Living with Cerebral Palsy and Intersectionality

I never did chestnuts over the open fire but Brazil nuts were definitely a thing. It what follows I'm about to play a little game of Christmas morning “I spy,” as a special Christmas post mostly aimed at fun while you sip your coco, your coffee, or whatever yuletide beverage you choose in front of a crackling fireplace or the melodic sounds of Fireplace for Your Home because you don't have a fireplace anymore or at all. But it's going to be a visual and interesting adventure so I invite you to come along with me for that.  The first thing I see in this picture is the ashtray that my sister and I are using to put the nut shells in, I suppose if you're going to use an ashtray you might as well be multifunctional with it right? Both of my parents were smokers for a really long time, so I don't think I would have thought twice about this then but it's the first thing I noticed now because it's so out of place. Everything looks mostly quaint and peace...

A baby being fed by Mom. A manger scene was on display. A Christmas tree was decorated with a glimmering star on top. A collage of family history and hopeful future. A needle, a spoon, a razor blade, a mirror, money, and a revolver. A family home brightly lit for Christmas. All of this in one contact sheet developed by my father, the photographer. I found this among my possessions. I couldn't have imagined one photograph would capture the elements of why I write, about disability in context with addiction, alcoholism, dysfunction, mental health, and religion so vividly. The thing about family dysfunction is that it doesn't always look like that. Until the cracks start to show. Imagine, your home is decorated for Christmas and everything looks warm and loving, and sometimes it was, and sometimes it wasn't. But, on appearance it looks pretty good. That was the era that the photo depicts. As warm as Christmas could be. A family intact and building, long before the ...

I would walk past this image at the end of the basement stairs for more years than I can actually remember. I didn't realize that a photograph of this collage of photos would be my remaining memory of it. It's a time capsule of family and home; of what is broken and gone. It illustrates my struggling entry into this world as a premature newborn with CP, it illustrates the fragments and pieces of what I know of my parents' story as a union, it has images of the places that I always wanted to be and the places that I once called home that I can't go back to anymore, it carries reminders of the religion I left behind that I once thought saved my parents, and of a time before I didn't like winter.  Then, “The twistin' of the knife, the bend until they break. And then it all goes wrong” (Noah Cyrus, “I Just Want a Lover”). A Kellogg family Christmas has been a lot of things, a collection of voices, much like the Cyrus family quotes herein. When I see my m...

“Say that you want me, I know you don't. No you don't, cause you don't know. What I've been through, led me to you. You found me, I was broken. You let a little bit of hope in. But you, you broke me too” (Yellowcard and Avril Lavigne, “You Broke Me Too”).  Most of the things I've really wanted in life haven't lasted very long. Sometimes that's my fault. Sometimes it's not. One of the things that I'm learning to overcome in myself is that need for external validation and the role that that has played usually in interpersonal relationships.  But, it plays its part in other ways too, like when I used to write about theology back in the day. Oh boy, did I live for your reaction to it. That's the whole reason I even wrote a piece on the gender of God because I wanted to say it in a way to get people to react and it did. What about being on the stage with a guitar in my hand and a mic in my face? What about preaching the Thanksgiving sermon and having ...

“Well, it’s all right, every day is Judgment Day. Maybe somewhere down the road always (at the end of the line)” (Traveling Wilburys. “End of the Line”). I was first introduced to this band when I was 18 years old. Playing in a band with three guys my senior that they dubbed, “The Old Farts and the Peep.” However, it was for a different song on this same album. I was introduced to “End of the Line” in the rooms. Today, I’m listening to it as I write this post. Not because I plan to tell you about the rooms (those are intentionally anonymous). Instead, it is because I’m looking at a picture of myself within the first eight days of life. And, the front of the line was pretty fucking close to the end of the line. I’ve been “doing the best I can” ever since. If you recall, I was born two months premature. If everything had aligned perfectly, I would have been born on my mother’s birthday. Instead, being born so early I was just 3 pounds, 11 ounces. Those first eight days were p...

Pumpkin pie is my favorite birthday dessert in August. I literally had an entire workplace debate over this that I was asked to drop because it got that intense. But, I'm sure I'll be eating leftover pumpkin pie today, assuming I didn't eat it all yesterday. We carry everything with us at work and at home but not all of the things are heavy, some of the things are as sweet as pie. Pumpkin pie for me isn't just about the pie itself, it's about the memories. Every time I eat a piece I think of my grandmother who's not here anymore. Nobody's pumpkin pie is as delicious to me as my grandmother's. Not even my own, based off of her recipe, which is really just the Libby's pumpkin recipe with a little extra nutmeg and cinnamon mix.  I think of my sister who had pumpkin pie on her birthday before I did and I flat out stole it. She's not in the picture anymore either. I think of my aunt who boldly made pumpkin cream cheese bars one year at Tha...

Dear Ministry, I was there, 2005-2019. We had a number of ups and downs together and my Church days are behind me, largely due to the downs. Today, I'm writing to thank you for the very real joys of work that started with the question, can I do that? Few people's ministry resumes include the Salvation Army, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, the Presbyterian Church of the USA, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, mine did. It's an odd theological map, but I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here for the people I had the privilege to walk beside in the journey of beliefs. Arguably, my greatest joy in ministry happened the night I journeyed through the Harrowing of Hell with the seventh grade Confirmation class in New York. They brought all the questions and it didn't rattle me, I was there for it, as they say. I've never had more fun in ministry work than being intellectually and theologically challenged by middle schoolers over the ...