Foolish Games

My son has had a very hard few months recently from the perspective of his mental health. He has recently graduated from high school, and though that is not solely the cause it is certainly a contributor. It is so painful as parent to watch your child hurt. It is so painful to watch as your own mistakes and failings are a piece of the trauma that child is experiencing.

When my kiddos were growing up I would joke to them, "I may not be perfect but I'll pay for your therapy." As they got older I changed that to "I may not be perfect, but at least yo have something to talk about in therapy." Because the original statement might have gotten expensive, there was a lot of imperfection to be wrestled with.

As a single dad for a significant portion of their childhood, I had people regularly praise me for what an awesome dad I was. I had the humility to reply, "You see the outside, but they know the reality." The reality is I did do some things really well; but I also did other things very poorly. I gave them independence and autonomy; but the two older ones have both shared how too much of those things left them feeling unanchored and unprotected. For most of the time they were growing up I attempted to balance my day job which put a roof over our heads, and food on the table with my other job in making theater which fed my soul and provided a good portion of our disposable income. I felt they understood, we got to live in a home that always had food on the table and had the resources to do fun things together, and the trade off was most of my time was split between these two worlds. I have come to understand on at least some level they did not understand that, or if they understood they did not feel they had any consent in the arrangement.

I am not saying these shortcomings are the reasons my son is struggling with his mental health; but I am saying these scary days get me thinking about what I have done right and wrong in my role as a father. It has me thinking about an event from my college years. 

It was just after break my junior year I believe. That summer I heard Jewel play Point Fest in St Louis, which was before she had hit it big. I loved her music and bought an EP. As we were cleaning and unpacking the apartment I played a song from that EP for my room mate's girlfriend. It was "Foolish Games." She not understanding I was just playing an artist I had seen that summer asked if the song was about me. I was shocked and asked why, she repeated back the lyrics “Always felt I was outside looking in on you. You're always the mysterious one with Dark eyes and careless hair. You were fashionably sensitive but too cool to care.” I asked her if that meant she thought I was arrogant, to which she assured me as kindly as one can assure of you of something like that, she definitely did. 

WOW! The truth is I am NEVER “too cool to care” instead I HIDE my anxiety and fear of rejection in seeming arrogant. I was doing that in my high school and college years, and I see now that remained unchanged in my role as a parent. When my marriage fell apart, and my life unraveled my depression and anxiety spiked to levels I had never experienced. I have spent my whole life proud of my ability to detach and problem solve internally. This skill is fabulous when working a dilemma in a work and theater setting, but toxic in a relationship and in parenting. 

The toxicity is first to myself because all that emotional pain gets internalized and reeks physical havoc on my body. In the months before the marriage ended my whole body was covered in psoriasis and I was barely eating because I was detached and internalizing so much. After we split, I continued this pattern showing no outward expression of how much I was hurting. I gave no acknowledgement of my depression. My children however, they knew it. They felt it. They experienced it. They were strong and silent about it, because I was strong and silent about it. 

Now, eight years later, I am able to understand that not just my wife had left, she was their mom too. They needed support not independence. They needed safety not autonomy, but me, I was fashionably sensitive but to cool to care... It is so much easier to see how we are causing harm when we're looking in the rearview mirror. 

My role as a parent has been filled with a lot of foolish games and it is my children who bear that load. It is me, who has the remainder of a life to build back something stronger, better, and safer than what they experienced at their first "worst moment." It is me who will have to be here differently when hard roads and deep pain surface again. This time, I am working on being present, available, and mature enough to not play foolish games with these kiddos I love so much.

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Lastly, maybe related and maybe unrelated I wanted to include 2 poems I have written for my son as he is going through these struggles. He gave his permission for me to post them publicly.
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One Day

One day you may come to me
To let me know the ways
I failed to parent you
In all the ways you needed parenting.

You may tell me how
My workaholic nature left you
Feeling Neglected.

You may tell me how
My extensive travel left you
Feeling Ignored

You may me remind me how
Our new home left you
Isolated and Disconnected from Community.

You may emphasize to me how
A new partner and a new baby
Led to feeling sidelined.

You may tell me a hundred
Other ways I was not
what and who you needed.

Or maybe that one day will never come
Maybe all those words
You need to say will stay
Nestled inside your emotional vault.

If you never say
I left you feeling neglected
I know, and I am sorry.

If you never say
I left you feeling ignored
I know, and I am sorry.

If you never say
My decisions led to your isolation
I know, and I am sorry.

If you never say
You felt I sidelined you
I know, and I am sorry.

If you never say
All those other things you needed
Please know, I am still sorry.

Neglected, Ignored, Isolated, Sidelined
And in so many other ways
We were walking the same path in those days.
I did not reach past my own pain into yours.

One day I might be able
To let you know I know
I let my own struggles fail
To translate my love for you
Into all the ways you needed parenting.

One day my own vault
May open wide enough
To love you in all the ways you needed
Till then, I am still loving you
Just the best I can.

Father's Day

I want you for Father’s Day
I want you for another day.
I want you for ten thousand tomorrows.
I want you as you step bravely into each of those days.

I want to see where your darkness lies
I want to sit in that blackout with you
I want to be there when the first rays of light crack back in.
I want to watch your opaque walls become illuminated windows.

I want you to heal
I want you to journey deep inside yourself
I want you to find your most wounded spaces
I want you to let us guide you as you mend what festers there.


I want to see you take on the world
I want to see you take discomfort and grow from it
I want to see your dreams as a loom
I want to see your vision woven into material that changes the world.

I want stories of moments that have wowed you, stole your breath, and stilled your spirit.
I want stories of heartaches, micro achievements, and great triumphs.
I want stories of journeys that inspired, exhausted, and transformed you.
I want stories of a life filled with adventure, community, and wonder.

I want to be here when you become the man that is already budding.
I want to be here when you become the healer rather than the hurting
I want to be here to see the love you sow back into the world.
I want to be here when you are your own greatest dream.

I want to tell you that forest fires clear space for new life's emergence.
I want to tell you that you are loved as fiercely as that flame.
I want to tell you that you are a piece of my heart and soul, wrapped in skin.
I want to tell you that you are my gift for Father’s Day.

HOW I GOT A FREE PORTILLO’S TEE SHIRT BY UNWITTINGLY COMMITTING FRAUD

When I woke up at 7 o’clock this morning, I had no plans to be in Springfield by noon. Yet, that is how my day went.

Yesterday, in my mailbox, I found a letter from the IL Secretary of State’s office informing me that my license was being suspended for a minimum of one year because I had obtained my license fraudulently. 

When the Secretary of State’s office starts throwing around words like “FRAUD” that gets your attention. I immediately drove to the local DMV to speak to a hearing officer.  The hearing officer pulled my record, then pulled the record of my fraudulent alias, Kevin Bolian. Looking at Mr. Bolian’s record the hearing officer asked me if I had gotten a ticket in Colorado in 2018. I replied that I had. She then asked if I had paid the 2018 ticket which I also answered I had. Well, as it turns out the state of Colorado had reported the ticket being issued to Mr Bolian, but had either never reported it being paid, or more likely reported it paid using my real name and driver’s license number; which meant Mr Bolian’s record never got cleared. In contrast, my mind had been completely cleared of any thought about that ticket.

Fast forward to 2022 and I was due for a license renewal. I renewed my license answering, “No,” to the question, “has your license been suspended in another state or jurisdiction?”Although this was a true statement for Kevin Bowman, it was not true for Kevin Bolian, an alias I neither knew had never been properly cleared by Colorado or even knew existed. As of late last week the Secretary of State office decided (correctly) that Kevin Bowman and Kevin Bolian was the same person and therefore I had lied during the renewal process triggering the suspension for fraud.

The local hearing officer told me to reach out to Summit County Courts in Colorado and come back to the licensing desk with the proof of clearance. She told me this would not prevent my suspension; but would at least set me up to win my appeal in court. I would still have $370 in total fines, but would at least have my license restored by January or February.

I drove home and called Summit County Courts over in Colorado and got to speak with the lovely Miss Elaine. As a side note Miss Elaine told me she lived in Belleville, IL for two years during her first marriage and thought the town was lovely but the husband was not, so she gave up on him and Belleville both and moved to Colorado. Miss Elaine was also able to find the scan of the original ticket and was able to see where the confusion in spelling was from the officer’s penmanship on the original citation. She assured me she would CC me on the email the Colorado Secretary of State office with both my actual last name and the alternate last name asking them to forward the clearance document to the Illinois Secretary of State. True to her word I had the PDF in my inbox which cleared the ticket under both names.

This morning I printed the document and headed back to the DMV to submit the paperwork and start the appeal process. I arrived paper in hand and was promptly turned away for not having an appointment, a detail which had never been mentioned as being needed in the conversation with the hearing officer the evening before. I made an appointment and returned an hour later. As expected the front desk in the Belleville DMV had no ability to do anything and officially sent me away again with just an address in Springfield to mail a print out of the PDF too. Unofficially she suggested I drive the print out up to Springfield and gave me a number at that to call myself to check whether they would accept the document in person.

That number was a lifesaver. Ellen called the number while I was on a work call and the gentleman she talked to told her it would DEFINITELY be worth while to bring the document in person IF we could do that before October 2nd; because as of October 2nd the suspension proceedings would activate and once that started there was no way around the fines and formal court appeals.

When I hung up the phone from the work call Ellen rustled us both into the car and we began the Hail Mary drive to the Illinois Motor Vehicle headquarters in Springfield. 

At noon, an hour and a half later we arrived and headed inside in hopes of “all green lights.”  All green lights was exactly what awaited us inside. I submitted the paperwork from Colorado to clear Mr Bolian’s record, and the woman from traffic division called her coworker in Fraud who came down and after looking over everything and a short conversation returned to her office.  

A few minutes later I was walking out of the Motor Vehicles Division and headed to Portillo’s to celebrate. The suspension was rescinded and all fraud charges were dropped, with no filing fees or fines. 

As much of a headache as the entire process of being caught in a interstate clerical debacle was I was so thankful for every DMV and Court employee who worked together to walk me through to getting the order of suspension dropped. 

Oh, and about that t-shirt. It was the cherry on top of how magically everything went once in Springfield. Apparently the Universe wanted to gift me a free Portillo’s T-shirt , and all I needed to do was complete a simple 3 minute survey about my dining experience… which never would have happened if I wasn’t Springfield on a random Thursday. That tee shirt, we’ll it almost made the entire fiasco a wash 😉. 

I Believe In Love

I wrote this as part of my and my partner's wedding this past weekend.  It briefly tells the story of my deconstruction and finding a new creed that I still hold as the foundation of my spirituality.

I was born to be a preacher. At least, there was a long period of my life where I thought I was. My grandfather had been one, and I would follow in his footsteps. I studied to become one. I started the career path by working for four years as a youth and children’s minister. I was good at it, and I got to fly around the country preaching at youth events and performing as a mad scientist who used crazy antics to teach in Children’s church. I was on the path heading toward my destiny.

I grew up to be a preacher. But I could not remain one. I was not made to fit the box that heritage asked me to contort myself into. More importantly, I could not fit the vastness of my understanding of God into such a diminutive box. So as one chasing God, I followed where that journey led, and one day realized I was dispossessed no longer having a homeland in the faith of my youth.

I was once a preacher. Christianity, its scriptures, strictures, and creeds were the mother tongue of my relationship with God, but in the new wilderness my journey had led me to, I needed a new language. I needed a new creed. I no longer fit inside their story; so I needed words that would start to speak of the vastness of the God I had found in this vast spiritual wilderness I was a refugee in.

I deconstructed everything I had preached. I started with the most basic truth of Christianity, the piece of their canon that shined so true in the radiance of its truth. I started with the words, “God is love.” That was the entirety of the New Testament story distilled. I knew despite not being able to state anything else with surety I could say, "I believe in Love."

Over more wandering, and more wondering I added two more lines to this small creed that was at the same time the tiniest spark of spiritual light I could kindle, and also encapsulated the vastness of the God I was seeing in the universe. My creed became, "I believe in Love; Told in Story; Lived in Community."

The plaque with the creed was a wedding gift commissioned by our sister-in-law Ashley Baugh Tanner and made by my partner's amazing artistic friend Brittany Demetrulas.

Xero: Thoughts on a new pair of shoes

As I was growing up, when I was nine years old, my family got relocated to Germany. We lived in Germany for three years. During those three years on Saturday, my father and I would get up early before the rest of the family and head off to a Volksmarch. For those of you who are not familiar with the German volksmarch, it is a 10 or 20 kilometer hike Sponsored by a local town in which you would receive a medal and brat upon your completion. I absolutely loved these Saturday mornings. Looking back now they are among my most treasured childhood memories. I am able to look back now and I understand that my father was building between us way more than a love of hiking, way more than a love of nature, way more than a love of that brat at the end of the hike. He was building the love of love. A love that has matured into him as my best friend. Because of this, it is nearly impossible for me to separate love and hiking from each other.

I have spent the past two weekends in Denver Colorado. At work, we are moving one of our offices to a new larger location. Last weekend I was here so that on Monday and Friday I could prepare the new location for the big move this past Friday. This weekend, I was here once again to complete that move. Last weekend, since I would not have work on Saturday and Sunday my girlfriend Ellen came out with me so that we could spend time with her brother and his wife. On Sunday while her daughter was napping with her sister-in-law, we snuck out for a few hours together. Our choice for spending that time included a walk in confluence park along the riverfront trail and a visit to an REI that was so large our St Louis REI could fit inside one of their departments. Ellen needed a new pair of her minimalist hiking shoes, and I just wanted to see all the cool camping stuff.

Anyone who knows me knows I am super obstinate when it comes to my feet. In my ideal world, I would never cover my feet at all, it would be all barefoot all the time. Since I do not live in that ideal world I settle for sandals as my usual compromise with the world. So as we perused for her new shoes this woman I have recently fallen in love with suggested that with my love of hiking and hatred of shoes I should try on a pair of minimalist hiking shoes myself. At first, I planted my minimally clad feet in the ground and refused to even give the shoes a try. After some persuasion and her reminder that being REI I could easily return the shoes if I went hiking in them and totally hated them I reluctantly tried on the Xero minimalist hiking shoes and had to agree they really did feel like almost no shoe at all. I purchased a pair in anticipation of trying them out this weekend if everything went well on the move and the time for a hike presented itself.

The office move went amazing and between working late Friday and all day Saturday everything was completed and ready for employees to return to work Monday morning. This left today as an open hiking day. I intended to fully maximize my day. Ten Kilometers in nature, turning today into my own personal volksmarch.

I started my day with a big breakfast while I searched All Trails looking for the perfect hike. I needed a hike that would challenge me, but also not completely overwhelm my mid-western lung capacity. I need a hike that would stimulate my mind with learning and my eyes with the grandeur only Colorado can offer. I found it in two trails about a half-mile apart from each other. First would be Morrison Slide / Red Rocks Trail, a 3.1-mile moderate hike in Red Rocks park with a 600ft elevation range. The second would be Dinosaur Ridge a 1.7-mile out and back walk in the Morrison Fossil Area, a National Natural Landmark filled with fossils and traces. This would be right around 10K and would meet both my desires perfectly.

Now it is evening. The hiking is completed. I am back in my hotel room feeling renewed after a shower and dinner. I am left thinking about the day. I am thinking about the shoes, which proved themself as definite keepers, they provided the freedom of almost feeling like I was wearing no shoes at all while also supporting and protecting my feet. I am thinking about the first trail with its intense first-mile climb which took me to the brink of giving up only a half-mile into those initial stairs. I am thinking about the glory of the second and third mile as I took in the vistas from the mountain tops and meandered back down the winding path's return. I am thinking about Dinosaur ridge where I touched footprints that were over 70 million years old. I am thinking about how my personal volksmarch embodied that ongoing climb toward a most beautiful future and also the vastness of our greater history. I am thinking about how hiking and love are nearly impossible to separate from each other. I am thinking about those Saturday morning hikes in the German hills with my dad. I am thinking about the challenges and rewards of building a new love and family with Ellen. I am thinking about hiking. I am thinking about the fossils of my own history. I am thinking about the climb to a beautiful new future. I am thinking about love. I am thinking about God, the universe, or whatever you call that reality which is greater than our understanding. I am thinking about how all of us always need exactly what these new shoes provide, the feeling of being almost free while also knowing we are completely protected. Maybe that is the best definition of history, love, and God I've got.

Juniper & Cleansing Bowl

My middle daughter made this beautiful bowl in ceramics and I thought it looked like it needed to be a cleansing bowl. Our home has recently been a place of some sickness, myself having just recovered from Covid-19 and my oldest currently fighting it. Personally, I have experienced some minor trauma in my frightening car accident this past weekend. So this afternoon it seemed like the new bowl and situation called for a cleansing ritual.

I choose Juniper because of its history. It has been used as an incense in religious ceremonies going all the way back to Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek, and Druidic practices.

I choose Juniper because in the era of the black death my Germanic ancestors would have hung juniper in the homes, burning it to ward off rats from entering their homes protecting their families from the plague.

I choose Juniper because of its agricultural usage to my anglo-Saxon ancestors. Historically, juniper would be allowed to overtake fields that have been farmed fallow. Unlike here in the Americas where juniper is often viewed as a noxious plant, to this ancestral culture it was known for its ability to heal, renew, and revitalize the land so it could again be used for producing the food and resources farming allows.

I choose Juniper because of its connection to one of my favorite stories from the Christian canon. In 1 Kings 19, the queen has ordered the assassination of the prophet Elijah. So Elijah finds himself wanted by the oppressive power of the state is on the run. Alone, hunted, and exhausted Elijah collapses under a Juniper tree and begs his God to let him die peacefully. To use Campbell's language in the hero's journey, this is Elijah's abyss. Rather than permitting Elijah to die physically, he is instead met with hospitality, rest, and an invitation for an audience with the Lord himself. In meeting with his God Elijah experiences his rebirth and the apotheosis in his God's command to, "Go back the way you came." The lesson of the story is that our healing work will always return us to be agents of healing in the very places of our past fear and pain.

I choose Juniper for this cleansing ritual because it reminds me that I am a protector, a healer, and an agent of the work of love in the universe.

White Fragility and Facebook

 Two posts in one week. I don't think my blog has seen this much writing since like 2016.  I responded to a person's I did not know comment on a friend's Facebook post this morning. Then I followed up this evening with a second response to their reply to my initial comment. I am including redacted screen shots of both of the other individuals comments and the full text of mine.

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If by chance the Electoral college worked as designed in constitution where each state had one representative per 30,000 people then it would be more reasonable to argue both its value and our need for it. However once the unconstitutional permanent apportionment act of 1929 unfairly separated aportionment from a consistent population ratio it has completely become a way for rural mostly white states to assert their percieved supremacy over more urban racially diverse states. As with most everything in the United States, it was white supremacy all along. 

But white intellectuals defending white supremacy while denying it is white supremacy and pretending it is just rational logic rather than personal bias and bigotry is as American as apple pie too.

So it is no surprise the "We NEED the electoral college" argument is going nowhere.

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I wonder if you are aware of the term White Fragility? It is a term that has been around for while now within the communities focused on thinking critically and intersectionally about race and its role in our society. Robin DiAngelo is credited with inventing the term. Her NY Times Best Seller on race is titled using the term. DiAngelo attempting to define White Supremacy writes, "In a nutshell, it’s the defensive reactions so many white people have when our racial worldviews, positions, or advantages are questioned or challenged... And that defensiveness serves to maintain both our comfort and our positions in a racially inequitable society from which we benefit."

I bring the term up because your response to my earlier comment was not to consider the position I offered and respond with a rational rebuttal, but instead to insist you were proven right because I called you a white supremacist. Rather than be willing to consider how the Electoral College operates as cog in the systemic problem of white supremacy, you instead chose to become defensive in order to distract from the very real and very intentional system which protects the, "inequitable society from which we benefit." 

In her book, "White Fragility" DiAngelo writes, "The most effective adaptation of racism over time is the idea that racism is conscious bias held by mean people.” This adaptation allows white people the luxury to find it more offensive that they were implicated as benefiting from a racist system than the offensiveness of the racism itself. 

Racism and White Supremacy is not about you as an individual. Racism and White Supremacy is a systemic problem. It is singularly the greatest existential paradox of the American experiment. Our founding principle that, "all men are created equal," was written by a man that enslaved over 200 people on his estate. The absurdity is that "All men" has never meant ALL in the construction of our government and economic systems. For many people who have been privileged, by circumstances of their own whiteness, to not experience disenfranchisement and oppression the incongruity seems trivial. So they can comfortably assure themselves that they are not one of those evil racists; this is white fragility. 

The electoral college was designed to privilege slave states. James Madison admits this in his own justification for the substitution of electors over the direct vote. The 3/5 compromise enshrined this privilege by granting an over 40% boost in electoral power to just five slave states. Over time other strategic manuevers, like the addition of block voting by the states, would be made to protect the institution of slavery. As times changed and cotton replaced tobacco as the country's top export, even nothern economist were able to recognize the need for a disenfranchised labor force to pick, process, and ship this commodity which was the most important piece of the nation's economic engine. With that power threatened in a post reconstruction south further manuvering setup the stage for unequal apportionment.  At every stage the EC's purpose has been a White Supremacist purpose.

Oxford philosopher Terry Eaglton wrote a textbook in 1991 titled "Ideology." In it Eaglton writes, "[It] is not just a matter of what I think about a situation; it is somehow inscribed in that situation itself. It is no good my reminding myself that I am opposed to racism as I sit down on a park bench marked “Whites Only”; by the act of sitting on it, I have supported and perpetuated racist ideology. The ideology, so to speak, is in the bench; not in my head." 

Your reply subverts any discussion of the ideology of the electoral college by refocusing the discussion as a personal slight. I don't know you and have no personal slight against you. I have no intention of labeling you as a racist. You have been the beneficiary of systemic white supremacy; [Shared Friend] too, myself as well, and all our white peers. So in no way is my earlier comment intended to accuse you of that "conscious bias held by mean people." Instead, I am merely attempting to show how defending the Electoral College perpetuates racist ideology because, the ideology "is in the bench."

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Stardust and Stories

This morning as I was doing laundry I decided it was time to move the Biden / Harris face mask from usage to my memory shelf in my bedroom. I walk past the shelf all the time, but as I added the mask today the memories and stories these objects represent to me just filled me with love and nostalgia. There are good memories and painful memories both, but that is the tapestry of life. 

The shelf holds pieces of old costumes, thank you cards from friends, small gifts I have been given, stolen props from old shows, inside jokes, mementos of failed romances, important moments with my kiddos, possesions of loved ones no longer with us, and a bevy of other trinkets and echoes. 

Erin Morgenstern in her newest book "The Starless Sea" has a line I really want to get as a tattoo, "We are all stardust and stories." This shelf holds the portals to so many of those stories for me. Some pieces I could explain with a short recital of a single moment. Others are entire tales with all the backstory and nuance of fiction. Still, others would be told with such a yarn that they have crossed the memoir line and actually become complete fiction. Collectively and individually they each remain stories.

Looking at this shelf you may see something I held onto from an event we did together. There are pieces far too small to make out in a photo from this distance that might just contain a fragment of our relationship too. Some people are in one item and others are in many, as the fingerprints people leave in my life are as varied as the people I love and call friends.

In some ways, this newest addition of the Biden/Harris mask may seem an anomaly. The shelf already has the first mask my daughter sewed when the pandemic started, so it was not that the shelf needed a mask to represent 2020. I added the Biden/Harris mask as a chronicle of when the metaphor for the shared community we are in as humans became a piece of fabric. I do not like masks, they fog up my glasses and disturb my sensory issues. I did not like voting for Biden/Harris, I wanted actual progressives. So like wearing my mask, voting for the Democrats was active participation in protecting the most vulnerable members of our community the best I can. The Biden/Harris mask like all these other tokens is a story, a history of how I and so many others chose the community's collective needs while another segment of our society chose their individual selfishness. 

With time my shelf will acquire new relics because my life will acquire new stories that need to be remembered. There will be new testimonials to the love of my friends, new remembrances to loss, new trophies of shows completed, and more keepsakes that I do not know yet why I will find them worth keeping.  All the pieces there now, and all the pieces still to come, and all the people in all the stories past and future will share one thing, we are all stories of the universe made from the same stardust. 

History: Free of Charge (Copied from a Facebook Post)

Last night an evangelical Christian friend whose spirit for loving people I adore vented about her inability to understand the complicity of the white evangelical American church with the open support of white supremacy in their support of Trump. 

I found her statement most interesting because white supremacy is the historical catalyst for the formation of nonsectarian evangelicalism in the United States. One needs to know and understand history to know and understand the present. So I present to you the shortest history possible of nonsectarian evangelicalism in the United States and its complicity with white supremacy.
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In the years leading up to the civil war many of the country's denominations split between Northern and Southern councils over the issue of slavery. Most importantly noted is the Southern Baptist, which today is the largest segment of nonsectarian evangelicalism in the United States. The largest portion of this movement had the protection of the institution of human slavery as its conception point.
After the war however one needs to look at the man most associated with the Evangelical origins today, DL Moody. DL Moody's complicity with white supremacy in order to unify Christians under a single banner of revivalism is well documented. Racial Segregation for the sake of interdenominational unity is the womb for the movements gestation.
While studying the history one needs to look up names like Jerry Falwell Sr, Francis Schafer, and Bob Jones and the role White Supremacy plays in the formation in the late 1970s of the Religious Right. The catalyst for this final unification of nonsectarian evangelicalism in the United States is to protect the ability of Christian colleges to keep their tax-exempt status while still upholding their teaching on segregation and Miscegenation.
Religious freedom as defined by evangelicalism in the United States has been about the freedom to uphold white supremacy since its official birth in the late 1970s.
From conception, through gestation, and into its modern birthing Evangelicalism has always been intertwined with this "first sin" of American nationalism which is white supremacy. The racism changes its face, but never its history and intent.
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That history is lesson is provided free of charge and effort, but if you are willing to put in the academic work of understanding the larger movement of all these pieces there are many wonderful scholarly works I would commend to you.

Lastly to my beloved friends and family who remain a part of that movement, and yet understand that the love of God and white supremacy can not coexist, I want to say, the future is yet to be written.

Holy Ground

I wrote this a couple years ago and submitted it to be part of the official St Lou Fringe blog.  The editor was not a fan and so it was never published.  Being that we are all trapped inside and can't go to the theater I thought I would publish it myself in honor of our 2020 Virtual Fringe Festival.

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The Hebrew and Christian holy scriptures share a story of a man who after living as a refugee in the wilderness for forty years encounters a bush that while actively burning is not consumed. The miracle becomes even more fantastical when a voice speaks from this brush fire, "put off your shoes from off your feet, for the place where on you stand is holy ground." I have been fascinated by Holy Ground since I was a child in Sunday school. As I have lived life my understanding of God has changed drastically. I do not think of God like I thought about it in my youth, and yet my search for Holy Ground has not wained.

It was one afternoon three years ago inside the Kranzberg Black Box as I was alone in the space and waiting as the lighting board powered up. In just a few minutes Michael Hagmeier would be arriving to perform his 2015 Fringe show "Digeridoo In The Dark." For that moment though, I was alone in a dark room with 80 seats, 600 square feet of performance space, forty lighting fixtures, and a day scheduled full of theatrical productions.

The room I was in would be filled with the tones and reverberations of Michael's instrument. It would host the rhythms of Tapman and his team of dancers. It would be teleported to Moscow as Lucy and her troop presented a Chekov drinking game. It would host Patrick's high school students presenting a surreal production of Alice in Wonderland. Carl would tell a story of a lonely man and the rental of a dissatisfied sexbot. All these stories would fill this space that in this moment glowed with the just the dull blue of a computer boot screen.

This space I was standing in at that moment, this was Holy Ground. Moses stood before a flame in the desert and learned the meaning of his life. I stood in that dim blue glow and recognized the meaning of these spaces we call theaters.

It has been over three years since that first cherished moment. I have traveled between venues and producers. I have watched puppets skewer the US political process. I have seen other puppets address the struggle of infertility. I have now seen Elizabeth take her audience into the emotional core of two mothers; one who lost her freedom the other who lost her child. I have cried in these theaters, as Jackie told a story of two sisters very different worldviews. I have laughed in these theaters, as Taylor told a story of dinosaur erotica and human vengance.

Fringe is about the sanctity of the full human experience. Last night another staff member shared a song, "A Little Bit of Everything" by the band Dawes. The song's last lines are

It's not some message written in the dark.
Or Some truth that no one's seen.
It's a little bit of everything.

 

I produce theatre and work as the production manager for the St Lou Fringe Festival because I believe that theater is a sacred art. The art we create, the stories we tell, the voices we unleash into the world have the potential teach us all together what is the meaning we are searching for. For me this festival and these venues are my reminder that there is holy ground in this world if we listen to the voice from the voices speaking inside them reminding us there is something greater than our individual selves.
The reason this art of theatre embodies the divine is that it reaches inside the soul of the producers and exposes that "little bit of everything" we all need to see. Come take off your metaphorical shoes, and share this pure moment with us, because this space is holy ground.

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Lets make some Zoom Rooms Holy Ground 

I Am Becoming

As today is my 45th birthday I have been thinking a lot about the brevity of our human existence. When my time on this earth concludes and I have crossed the barrier from this existence to whatever, if anything, lies on the other side of the grave I hope as those left behind who loved me will read this series of paragraphs, from Daniel Keyes, as they plant a juniper tree and bury my ashes

"But this was the counterweight, the act of binding and holding. As when men to keep from being swept overboard in the storm clutch at each other's hands to resist being torn apart, so our bodies fused a link in the human chain that kept us from being swept into nothing."

"Finding out who I really am-the meaning of my total existence involves knowing the possibilities of my future as well as my pasts, where I’m going as well as where I've been. Although we know the end of the maze holds death (and it is something I have not always known-not long ago the adolescent in me thought death could happen only to other people), I see now that the path I choose through the maze makes me what I am. I am not only a thing, but also a way of being - one of many ways - and knowing the paths I have followed and the ones left to take will help me understand what I am becoming."

"This was the way we loved, until the night became a silent day. And as I lay there with her I could see how important physical love was, how necessary it was for us to be in each other's arms, giving and taking. The universe was exploding, each particle away from the next, hurtling us into dark and lonely space, eternally tearing us away from each other - child out of the womb, friend away from friend, moving from each other, each through his own pathway toward the goal-box of solitary death."

The Ideology Is In The Bench (A FB Post)

 "[It] is not just a matter of what I think about a situation; it is somehow inscribed in that situation itself. It is no good my reminding myself that I am opposed to racism as I sit down on a park bench marked “Whites Only”; by the act of sitting on it, I have supported and perpetuated racist ideology. The ideology, so to speak, is in the bench; not in my head." - Terry Eagleton "Ideology" 1991

This quote from Terry Eagleton's "Ideology" has been rolling around in my mind all day, or at least since I read the Amy Cooper "apology" this morning. I am completely unable to believe her apology as anything near genuine. 

On the video when Amy Cooper says, I'm going to tell them there's an African American man threatening my life." It is obvious her intention is to sit down on the bench marked whites only. 

In the apology she writes, "I’ve come to realize especially today that I think of [the police] as a protection agency, and unfortunately, this has caused me to realize that there are so many people in this country that don’t have that luxury." But her actions show this is patently not true, she 100%  used the risk of Christian's death as a tool against him. She chose to sit on the bench.  

Whatever thoughts she has about "not being a racist" in her head, the ideology is in the actions.  This becomes most important to point out to my fellow white liberals when we accept the fact that Amy Cooper is one of our own; a donor to the Obama and Buttigieg campaigns. Yet with the privilege and power of white supremacy at her beckon she used it to her perceived advantage.

This is not an attack on Ms Cooper, it is instead my own rolling thoughts about my participation and complicity in the system of white supremacy. It is a reminder to myself once again of Eagleton's quote, "The ideology is in the bench."

The Christian Ex-Pat

I am Kevin, an Ex-Pat of Christianity. My grandfather was an itinerant preacher and I grew up being told from my youngest ages that I was going to be a preacher like him. I pursued that destiny into early adulthood despite the fact that I was always a weird fit with Christianity. I could speak the language, and preach in a way that inspired many but infuriated those ensconced power.
Leaving Christianity was the hardest thing I have ever done, it is my homeland and its language is my mother tongue for speaking of the sacred. Christianity was also an abusive lover. I was thrown out of churches for questioning and others for claiming love too radically and others for taking Jesus too seriously. Over and over I felt Christianity’s loving embrace by communities that would later be weaponized against me.

As I experienced repeated abuse at the hands of the church I became more and more aware of others who were too often at the receiving end of Christianity’s “loving” beat downs. It became more and more clear that women, people of color, the LGBT+ community, and other oppressed group were the church’s targets. America’s racism and bigotry was much more clearly on display than the Christ who said, “love one another,” and “the last shall be first.” In the end I could no longer see God at all within its boundaries and I became a spiritual refugee, dispossessed from my homeland.

But I have always been a seeker, and I can no more stop chasing after God than I can stop breathing. So I have made it my discipline to see the sacred in everything and everyone. If God is Love, which I believe and affirm, then every act of love is a sacred interaction with God. If God is just, then living in a way that seeks restorative justice is a sacrament.

So now, ten years after leaving Christianity where am I? I am still a refugee, but I have found a residency that feels a lot like home. My church is a stage. I produce theater, since I find that theater is the most honest place to both question and to inspire. I have love, acceptance, a voice, and a community. I practice live performance as worship of the divine.

I am not landed, I am still seeking, and still discovering myself and God both. I know like that lesson there are many others waiting and so much more to experience and learn.

I am Kevin, dispossessed and seeking the sacred.

Literary Quotes Too Good Not To Share

"Sometimes I write to keep from going crazy. There’s a world of things I don’t feel free to talk to anyone about" - Octavia Butler
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"Sometimes the only choices you have are bad choices; but you still have to choose" -The Doctor

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“To me, religions are like languages: no language is true or false; all languages are of human origin; each language reflects and shapes the civilization that speaks it; there are things you can say in one language that you cannot say as well in another; and the more languages you learn, the more nuanced your understanding of life. Judaism is my mother tongue yet in matters of the spirit I strive to be multilingual. In the end, however, the deepest language of the soul is silence.” - Rabbi Rami Shapiro
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"God is change and in the end God prevails; but God exists to be shaped." - Octavia Butler
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"Inevitable is not the same as immediacy and love does not mandate forgiveness."- N.K. Jemisin

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Less Is More - Content Dictates Form - God is in the details - Stephen Sondheim

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"Only a fool is not afraid. Now Go" - Madeline L Engle

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"We are all Stardust and Stories" - Erin Morgenstern

Some Older Poems

 UNREPLIED
I have some time this Saturday
I think we are compatible
I'd like to discover if I'm right.
I've typed a message to you
Asking if you're free at that time
Sadly you have not responded
To the missive I composed you.

Did you have some other plans that evening?
Is my presumed compatibility misjudged?
Are you just not interested in this discovery?
I have yet to receive a reply
Letting me know if you are free
Most likely because I never faced my rejection fear.
So the note I wrote is still here with me unsent.

(04/2018)

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YOUR HEALING

I fought for your healing
Even when it cost
You walking out my door.

(02/2015)

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PURPOSE 

If life has purpose at all
then that purpose is to love.

No, not the safe
sanitized love for
a transcendent being.

Love,
the messy
vulnerable kind
for our concrete
carnal surroundings.

Love is embodied,
anything else
is just philosophy.

(9/2019)

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HARD STOP

Dot Dot Dot
Dash Dash Dash
Dot Dot Dot
Hard Stop

I need a hole so deep
Where light, sound, even thoughts
Can not pierce inside.
A hard stop.

I need a blanket so heavy
Fear, worry, loss, regret
Are crushed out of me.
A hard stop.

I need a clock so broken
The past, present, & future
Fail to tick.
A hard stop.

I need a whole rest
Nothing, total and complete.
Just one beat will do.
A hard stop.

Dot Dot Dot
Dash Dash Dash
Dot Dot Dot
Hard Stop

(05/2018)

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SELF HARM

I understand the cutter.
Loving you is
My self-harm.

(11/2014)

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Thoughts From The Night You Said Let's Be Friends

 Two years ago I had a romantic relationship end that had popped up between myself and a good friend.  The ending was absolutely the best thing, but something being best doesn't mean it is the easy thing.  I wrote quite a bit over the following days and this script comes out of the general ideas from that writing.  When I was asked to write a performance to submit for a 10-minute micro-festival I instantly knew I wanted to go back to those journals and work them together into a single script that read as if it was the stream of consciousness from an evening where one can't sleep. The script was initially accepted but the idea for how it was going to be used within the festival changed and I never got to perform it or see it performed.  

So oddly enough with it being almost two years since that relationship ended it was weird to me when the script turned up while searching for something unrelated in Google Drive.  Distracted from what I was intending to find I read the script again and personally, I still think it captures the emotions of something romantic ending that wasn't really defined.  I decided it was time to go ahead and post the script here in case anyone else would like to read it.

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