Unscripted thoughts that showed up uninvited and refused to leave. No agenda, no destination — just what crossed my mind and whatever it stirs up in yours.
Letters To Nobody
I want to end this series with something that is not a complaint. Everything I have written in this second half has named something wrong. Fear as a control mechanism. Mistranslation as doctrine. The silencing of honest questions. The weaponization of scripture against the people it was supposed to free. Those things are real and...
Letters To Nobody
I want to tell you something that happened in a conversation I had with a minister. I am not going to name him. Not to protect him — to stay focused on the pattern rather than the person, because the pattern is what matters and the pattern is not unique to him. We were discussing...
Letters To Nobody
It does not happen all at once. Nobody announces that questions are no longer welcome. Nobody posts a sign that says — leave your honest doubts at the door. It happens gradually. Through a series of small corrections. A subtle shaming here. A side comment there. An eyebrow from the pulpit when someone pushes back....
Letters To Nobody
The question is the thing they are most afraid of. Not because the question is dangerous. Because the answer might be. If the congregation starts asking real questions the people who depend on the congregation not asking real questions have a problem. So the questions have to be managed. Discouraged. Framed as signs of weak...
Letters To Nobody
Words matter. Especially in translation. When you take a text written in Hebrew or Greek and move it into English something happens in the transition. Sometimes it is clean. The meaning carries across without significant loss. But sometimes — and this is where things get complicated — the translator makes a choice. A theological choice....
Letters To Nobody
I want to be careful here. I want to be precise. I am not talking about the church broadly. I am not making a sweeping indictment of every pastor, every congregation, every tradition. I am talking about something specific that I have seen enough times in enough places that I can no longer call it...
Letters To Nobody
I remember when a disagreement could end with both people still standing. Not because someone won. Because both people had actually said what they meant and heard what the other person meant and arrived somewhere that felt more complete than where they started. Not always agreement. Sometimes just understanding. The recognition that two people could...
Letters To Nobody
I want to talk about the people who can do it. Not the people who say sorry without meaning it. Not the people who offer a qualified admission designed to spread the blame thin enough that they are only technically responsible for a fraction of it. The actual people. The ones who can look at...
Letters To Nobody
Being wrong is not the same as being bad. Most people know this intellectually. Almost nobody behaves like they believe it. Watch what happens when someone is confronted with clear evidence that they were mistaken about something. In the rare person who is genuinely secure the response is simple. Oh. I did not know that....
Letters To Nobody
I spent a long time trying to find the right words. The right tone. The right moment. The right approach that would finally get through to a person who had never been able to hear me no matter how carefully I spoke. I adjusted my delivery. I softened my language. I picked better times. I...