I came to the high desert in hopes of finding a potential missing piece of myself. I also arrived with a boatload of insecurities (per usual) and even a wrong motive or two. But I left the wild lands of southern Utah with a sense of accomplishment, a filter for looking at my spiritual community back home, and tons of pictures I didn’t take.
I have a choice today to worry if I’ll ever see that road rager again, if he’ll be parked outside on some random night. I’m posting this to free me from rehearsing the story. And I guess that’s why I wrote my latest book—so my brain can move onto other stories, other adventures, and other nights’ sleeps.
Depending on which framework you study, people of faith have seven to nine different spiritual pathways. If you’re new to this concept, think of The 5 Love Languages—but with the sense of connection being vertical instead of horizontal. I take the test every few years, and my top two pathways are nature and then music. That’s why my spiritual adventure community meets most of the year outdoors. That’s why most of my prayers happen where there is no roof. And that’s why I’ve cried alone on dusty woodland trails while trying to sing along with spiritual songs. As I’ve rebuilt my faith after growing up in the trauma-riddled home of an abusive pastor from one of America’s biggest cults, I’ve had to reconsider a lot of who I thought God was and is. I’ve done a lot of that reconstruction out in nature, often while wearing headphones.
Podcasters have asked me how I rebuilt my faith after the trauma I experienced at the hands of my (pastor) dad, unsafe churches, and malignant indoctrination. Part of the answer to that question arrives in the process my therapist described of re-secured attachment. I have moved from the faith family I was given to a faith family I’ve chosen. In particular, my reconstruction has been guided by four categories of voices, examples, and connections in my life.
Abuse makes sense in light of what I was taught in churches, Christian schools, religious summer camps, and college courses. Instead of focusing on a winsome Good Shepherd who protects his sheep, I was one of millions of Americans conditioned to overlook verbal, physical, and sexual abuse. Predators and their enablers have indoctrinated potential victims, whistleblowers, and justice seekers with hijacked Bible verses, conditioning congregations for the inexcusable. Because of this, I’ve found the abuse of women and children—sexual or otherwise—has proven to be a feature, not a bug, of the religious institutions of my youth.
Standing up for the church’s victims, advocating for women in faith spaces, and seeking justice for powerful perpetrators will cost men friends, positions, and inclusion. But none of us will ever give up as much as Jesus did. And none of us can say we’ve fully taken up our crosses to follow him, if the women in our shared spaces don’t know we’d give up everything for their physical, emotional, and spiritual safety.
I didn’t think I’d ever return to Big Bend National Park. I’d visited three times in the past decade or so, and there are so many places on my list to see for the first time. But a close friend who’d never been to this wilderness asked me to show him around this hauntingly-beautiful corner of our country, and I’m so glad he did.
When I was young, you’d never have caught me in the woods alone—even in the daytime. But now I hike in the dark on Candlers Mountain every week. Tonight, as I luxuriated in a full moon and solitude, I tried to remember my first-ever treks in the dark. Between you and me, they were the times I was too scared to stay home
I’m working hard to bend the trajectory of life, to rewrite the story of my years on this planet. For years, I looked for that renovated legacy at awards ceremonies, in adrenaline-infused videos, on foreign continents, and with the books I’ve written. At this stage of my healing journey, though, I’m growing more content with offline affirmations from a quiet, faithful life. I don’t know how many books I’ll sell, how big I’ll grow my business, or how many countries I’ll eventually visit. But I know something more important: there are little feet that feel comfortable in my socks.
It was a holy moment. I struggled to feel worthy of the assignment. A beautiful soul trusted me with a vulnerable, passionate request. She was all of the parents in the Gospels who beseeched Jesus to heal their children. She was the thief on the cross who asked Jesus to remember him in his next kingdom. She was the exasperated man who cried out to Jesus, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.”
And all of that was tucked into my shoulder.
A year ago today, I was snowmobiling in Idaho. I’m just now posting memories from the trip, but I can go back to moments from this weekend instantaneously. The conversations and the solitude, the whine of the Ski Doos and the thunder of waterfalls, the high altitude trails and the flat open fields. I invited about 70 guys on this trip, and Jesus knew which three would be able to go—the dudes with whom I was meant to experience it all.
Gramma didn’t know who I was. I didn’t need her to know. I was in good company, as she didn’t know half of the people who encircled her. In the bright rays of an August afternoon, she smiled as she searched my eyes—satisfied to sit with strangers. A tiny sparkle of wonder glistened between her eyelids. In her dementia, she had forgotten to maintain any façades, and she didn’t need to remember. She was the real Bette at a picnic table with nobody to impress, no masks to hold against her wrinkled cheeks. Her wheelchair held the antithesis of a culture that needs the world to know who we are and then affirm it. My aunt combed the disheveled hair and inspected the gnarled toes of a woman who owned the antidote to my decades of striving for significance. I realized in that moment that my grandmother at her core was exactly who I wanted to remember for always. She was who I want to be at her age.
I broke. Hot tears slid down my cheeks. I didn’t say anything to Aaron for a long time. I didn’t even turn around where he could see my liquid emotions. I was about to return home for the final phase of releasing a book about losing my dad to a very different selfishness, and Jesus knew how to reveal his Good Father’s heart to me. He sent a heron, full of memories from my childhood on the Chesapeake Bay and with figurative meaning from a book that salved my heart. In the front of that canoe, I now knew I would leave that desert with a nourished heart.
These books influenced my healing journey and spiritual reconstruction. Inclusion on this list doesn’t indicate endorsement, but I found ideas in these books that challenged, affirmed, and/or commiserated with my lived experience.
Usually, this annual list holds a variety of subject matter. I enjoy following my curiosity into random corners of pop culture. But this year, as I conducted research for a book proposal and then prepared for my upcoming publicity tour, I read and listened to books almost as homework. Their content unfolded as adjacent to the 80,000± words I’ve been editing all year in advance of the April 2024 release of my next book. So, if you’re sensing a theme in the list, your radar is well-tuned.
We’re all being discipled by someone else—probably multiple somebodies. Those disciplers either push us closer to the Way, the Truth, and the Life or pull us farther from the Source of All Love. We’re either getting softer or harder, kinder or more critical, more or less forgiving. And the voices we let speak over us prove a critical factor of our spiritual trajectory. So, if we’re not becoming more humble, patient, gracious and compassionate, it’s wise to ask whether the voices in our lives have those qualities.
One specific juxtaposition in Scripture has captivated my attention for years. Hundreds of times in the Bible, readers see the command, “Don’t be afraid,” or “Fear not.” At the same time in Habakkuk, Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews, readers are told, “The just shall live by faith.” These imperatives might not seem incongruent to you. But as an adrenaline junkie, I bump into these opposing declarations a lot.
Over the past year, I’ve found solo riding to be one of the best ways to force myself into sabbath mode. Today, with my wife 8 time zones away, I pushed aside my to-do list and chased a paradoxical concoction of adventure and rest.
Sometimes, Jesus does multiply loaves and fishes. Sometimes, he puts booming voices in front of large crowds. Sometimes, lives are changed by words said on bright stages. My life has. I’ve learned over the past few years, though, that Jesus does a lot of work outside of the spotlight. That has proven especially true on my journey with him. Some of the most fulfilling conversations of my years in ministry have happened when hikers’ headlamps have lit up my J7 reflector or R9 sign.
It might be selfish of me; but before I start an outdoor adventure or leave on a big trip, I ask Jesus to reveal his heart, his character, or his glory. Before my first flight toward the Arctic Circle, that prayer came with a visual hope: to witness aurora borealis in person for the first time. For this trip, I added a second prayer request: “God, will you show me why you put the desire in me to go on this trip—why you wanted me to search for you in the Arctic Circle?”
I asked the bride if there was anything she’d like me to incorporate into the homily. She said, “restoration and redemption.” I looked into her eyes on the sidewalk next to the courthouse where we filled out the paperwork. I knew those words were her story. I met the groom half an hour before the ceremony and chatted about his journey to this moment. His life story showcased those two words, too. In case you have some pain you’d like redeemed or brokenness you’d like restored, here’s what I said to the bride & groom. I hope the human vessels of Jesus’ love in your life will likewise help you realize that healing through their acceptance and affirmation, challenge and loyalty.
As the world raged into and through 2022, I sought out two kinds of books this year: (1) those that spoke truth into the dysfunction and (2) those that showcased an antithetical mood or a winsome antidote. That’s not by accident. This year, I wrote more than 60,000 words for a memoir about the darkness surrounding my childhood faith and the beautiful ways that trauma was redeemed. I’ve been drawn to narratives similar to mine and tales foreign to my lived experience. I’ve let my heart be broken by nonfiction stories, and then I comforted that broken heart with equally-true tales of shared humanity. In contiguity of these books, I’ve learned how to live in the tension between the world as it should be and the world as it is. Here are the forty books I read this year in the order that I would recommend them.
In short, I’ve discovered that the Bible isn’t what I’ve thought it was. In a good way. It’s not a proof text for my preferences and proclivities. It’s not a security blanket to wrap around my political stances or any patriarchy. Jesus didn’t look like me, and his kingdom doesn’t look like my country has at any point in its history. And the best part? The real deal—whatever I someday will understand fully—is better than the constraints of my biases.
The protesters in Iran right now don’t hate Iran—just what Iran has become. They’d love a flourishing environment where freedom and equality wafted in the air they all breathe. Iranian women and those they’ve inspired dream of a place with liberty and justice for all. For me, “justice” means tov, the ancient Hebrew word God used over and over when he surveyed his pristine, yet-unfallen creation. I long for a country and a church where everyone is treated as though they were made in the image of God—because they were. I pray for a nation and religion where those who endanger the safety of women and children have boundaries placed around them to protect other potential victims from harm.
This non-glamourous setup has heard hosts admit surprise that I had anything spiritually profound or practical to say. These pillows have heard a host (who had hate-read the first few chapters of my book) pull random quotes and tell me how unbiblical and gutless I was. But, mostly, this bright & cozy spot hosted fun discussions between curious and thoughtful people.