So I sat down to try. Immediately, something surfaced: I couldn’t tell the story of my vocation without telling the story of my gratitude.
If there is one metaphor for my life’s calling, it is this: I have lived the life of a salmon — head toward the Headwaters, swimming against the current, nose tuned to the scent of the Source.
Eighty books, thousands of published sermons, hundreds of LenTalks — trace them all upstream and you find one long pilgrimage. And here is the truth I cannot tell without thanksgiving: I never swam alone.
People often assume that upstream swimmers are solitary, self-willed, stubborn. But the only reason I could swim against the cultural and ecclesial current is that others stood on the banks and cheered me on. Some even waded into the river to clear debris, pull away nets, defend the spawning grounds where dangerous ideas could breathe.
For that, I give thanks.
My Work in One Litany
If I have done anything, it has been this: I have tried to help the church trade the safety of the familiar for the adventure of the Spirit.
It sounds like this:
While others talked numbers, he talked narratives.
While others counted statistics, he collected stories.
While others organized retreats, he hosted advances.
While others touted apologetics, he talked aesthetics.
While others preached carpe diem, he sang carpe mañana — the grace of God’s tomorrow tugging us forward.
When others talked leadership, he talked followership. Jesus never said, “Be a leader.” He said, “Follow me.”
When others talked justice, he talked Jubilee — where mercy outdances measure and forgiveness resets the score.
When others joined the Order of St. Roberts — patron saint of metrics and managerialism — he pledged allegiance to St. Paul’s Rules of the Spirit: faith, hope, love. Those were the only KPIs that mattered.
When others talked propositions, he talked relationships. Truth is not a statement. Truth is a Savior.
When others claimed information, he claimed imagination.
When others built systems, he cultivated symbols.
When others trusted techne, he trusted tekton — the Artisan still crafting new worlds.
When others chased vision and the next big thing, he listened for the next small sign.
When others colonized the mind with certainty, he invited the whole person into mystery.
When others turned the Bible into a library of chapters and verses, he returned it to a garden — alive, wild, blooming with metaphor.
When others declared the death of metanarratives, he celebrated the One Grand Story that runs from Genesis to the maps.
When others turned faith into argument, he lived it as adventure.
When churches were busy writing mission statements, he urged them to craft mission stories and tell them on video — where today’s world actually listens.
When others defended doctrine, he discerned semiotics — the dance of signs by which the Spirit still whispers.
When others bowed to an imperial imagination, he stood in an incarnational imagination — God with us, in us, among us, for us.
When others separated sacred from secular, he insisted on whole-earth holiness.
When others glorified the literal, he tended the littoral — where heaven kisses earth and parable becomes portal.
When others talked youth ministry, he talked future ministry.
When others talked generations, he talked cultures.
When others feared cultural change, he welcomed it as gospel compost — rich soil for new shoots of grace.
When others defined church as institution, he described it as Jesus’ Studio — a place where disciples apprentice themselves to divine imagination.
When others preached “work harder,” he preached “play better” — worship as the Spirit’s playground.
When others tried to “save souls,” he tried to sozo humans — mind, body, spirit, community, creation made whole.
When others imagined eschatology as ending, he imagined telos — a beginning in disguise.
When some complained, “Your sermons are pointless,” he smiled. Because making points was never the point. The Point is a Person — Jesus Christ the Lord. The gospel is a pointing, not a point.
When others talked power, he talked presence.
When others obsessed over the politics of party, he obsessed over the politics of Jesus.
When others clamored for position, he claimed posture: the Orant stance — standing, eyes open, arms raised, palms outward, face lifted toward the future.
While others hugged the middle lane, he waved a sign that read: “The Bell Curve is dead — long live the Well Curve!” In a polarizing world where opposites happen at the same time, the way forward is not compromise. It is construction.
And while others stayed in the mainstream, he kept swimming upstream —
where the water runs clear and cold,
where the spawning ground of ideas is sacred,
where the currents of culture cannot drown the currents of the Spirit.
A Small Story of Upstream Faithfulness
Once, when I was still in my thirties, the church tried to give me her highest honor. I interrupted the voting, asked for a moment of personal privilege, walked to the microphone, and took a swan dive in the form of a belly-flop: “If you want to ruin me — and ruin my ministry — elect me bishop. God has not called me to the episcopacy.” Then I sat down.
And I swam on — upstream again. Homeward, toward the Headwaters. Calling is a direction, not a destination.
A Stone Beside the River
This is not a eulogy. I pray I’m not finished.
It is an Ebenezer — a stone of remembrance beside the river. A marker where grace found me, strengthened me, sent me swimming again.
I have written not to build a brand but to scatter seeds;
not to carve monuments but to kindle fires;
not to win arguments but to open imaginations.
If I have done anything, it is this: I have stood in the river of the Spirit, swimming toward the Source, inviting others to hear the music in the current . . .
and follow it home.
And for every person who cheered me upstream, cleared the path, took a risk on a salmon who kept veering from the mainstream — thank you.
Gratitude is the river that carries me.
