life lessons

  • Nothing Else Should Matter

    Nothing Else Should Matter— Steven A. LaChance How did we learn to live like this,in a world that leans so easily toward hate? Where did it begin,this quiet beliefthat we are somehow betterthan the person standing beside us,to the right,to the left,close enough to touchbut kept at a distanceby nothing more than an idea. What…

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  • Inside Grace

    Inside Grace

    I’ve spent some time over this past week writing about the crucifixion and the resurrection. Not because I felt the need to explain them, and not because I think I have answers that anyone else doesn’t. I wrote because I had something to say, and because it is still rare to see a gay man…

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  • He is Risen

    He is Risen

    He is risen. That is the line that survives. Clean. Direct. Easy to hold onto. But it is not where the story ends. It is where things become harder to understand. Just days before, the people of Jerusalem thought they knew who Jesus was. They welcomed him with an understanding of a version of him…

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  • Thirty Eight Seconds

    Thirty Eight Seconds

    I don’t talk about this very often. It’s not because I’m trying to keep it private. It’s just one of those things that doesn’t come up in normal conversation, and honestly, I’ve never felt the need to turn it into something bigger than what it was. I was on the operating table when I died.…

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  • I Was Here

    I Was Here

    Someday the world will wake up and I will no longer be here. Morning will come the way it always does. Coffee will be made. People will go to work. The quiet machinery of daily life will keep moving forward without noticing that one more voice has gone silent. That is the simple truth of…

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  • I Want You to Know Who I Am

    It was around 1998. I was dating a man who lived in Columbia, Missouri. He was a tennis player. A handsome man who looked a little like a young Robert Redford. I fell hard for those blue eyes and that chiseled jaw. At the time I was raising my three children on my own. On…

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  • Eyes Open. Heart Steady.

    Eyes Open. Heart Steady.

    If you live in this world long enough, you are going to live through some type of instability. I know I have. I could list them out. Hate crimes. Civil unrest. Moments that remind you how quickly things can shift. I remember Ferguson. I remember fire trucks parked across streets like makeshift barricades. I remember…

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  • Coming Out

    Coming Out

    Here’s something I’ve learned over the years. Coming out is not a one time event. It is not just something gay people do. It is something we all do, over and over again, in different ways, throughout our lives. We just do not always call it that. Coming out is what happens when you finally…

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  • I Did My Best

    I Did My Best

    These are thoughts from the quiet moments in the morning, from a night that was too long. Sometimes the quiet in the early morning gets loud enough that I finally let myself say it. Not out of frustration. Not as a defense. Just because it is true. I did my best. I was a very…

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  • We the People?

    We the People?

    I keep thinking about how different things might feel if we actually lived in a country of ideas. A place where “We the People” meant everyone. Not some of us. Not the protected. Not the powerful. Just all of us. But we never have. And that truth stings more than I want to admit. What…

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