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It was a Good Day: The Sounds were Precise and Overwhelming

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I'm the first one on the left (this was 20 years ago)! Not a picture of the events below, but a similar setting.   Intro I’m torn between telling the story in my heart and the story brewing in my head.  When the smoke settles, you can decide for yourself. Is this story A or story B? I can hear you talking from a distance because I’m always on alert. Put me in a full room of people talking at the same time and I hear noise. It’s not a hearing thing, it’s a sensory thing. I’ll illustrate this in an experience that goes from a meeting to a meal. Precise concentration turned upside down. Story I’m torn between telling the story in my heart and the story brewing in my head. One of the invisible challenges I live with has to do with sound intake. I don’t know if this is a physical condition or a trauma response. I’m not trying to answer that here, however, one side of it works as a skill at work and the other works as a challenge. Recently, I experienced both the strength and challe...
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Freakin' Out: On a Stage with a Spasming Back

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Intro  I was laying on the stage of the church, unable to move.  A tremendous back spasm left me temporarily immobilized.  The same stage that I:  Played Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen for a live audience for the first time.  Sang Amazing Grace, I Saw the Light, and Amazing Love all in the same set.  Did a live show of originals called Special K at the Army.  I learned how to do public speaking through preaching.  Played the bass guitar on Christmas Eve for a packed house.  Fused music, worship, dating, and drama.  I had the best time playing live music with the first person I fell in love with.  Watched my mentors teach me how I wanted to do ministry.  Learned lessons in leadership, love, resilience, and what would be the building blocks of my professional life.  On this day, I was carried out, and carried home to be on bed rest for several days after.  At that point, I didn't have back spasms that often and didn't thin...
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The Privilege of Debt

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Six figures of student loan debt.  Two degrees. Bachelor's in Biblical Studies. Master's of Information, Concentration in Library Science.  Estimated payoff date, After death.  ROI: Lifelong friendships that mean more to me than money and became a chosen family.  A lot of firsts – personal and professional.  The opportunity to leave home for the first time.  The chance to learn new skills in the student housing office.  The total exploration of my beliefs and values.  The enhancement of my critical thinking skills.  Learning the value of context.  Meeting most of the most important people in my life.  Learning from many incredible minds who I'm still linked to today.  The launching pad from poverty to something like privilege.  The gateway to my ministry career.  The rocket launcher for my library career.  The credentials that help me feed my kids.  I've looked at that debt as a burden and it's a...
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The Chain: Love, Hate, Fear, and Orange Alerts; Daddy's Boy

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“Damn the dark, damn the light,” my father was my childhood hero, when I was a teenager he said I'd hate him someday, and by the time he died that was proven right. To love and hate your own father is a trip. “Run in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies, break the silence, damn the dark, damn the light. And if you don't love me now, you will never love me again, I can still hear you saying, we would never break the chain (never break the chain)” (Fleetwood Mac, The Chain). The chain was not only broken, it was smashed to bits. Before we get there we have to take a hero's journey of sorts, from the dad I adored to the dad I abhorred.  I went with my dad to nearly every methadone clinic visit as a child and beyond and he was there for almost all of my surgeries. I learned to play the drums on my dad's drum kit, starting at four years old. We would eventually write music together. My dad's story in short was that he was a hippie and a junkie who got ...
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Grass on the Grave: Life After Death

They say that time heals all wounds and I once sang that the memories fade. I don't believe that anymore. “I buried the feelings. The memories they come up. But now I see ‘em differently. Love is always love. That doesn't mean that it's enough” (Allie Colleen, Grass on the Grave). Sometimes you can never forget the things you want to and sometimes the wounds heal in a way that changes how you see the world. I beat to a different drum and I know that. I always have but it looks like I've changed sides when the truth is something different. Let me take you on a journey.  I'm a four year old kid whose normal is daily trips to the methadone clinic with dad, summers recovering from surgery for my Cerebral Palsy and other birth conditions, Sundays at the family Evangelical megachurch (with people who vote to defund Social Security and Medicaid benefits that I critically depended on for two decades). I'm like a lab rat in physical therapy between surgeries, a child of ...
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‘Til You Can't: Climb Mountains to be Inspiring or Ignore the Broken Dreams of Beliefs

I don't want to inspire you with my disability and success. I want you to hear me and rethink how you engage disabled people. I don't want to inspire you with the things I've survived. I want you to hear and rethink what it takes to live a normal life under abnormal circumstances. If you're inspired by me, I'm genuinely grateful and you've also missed the point. I've written over 80,000 words on disability and complex trauma in context to contextualize a conversation that needs to be had so people like me don't have to climb mountains to live an average life. My life's not fancy and most of you probably wouldn't trade your life for mine, and I'm beyond lucky to have lived an impossible and improbable life.  “If you got a dream, chase I it ‘Cause a dream won't chase you back. If you're gonna love somebody, hold him as long and as strong and as close as you can ‘Til you can't, ‘til you can't” (Kid Rock, ‘Til You Can't). For ...
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Humble and Kind: Don't Say that Tim

“Hold the door, say please, say thank you Don't steal, don't cheat, and don't lie I know you got mountains to climb but Always stay humble and kind” (Tim McGraw, Humble and Kind).  I wouldn't be who I am without where I've been. While I've lived through some challenging things, I also picked up a lot of good along the way. I actually like holding doors for people. At the church I grew up going to, there were a couple of thousand people in attendance every Sunday morning, and I would stand at the door and hold it open for people to come and go for several moments at a time. Sure, I was raised to hold doors open for people, to show respect, and to use my manners. Also, I really enjoyed doing that. I did it almost every Sunday that we went. I wouldn't hold it for just one or two people, I would hold it for several people. Those habits aren't just there, they're built, and made.  Having left the Church all together, there are certain things that I don...
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