You would have been sixteen today. Miss you everyday, Rosco. ❤️‍🩹🐾

Shout-out to every person still creating and writing and drawing and singing and choreographing and building and sculpting and imagining in this anxious and overwhelming time.

I wonder how the good folks at The Onion are doing after they saw the Pantone color of the year, but seriously on top of everything else I’m praying for them right now.

Does anyone else avoid AI videos and click right out of them? I try to avoid AI videos as much as I avoid scrolling any type of reels feeds because, well I don’t know how to put this exactly, but it just feels wrong for my brain.

My book on grief is on sale today for only 1.99 in ebook. This is the lowest it’s ever been. 🫶❤️‍🩹 www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0CD...

“There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless.’ There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” — Arundhati Roy

“People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.” — James Baldwin, No Name in the Street (1972)

I’ll never forget reading this the other day: “Faith without works is dead children.” 😮‍💨😮‍💨😮‍💨💔

“I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence.” — Toni Morrison, The Nation, Mar. 23, 2015

“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” — Toni Morrison, The Nation, Mar. 23, 2015

I don’t think we need conspiracy theories anymore. It’s just all out in the open for everyone to see. We’ve been had, run, and fleeced at every turn.

I’m not a conspiracy theorist but here is my conspiracy theory: I’m not sure Kimmel was meant to be canceled. It seems like an intentional false flag to “reverse course” and give us enough yield to relax. They know boycotts can be fickle.

“People are afraid to be pried loose from their ignorance.” — Maya Angelou, “One on One,” interview with Greg Jackson (1983)

I hate that one day I’ll have to explain to my children this entire era of American Christianity and its absolute absurdity and hypocrisy. I hope I’ll get to explain it in past tense.

I saw this comment recently and it still rings true: “First they came for the journalists and I did not speak out because no one knew what happened.”

I have been at hundreds of deathbeds and I have never once expected anyone to mourn their abuser. There may be rage, or relief, or a long exhale. But there is zero obligated sorrow for someone who embodied tyranny and suffocation over a family for years, for a lifetime.

After you have wounded me, I make a choice to keep my humanity by seeing yours. I will not allow your desecration of me to desecrate how I see me or you.

Five years ago I almost started a podcast. I went to therapy instead. I still don’t have a podcast. I made two good decisions. ❤️‍🩹

Idiocracy is when those in charge perfectly overlap between incompetence and malice. Recklessly ignorant and indulgently destructive. Too stupid to know they’re stupid and too malicious to care.

A little off topic but does everyone have a texting friend? For memes and talking wild and being completely unhinged and yourself? I have a few and it’s seriously therapeutic. Hard to imagine going through a day without them, especially now.

My book on grief is 16 months old and it’s only $1.99 right now in ebook. ❤️‍🩹 www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0CD...

I saw this in a newspaper comic strip once: If you don’t learn ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶t̶o̶r̶y̶ you’re doomed ̶t̶o̶ ̶r̶e̶p̶e̶a̶t̶ ̶i̶t̶

This is one of my favorite poems, by the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, called “Think of Others.”

“I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.” — Clarence Darrow, attorney who defended Tennessee teacher in 1925 for teaching on evolution #JamesDobson

Please take this from me, a hospital chaplain who has sat with hundreds of deathbeds in the last ten years: In the end, we really only have each other. And we really only have a breath and then we’re gone. Life is as fast as a spoken word, so be gentle.

This is (not) a hot take: In any situation where children are harmed, I will always be on the side of the children.

I was interviewed by the inimitable Lisa Ling for a feature on my hospital chaplaincy work and on grief, faith, and hope. Thank you Lisa and for all who have kindly been alongside, most especially my amazing coworkers. ♥️🙏 youtu.be/RUVheWGBFd0?...

I was interviewed by the inimitable Lisa Ling for a feature on my hospital chaplaincy work and on grief, faith, and hope. Thank you Lisa and for all who have kindly been alongside, most especially my amazing coworkers. ♥️🙏 youtu.be/RUVheWGBFd0?...

We cannot say we didn’t know. 🍉🗣️ Reposting: Eight initiatives to feed, clothe, and shelter Palestinians under siege. www.instagram.com/p/DMVpejexbin/

“How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been; how gloriously different are the saints.” — C.S. Lewis

Need to say this over and over: I’m only really free when you are too.

Need to say this over and over: I’m only really free when you are too.

My book on grief is almost 50% off in paperback today. ❤️‍🩹 Also available in ebook and audiobook. 🙌 On sale here: www.amazon.com/dp/1400336848

Not to overstate it, but there was another 33 year old immigrant who was persecuted for welcoming children, providing food & healthcare, advocating for marginalized people, & speaking against the inordinately wealthy and religious far-right. This time the people got it right and picked him. #Zohran

My dad-in-law asks my almost five year old daughter what family means to her. She says, “Family means love. Family is when we eat together, we laugh together, we play together, we go to sleep at the same time together.” That’s my new definition of family. 🫶

흑인의 생명은 소중하다. In Korean, the phrase Black Lives Matter translates to Black Lives Are Precious. You more than matter. You are more than worthy of protection. Black lives are beloved, cherished, dignified, and made in the Image Divine. #BlackLivesArePrecious #Juneteenth #FreedomDay

Somebody tried to tell a joke while laughing a lot to my almost five year old daughter, and when it’s done my daughter tells them, “Why are you laughing at yourself over nothing?” I went asystolic. Brutal. 😭😭💀💀😭😭

Jesus telling the church. I almost want to get this shirt. 🙃

I was terrified of having children because of the trauma & heartache that I thought I’d pass down. But years of help, therapy, safe people, & my awesome wife, & here I am. I can’t imagine life without them. Breaking cycles, building better, for their future & for all our children. ❤️‍🩹🫶🙏#FathersDay

A reminder: Politeness does not equal rightness.

Religious leaders are bravely showing up for their immigrant neighbors and standing up for the kind of sanctuary that our faiths call for! 👊 #LosAngeles

“And so you can try to stretch, stretch, stretch yourself so you can internalize, ‘Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto: I am a human being, nothing human can be alien to me.’” — Maya Angelou, What She Said Life Taught Her

So many mock those who protest, but every single one of us has always benefited from the very road paved by those before us, those who are fighting hard for humanity. Fighting for our rights will always benefit everyone. None of us got here by settling for less. #LosAngeles

I am reminded again: When you see those moved in collective grief, permeated by anger, shouting, marching, singing, and shaking, this is our necessary & ancient response when we know change must happen. Listen to this grief. It has been silenced but can never be silenced for long. ❤️‍🩹 #LosAngeles

Asking parents: Is there a word for this feeling when you look at your child and can’t help but internally ask “Did I do enough for them today? Are they really okay right now? Am I doing okay? Will they be okay out there? Am I badly missing something?” #parenting

My continued hope is to raise daughter and son into the world we are fighting for, for the liberation and humanity of all oppressed people; to speak clearly against bigotry and genocide; to know our dreams and wounds are connected at hip and heart;

One of the most important things l've learned in the hospital: If your theology doesn't work for the suffering, it doesn't work at all. If it doesn't matter at the end, it doesn't matter now. The posturing, hatred, exclusion, semantics, debating, hierarchy: none of that was it.

I got some giant pizzas for the trauma bay in the emergency department. I love our nurses, physicians, social workers, the HCW crew. Love and peace and pizza to each of you. 🙏🍕♥️ #healthcareworkers

Your pain needs no qualification to be heard— pain qualifies itself. Your anger must be given room— it is a wound to be tended to.

Your pain needs no qualification to be heard— pain qualifies itself. Your anger must be given room— it is a wound to be tended to.