After the Midterms
Today, conversations about politics with people on the other side of the aisle from you can be downright dangerous. Some people would advise that we all just stick to the topic of the weather, reminiscent of Henry Higgins' advice to Eliza Dooli ...
The Kavanaugh Crisis
Whenever a political crisis hits our nation, I immediately think of Kellie, my liberal friend in Seattle with whom I founded the Heart Perception Project after the tumultuous presidential election in 2016. I wonder what she's thinking, and I wonder if we ...
Calling Out Racial Bias (Kindly)
Choose wisely. Sometimes we have days, even weeks, to anticipate the choices we will make in a difficult conversation. Other times the opportunity is suddenly before us and we tiptoe trepidatiously into unknown waters. The latter was the setting for K ...
Say it Brave: Wisdom and Faith for Tough Conversations
My new study for small groups, Say it Brave: Wisdom and Faith for Tough Conversations, is finally available on Amazon. But it has been quite a few years in the making. Here's the story behind it... It was the end of a long conference weekend focused o ...
12 Upside-Down New Years Resolutions
Want to listen to this post? Click on the triangle in the audio bar below. I love New Year's Resolutions. Writing down my wide-eyed dreams for the next 365 days gives me great hope. But then, I hate New Year's Resolutions. Because around the middle of ...
4 Steps to Civil Conversations: Hashing Out the Roy Moore Dilemma on Video
Nearly every day we are confronted with another national situation that fuels polarity. Most recently, it's the sexual misconduct allegations against Roy Moore, the conservative Republican judge in Alabama who is running in a tight race for US Senate. Eve ...
A Lot Like Skydiving
It feels a lot like skydiving, a bucket-list item my husband Brian and I checked off a few weeks ago, jumping out of a perfectly good plane at 14,000 feet into the unknown. Blue sky above, sea level far below. Wind slams violently against your skin, eyes ...
Dinner in the Liberal Lion’s Den
“HATE HAS NO PLACE HERE,” their buttons blared from their jacket lapels as they stood at Kellie’s back door. I recoiled. Clearly, the liberal couple wore the buttons to make a statement against me, the conservative guest who voted for Trump, right? I resi ...
Justin’s Cracker Barrel Commercial – The Rest of the Story
I thought about abandoning the audition and going home. We had already waited for an hour in a lobby full of other little boys outside a meeting room in the Nashville Hutton Hotel, and I had a crazy night ahead of me with 3 other boys' activities back in ...
A Risky Interview with a Seattle Radio Station
When I was a teenager, I took risks. Like perching precariously underneath a train bridge to see what it felt like when a train went over. Not one of my wisest moments. But now that I'm older and so much more mature, I take "calculated" risks. Like agreei ...