Six Years a Bureaucrat: An Inside Look at the Scandal of Idealism in the U.S. Government

As much bad press as the Department of Veterans Affairs received several months ago for delays in patient care that led to at least 40 deaths, the proposed solution stands to potentially prove even more disastrous. I recently ended a nearly six-year career with a regional section of the VA that handles the referral of […]

The humbling and the emptying

Communication stinks, doesn’t it? How many problems are simply caused by either the inability of one person to accurately explain something to another or the other person’s inability to fully understand what the first person was trying to say? Or both? One of the frustrating things about words is that they are limited. We only […]

How to make sense of God

I have a lot of experience being angry with God. It often feels like He has frustrated me to no end. The relationship I’ve had with Him has left a lot to be desired. Where to begin? Assuming you even buy standard Christian theology, you start from the premise that “I’m not God,” which means much of […]

Lamentations

I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light; indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long… He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship. He has […]

How He loves

Many of us have heard of the Christian obsession with insisting that God loves us. I suspect for many, like me, that’s not an easy idea to buy. Life is full of heartbreak and hurt; disappointment and unfulfilled potential; tragedy and horror. At least that’s how it often feels to those of us who have […]

I need you, dad

What is a man? I have written, edited, and rewritten this post more times than any other, probably representing my confusion on this matter. I hate discussing masculinity because the concept itself is completely polarized in Western society: there seems to be very little honest middle-ground to discuss what it means to be male without […]

When Easter feels joyless

The celebration of Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Sunday is the high point of the year for Christians. It is the single historical event on which the entirety of Christian hope rests – it gives meaning to the crucifixion that would otherwise be simply a tragic martyrdom, and it demonstrates to the Christian that God has […]