn’t the final number in your sequence. And neither is the person standing next to you.

So today is Pi Day.

Celebrate the math if that’s your thing.

Celebrate the pie if that’s your thing too. (Apple with ice cream still gets my vote.)

But maybe the real celebration is remembering something deeper:

None of us are finished equations. We are still unfolding. Still expanding. Still adding digits to a story that, if grace has anything to say about it, might just keep going forever.

​Last night, Colin Dorgan scored the game-winning goal in double overtime to help advance his high school team to the Rhode Island hockey state championship game.

No big deal, right? High school athletes make big time plays all the time. Well, this big time play comes with a bit of a back story.

Last month, Dorgan's mom, brother, and grandfather were killed in a shooting at a local ice rink. Dorgan was wearing a patch on his jersey to honor them when he scored the game-winning goal.

As one might expect, his teammates and the crowd rushed him in celebration. Dorgan said, "It was the greatest moment of my life."

I would never suggest that his greatest moment somehow balances the scales of what was surely this young man's worst moment. I would not dare argue that this somehow makes life fair. But it is my experience, if we pay close enough attention, life does indeed TRY to be fair.

It's an evil world. I won't pretend otherwise. Life can feel in over it's head at times trying to reveal goodness in the midst of it all. But I am thankful that life never gives up trying. I am thankful that I wake up most days with a sense that life really wants to work for me and not against me. (Even on the days when I probably don't help life out with that work as much as I could).

I look at this young man's face. I see celebration rising to the surface of a soul that surely feels a deepest kind of loss.

What a reminder - life is full of loss.

Defeat.

But victory - well stay tuned, because victory is right around the corner.