The Way of the Source

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  • God at the Deli Counter in Clyde, Ohio

    God at the Deli Counter in Clyde, Ohio

    Growing up in a small rural Ohio town does something strange to your imagination.

    For some people, it becomes home in the deepest and most beautiful sense.
    For others, it becomes something to escape.
    And for a long time, I was trying to escape.

    Photo by Tom Fisk on Pexels.com

    Not because I hated my hometown.

    I didn’t.

    I hated the smallness of what I thought life was allowed to be.
    The invisible ceilings.
    The limiting beliefs.
    The way people quietly surrendered their wonder before they were even old enough to realize they had it.

    I watched people inherit entire lives before they had ever truly asked themselves if those lives were chosen.

    Graduate high school.
    Community college maybe.
    Factory job.
    Relive your glory days through your kid’s baseball games.
    Two and a half children.
    House payment.
    Same roads.
    Same conversations.
    Same fears.
    Same unspoken ache.

    And honestly?

    Part of my touring years… all the road days, venues, late nights, sleeping on floors, chasing music across state lines… was me searching for something bigger.
    Not just success.

    Transcendence.

    I thought God worked somewhere beyond the horizon of this tiny Midwest town.
    In bigger cities.
    Bigger experiences.
    Bigger revelations.
    Somewhere out there on the open road beneath stage lights and interstate skies.

    But life has a funny way of bringing you full circle.

    Because after all the theology and deconstruction and mysticism and wandering… I’m beginning to realize the sacred was never absent from this place.

    I just didn’t yet have eyes to see it.

    Photo by BBSO on Pexels.com

    I went to the local grocery store tonight in the town I work in.
    Which also happens to be the town I graduated high school in.

    Clyde, Ohio.

    Not exactly the first place most people go looking for spiritual enlightenment.
    Usually when people talk about awakening, they talk about mountaintops and monasteries and ayahuasca retreats and silent meditation under moonlit skies.
    Meanwhile God keeps showing up next to the coleslaw.

    I had to stop at the bakery counter, which in small town grocery stores is apparently legally required to also be the deli counter, because the Midwest fears efficiency and boundaries.

    There was a man standing there ordering some things from the deli for his family and I thought:

    “…wait a second.”

    He looked familiar.
    Not just familiar familiar.
    Church familiar.

    The kind of familiar where you instantly remember folding chairs, youth groups, worship songs in drop D, emotionally devastating altar calls under purple stage lighting, and fog machines absolutely fighting for salvation.

    If you’ve deconstructed out of evangelicalism, unexpectedly running into someone from church in public can trigger a very specific kind of panic.

    There’s always that split second of:
    “Oh no… is this about to become an ‘I’ve been praying for you’ conversation?”
    Sometimes people genuinely mean well.
    Sometimes they just want to reassure themselves you’re wrong so they can keep their own certainty intact.
    And sometimes there’s real trauma attached to seeing someone you once participated in a Hell House with.

    So when I recognized him at the deli counter, I honestly had no idea where the interaction was about to go.

    Turns out it was exactly who I thought it was.

    He turned around, smiled huge, shook my hand, and immediately said:

    “This is so… weird. I’ve been thinking about you. I’ve seen all of your posts. I read them and they’ve caused me to reflect deeply. I’ve wanted to reach out but didn’t want to be weird… I think I might be in a similar place.”

    And honestly?

    I don’t think he understands how much that meant to me.

    Because if I’m being real, writing can feel a lot like shouting into the wind.
    You pour your soul onto the page.
    You wrestle language into coherence.
    You excavate ancient texts and etymologies and philosophy and memory and grief and hope.
    You spend hours trying to articulate something you can barely even explain to yourself sometimes.

    Then you hit “publish.”

    And… silence.

    Maybe a couple likes.
    Maybe someone angry reacts without reading the article.
    Maybe an old church friend subtweets you for becoming a mystical communist hippie heretic or whatever.

    The algorithm moves on.
    The machine keeps scrolling.
    Life keeps happening.

    So to unexpectedly meet a reader in the wild…
    someone I had no idea was even reading my work…
    someone quietly reflecting and pondering and wrestling alongside me…

    Photo by Markus Winkler on Pexels.com

    That mattered more than I can explain.

    Not because I need applause.

    But because I think a lot of us can feel something shifting beneath the surface of the modern spiritual landscape and we don’t yet have language for it.
    Or maybe we do have language for it, but it’s buried beneath centuries of noise, fear, certainty, empire, marketing, nationalism, and weird Christian coffee mug culture.

    A lot of us were handed a faith built almost entirely around escape.

    Escape this world.
    Escape your body.
    Escape doubt.
    Escape culture.
    Escape “secular” influence.
    Escape suffering.
    Escape Earth itself.

    I grew up being told to guard my mind from anything that wasn’t Christian media.

    Christian music.
    Christian movies.
    Christian books.
    Christian shirts.
    Christian breath mints. (No, really, they were called Testa-mints. Google it.)

    Like the whole goal was to become spiritually shrink-wrapped.

    And underneath all of it was this constant obsession with evacuation.

    This world is not your home.
    We’re just passing through.
    One day we’ll fly away somewhere else.

    Everything urgent.
    Everything temporary.
    Everything disposable.

    Which sounded pretty spiritual… until you realize it quietly alienates you from the very world the Divine is moving through.

    The trees.
    The rivers.
    The neighbor.
    The body.
    The breath.
    The ordinary Tuesday evening.

    “In Him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:28

    Not later.
    Not elsewhere.
    Not after death.

    Now.

    Here.

    This.

    The ancient Hebrews understood something we’ve forgotten:

    The “holy” was never trapped inside temples.
    The burning bush was holy ground.
    The wrestling match was holy ground.
    The shared meal was holy ground.
    The stranger was holy ground.

    Jesus keeps talking about bread and seeds and birds and vineyards and lilies because enlightenment is not escape from reality.
    It is intimacy with reality.
    It is waking up inside of it.

    The Buddhists talk about chopping wood and carrying water.
    The mystics talk about union.
    Jesus talks about “the kingdom of heaven within you.”
    Ram Dass says, “We’re all just walking each other home.”
    I love that one.

    Different voices.
    Different symbols.
    Different languages.

    But all circling the same invitation:

    Wake up.
    Love deeper.
    Become fully human.

    And I think that’s why this random interaction at a deli counter hit me so deeply.

    Because for a moment there was no performance.
    No tribalism.
    No theological scorekeeping.
    No pretending.

    Just two people recognizing each other.
    Like travelers seeing another lantern flickering in the dark.

    I’ve spent years diving into scripture, original languages, mysticism, philosophy, consciousness, symbolism, and ancient wisdom traditions not because I want to win arguments or sound intelligent.

    Honestly, some of the least Christlike people I’ve ever met can quote Greek perfectly.

    Photo by Brett Sayles on Pexels.com

    No, I keep digging because I believe there is a truth beneath all the rubble of what I’ve deconstructed.

    Beneath the empire and the marketing and the tribalism and the ways we’ve twisted things to control people or comfort ourselves.

    Not a new truth.
    An ancient one.
    The wisdom at the Source.

    The kind of truth that was already whispering through creation long before we built denominations and platforms and branded it into submission.

    I’m not searching for something new.

    I’m searching for the language, the clarity, and the courage to uncover what I already know deep down is there.

    And whatever is true should be sturdy enough to survive ordinary life.
    A truth sturdy enough to breathe outside church walls.
    A truth that recognizes itself in another human being.

    And I’ve become deeply convinced of something:

    Enlightenment is not escaping humanity.
    Enlightenment is finally becoming human again.

    Fully present.
    Fully awake.
    Fully aware that the divine has been saturating ordinary life this entire time while we were waiting for permission to call it sacred.

    The cashier matters.
    The tired dad matters.
    The lonely teenager matters.
    The person silently deconstructing their faith while buying provolone matters.
    You matter.

    There is no such thing as “just another day.”

    Photo by Garrison Gao on Pexels.com

    The sacred keeps disguising itself as ordinary life while everyone waits for a miracle.

    The miracle, sometimes, is simply discovering that you were never as alone as you thought you were.

    And if Ram Dass was right… if we really are all just walking each other home… then home was never somewhere else waiting for me beyond the horizon.

    It was here all along.

    Waiting for me beside the deli counter in Clyde, Ohio.

  • The First Coming of the Second Jesus

    a bit about names…

    In the beginning of my 6th grade year, the same year the world completely changed on that September Tuesday morning, my biggest problem was that there were too many Johns.

    John. Jonathan. The other Jonathan. Jon. Johnny. Juan.

    Taking attendance felt like a Temu identity crisis. Every time Ms. Kessler called that name, we would all look up at once, each of us trying to determine if we were the one being addressed or if we were just collateral attention. It sounds small, almost even forgettable, but when you’re eleven, names are one of the only things that feel like they truly belong to you.
    And when that gets blurred, something subtle but very real starts to slip.

    So I made a decision.
    I changed my name.

    Not legally. Not dramatically. Just enough to create a boundary between me and everyone else answering to the same sound.

    JD.

    Short. Clear. Distinct.

    Mine.

    It wasn’t about rejecting who I was. It was about refusing to be confused with something that I wasn’t. Because names carry weight. They carry identity, meaning, expectation. They don’t just tell people what to call you… they shape how you’re seen, how you’re remembered, and how you’re understood.

    When multiple people carry the same name in the same space, things can get a bit disorienting. You can respond to something that wasn’t meant for you, or miss something that absolutely was. You can begin to feel interchangeable, identity is just a label that can be swapped depending on who’s speaking.

    That feeling… of blurred identity, of mistaken recognition… it’s easy to dismiss in a classroom.

    But it’s much harder to ignore in a crowd.

    Photo by Mohamed hamdi on Pexels.com

    give us barabbas

    Now imagine a city under occupation.

    The tension isn’t hypothetical. It’s lived-in. Political, religious, cultural… all of it layered together under the watchful eye of an empire that doesn’t care about your traditions but is more than willing to weaponize them if it keeps the peace.

    There’s a crowd gathered. Not a peaceful one. This is a crowd that has been shaped by pressure, by hope withdrawn, by a long memory of who they used to be and a present reality that reminds them, constantly, of what they’re losing and what’s already lost.

    And standing in front of them is a Roman governor with… two prisoners.

    He offers them a choice.
    One will go free.
    One will be executed.

    Even before you examine the details, this entire setup feels unstable. When truth is decided by the loudest voices, justice becomes merely theater. A system so confident in its own authority that it can outsource its moral responsibility to a crowd and still maintain control.

    But then there’s this detail that rarely gets mentioned.

    The one that quietly reshapes everything.

    In some of the earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew, both of the men standing before that crowd share the same name.

    Not similar.
    The same.

    Jesus.

    Or, more accurately: Yeshua.

    Photo by Angela Chacu00f3n on Pexels.com

    Most of us were given a simplified version of this story:
    There’s Jesus.
    And then there’s Barabbas.

    Two completely different figures. Easy to separate. Easy to judge. One is clearly good, the other is clearly not.

    But some of those early manuscripts preserve a name that complicates that clarity: There is a second “Jesus”. Yeshua Bar-Abba.

    In Aramaic, that means “Yeshua, Son of the Father.”
    Which means the crowd isn’t choosing between Jesus and someone else.
    They’re choosing between:

    Yeshua, Son of the Father
    and
    Yeshua, called the Messiah.

    Two men.
    Same name.
    Same moment.
    Same system holding them both.

    One is released.
    One is condemned.

    Photo by nyashaexplores_ on Pexels.com

    It’s also worth naming who Barabbas actually was (according to the gospels since there is no other record of this event)

    He wasn’t just a random criminal. He wasn’t a petty thief or someone in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    The Gospels describe him as an insurrectionist… someone involved in violent uprising against Rome. It’s alluded that he may have even been affiliated with the other men that ended up crucified next to Jesus Christ. (I’ll write about the word that is translated as thief or robber another time, but there’s more going on there, too. I know, please try to contain your surprise.)


    Barabbas is the kind of person many in that crowd may have quietly admired. The kind of man who embodied the hope that one day, someone would finally fight back hard enough to win.

    Which means the choice in front of that crowd that day wasn’t abstract.
    It was painfully concrete.

    Do you want the Yeshua who resists empire with violence…
    or the Yeshua who refuses to mirror it at all?

    Do you want the one who takes power back…
    or the one who redefines power entirely?

    One promises victory that you can see.
    The other invites transformation that you can’t control.
    And suddenly the choice makes more sense.
    Not better. But more understandable.
    Because Barabbas didn’t look like the wrong choice.
    He looked like the obvious one.

    And suddenly this story isn’t a clean moral contrast. It becomes something far more unsettling… a confrontation between two visions that look similar on the surface but lead in entirely different directions.

    I wrote recently about the name “Jesus,” about how “Yeshua” isn’t just a label but a meaning… rescue, deliverance, salvation. Not as a doctrinal statement, but as a lived hope. It’s the kind of name parents would give a child because they believed something in the world needed to be made right.

    And here, in this moment, that hope is embodied twice.
    Two versions of salvation.
    Two interpretations of what it means to be free.
    One that aligns with instinct.
    One that disrupts it.

    One Yeshua represents something familiar. Tangible. Immediate. A form of deliverance that makes sense in a world governed by power. Resistance. Control. The kind of savior that fights back, that meets force with force, that promises to restore what was lost by taking it back.

    The other Yeshua represents something far more difficult to grasp. A way that refuses to mirror the violence it confronts. A kingdom that doesn’t rise through domination but undermines it from within. It doesn’t offer control. It invites transformation… something slower, less visible, and far more demanding.

    One fits the expectations of the crowd.

    The other challenges the framework entirely.

    And the crowd chooses.

    They release one Yeshua.

    And they crucify the other.

    The longer you sit with that, the harder it is to keep the story at a safe distance. It stops being history and starts becoming a diagnosis.

    Because this isn’t the first time a community has stood in front of two identical figures and made a choice about what to do with them.

    two goats

    Photo by Lefterer on Pexels.com

    Long before Rome and Pontius Pilate, there was a ritual described in Leviticus.
    Once a year, on the Day of Atonement (aka Yom Kippur), two goats were brought forward.
    They were chosen to be as identical as possible. No distinction in strength, appearance, or value. Just two living representations standing in the same place at the same time.
    Lots were cast.
    One goat would be sacrificed.
    The other would be sent away into the wilderness, carrying with it the weight of the people’s failures, their misalignments, their accumulated harm.

    Not punished. Not tortured.
    Removed.
    Taken outside the camp.


    One dies.
    One is released.

    The ritual isn’t just about the goats. It’s about the people watching the ritual. It’s about what they project, what they transfer, what they need to externalize in order to feel whole again.

    Something in them needs to be dealt with.
    Something in them needs to be carried away.

    Now let’s return to the scene before Pilate.

    Two figures.
    One condemned.
    One released.

    A crowd watching.
    A choice being made.

    This isn’t just a political moment. It’s a reenactment. A living symbol of something much older, something embedded in the way humans deal with fear, guilt, and the need for resolution.
    And here’s where it gets uncomfortable.
    In that ancient ritual, the one who carries the weight is sent outside the camp…removed from the center, from the place of belonging, from the system that defines what is acceptable and what is not.
    And in the story of Jesus, the story of Yeshua, the same pattern unfolds.

    He is taken outside the city.
    Rejected.
    Cast out.
    Labeled as the problem.

    Not because an angry God needs blood.
    But because we seem to need somewhere to put our blame.

    Our fear has to go somewhere. Our anger has to go somewhere. Our violence has to be justified, redirected, sanctified. So we create systems that allow us to externalize it, to project it onto someone else, to call it necessary, righteous, even holy.

    And then we choose.
    Not just once.

    But again.

    And again.

    And again.

    We choose the version of salvation that lets us stay in control. We choose the version of power that reassures us we’re on the right side. We choose the narrative that allows us to preserve our identity without requiring transformation. And then we baptize it and call it faith.

    this is ancient history, right?

    Photo by Mark Stebnicki on Pexels.com

    Look around.
    Not in theory. Not in abstraction.
    Right here.
    Especially for us in America.

    In a country where power is constantly baptized in the language of God (or maybe Pulp Fiction). Where violence is justified as protection. Where systems that harm are defended because they feel familiar. Where entire groups of people are reduced, labeled, dismissed… sent outside the camp so the rest of us can feel clean.

    Where wars are waged in our name, funded by our dollars, and explained to us as necessary.

    We are still standing in that crowd.
    Still being offered a choice.
    Still deciding which version of Yeshua we want.

    One that reflects our fear.
    Or one that transforms it.

    And maybe the most unsettling part of the story isn’t that they chose the wrong one.

    It’s how often we still would.

    Not because we’re evil. But because the other way, the way of the crucified Yeshua, doesn’t give us what we think we need.

    It takes something from us.
    Our certainty. Our control.
    Our ability to draw clean lines between “us” and “them.”

    And it replaces it with something harder.
    Something less flashy.
    Something that doesn’t win the way we’ve been taught winning looks.

    Love that absorbs violence without returning it.
    Truth that exposes systems without becoming one.
    A Kingdom that doesn’t come with force
    but grows quietly
    subversively
    within and among us.

    That kind of salvation doesn’t look like power.
    At least not at first.
    Which is why the crowd chose Barabbas, the other Yeshua.

    And why, if we’re honest…
    we still feel the pull to do the same.

  • More Than This

    Identity, Spirit, and the Thing Beneath It All

    More Than This
    Identity, Spirit, and the Thing Beneath It All

    We’re living in a time when every word feels weaponized.
    It seems like everywhere you look it’s this team vs. that team.
    Every disagreement is more than a disagreement, it’s a full on betrayal.
    Every attempt at nuance sounds more like treason and should be opposed.

    We have all been handed war paint and told:
    “Pick a side. Or else.”

    And if you dare to say,
    “I think there’s some truth here… but some truth is over there, too…”
    someone’s ready to burn you at the digital stake.

    It feels lately like the sickness is taking sides and digging heels in.
    But the cure isn’t more lines in the sand, it’s seeing beyond them.

    It’s time we remember something truer than every label we’ve been told to wear.
    Something deeper.
    Something ancient.

    The Armor of Identity

    We’ve mistaken our identity with allegiance.
    We’ve made these labels and communities into armor.

    Conservative. Progressive.
    Right. Left.
    Christian. Atheist.
    Red hat. Blue flag.
    Pronouns in bio. Flag in yard.

    We wrap ourselves in these identity markers like chainmail, thinking they keep us safe.
    But armor doesn’t just protect you, it also restricts.

    What once gave us definition, now gives us division. What once gave us belonging and community, now gives us separation and an enemy.

    We no longer wear the armor of identity.
    The armor now wears us.

    So now, when someone brushes up against it with a challenge, a question, or even a loving critique, we react like they’ve attacked us.
    Because somewhere in our internal wiring, we’ve fused “what I am” with “who I am.”
    And that fusion is slowly suffocating us.

    Paul’s Disruption

    This is why Paul’s words to the Early Christian communities in Galatia about 1,975 years ago still cuts like a blade today:

    “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

    Galatians 3:28

    Notice what he’s not doing.
    He’s not erasing culture or identity.
    He’s not erasing difference.
    He’s not saying, “Stop being Jewish.”
    He’s not saying, “Stop being male or female.”
    He’s not asking anyone to forget their skin, their story, their sacred traditions.

    Even if you’ve got no interest in Paul or Christianity, hear this as a radical human claim: your true self is so much more than any label a society can stick on you.

    He’s saying:
    That’s never been the deepest part of you.

    Your Jewishness? Real.
    Your maleness or femaleness? Real.
    Your position in society? Real.

    But it’s not ultimate.

    Because your true name…
    the one that came before the world tried to name you….
    is Beloved.
    And your family name? Human. Earthling. אדם.

    Everything else is just middle names.
    Some beautiful, some painful
    But none of them are the ground floor of who we are.

    The Courage to Hold Identity Lightly

    Imagine living from that perspective.
    Imagine holding your identity with open hands instead of clenched fists.

    You’d still be exactly who you are.
    Still straight. Still gay. Still trans.
    Still Black, white, conservative, liberal.
    Still Christian, Atheist, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Agnostic.

    But you’d stop treating those labels like prison walls.
    No longer trapped in the fear that to be wrong is to be rejected.
    No longer scared that critiquing your “side” makes you a traitor.
    No longer needing someone else to lose for you to belong or be safe.

    Because your belonging wouldn’t come from being “right” or winning the culture war any longer.
    It would come from being rooted in human-ness.

    Rooted in an identity deeper than ideology, older than theology, truer than tribalism and the distinctions we use to separate ourselves.

    Healing The Divide

    How do we heal polarization?
    How do we repair what’s been torn?

    Not by pretending we’re all the same.
    Not by erasing difference.
    And not by building bigger echo chambers.

    We heal when we remember that beneath every outward identity marker, every label, every allegiance, every algorithm-driven division…
    there is a core that cannot be erased or bought or sold.

    We heal when we trust that:

    • Critique is not betrayal.
    • Difference is not threat.
    • Belonging doesn’t mean conformity.
    • Our “opponent” is not our enemy.

    The Invitation

    Our generation’s task isn’t to build stronger walls around our identities and labels. Instead, we should let the Spirit whisper to our souls what Paul was trying to tell us all along:

    Whatever you think you are, it’s not the truest thing about you.

    The truest thing is:

    You are Beloved.
    You are Human.
    You are One with the Source of life.

    So act like it.
    Live like it.
    Let the armor fall.

  • Choose Life – Reflections on Charlie Kirk

    Today has been heavy.

    News broke that Charlie Kirk has been shot and killed, and like wildfire the story spread across social media. Within minutes, I watched people retreat into their familiar trenches… some shocked, some celebrating, some mocking, some grieving, some raging. And on top of all of this, there was also a school shooting in Colorado and that story barely even cuts through the violent noise.

    Division metastasizes fast when death is involved.

    But can we step back for a moment?

    Can we breathe?

    Beyond Sides, Beyond Labels

    We’ve been trained to think in teams: Left vs. Right. Conservative vs. Progressive. Our side vs. their side. Us vs. Them. But the truth is, those categories are paper-thin compared to the deeper reality of what we are: human beings. Earthlings.  Dust and spirit intertwined.

    We are not the country on our birth certificate.

    We are not the paycheck we bring home, or the title associated with it.

    We are not our political allegiance, or the talking heads we retweet.

    We are fragile creatures, vulnerable to sickness, fear, propaganda, violence. And yet we are also capable of great love.

    To those who despised Charlie’s ideas: You may feel a sense of relief, or even a grim satisfaction seeing someone you consider harmful silenced. But violence doesn’t purify, it corrodes. It doesn’t make us free, it chains us deeper to fear and hatred. Death doesn’t prove a point, it only reminds us how broken we are. If we celebrate death, we’ve lost sight of the life we claim to defend.

    To those who followed Charlie Kirk’s Vision: You may feel attacked, grieving not just a man but what he represented for you. It’s tempting to point fingers and batten down the hatches with hardened defenses and declare this tragedy the fault of “the Left.” But pain is not a weapon. Grief isn’t a political tool. The way forward is not deeper division, but the recognition that life, every life, is sacred. Even if they’re from “Samaria.”

    ⸻

    Today Is a Day to Grieve

    Whether you loved or despised Charlie Kirk, a life was cut short. His family grieves. His friends grieve. His opponents, if they’re honest, should grieve too…

    Not for his politics, but for the reality of yet another life lost to violence for voicing his opinions.

    When death becomes a punchline, we have already chosen division over life.

    Photo by John-Mark Smith on Pexels.com

    Choose Life

    There’s a verse from Moses in Deuteronomy that won’t leave me alone today:

    “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.
    Therefore, choose life.”

    Deuteronomy 30:19 ESV

    To choose life doesn’t mean choosing a political party or defending your tribe. It means choosing compassion over cruelty, empathy over mockery, presence over propaganda. It means refusing to let violence (whether physical or rhetorical) become the currency of our culture.

    And Jesus came to show us this very Way. He said he came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly. Yet so often Christianity misses this, trading the way of love for the way of ideology, the way of division, the way of who’s inand who’s out. Jesus told us to love our enemies, to serve the least, to forgive seventy times seven—and somewhere along the way, many traded that radical way of life for defending sides and drawing lines.

    But the way of Jesus has always been the Way of Life. The way of abundant life. The way that pulls us back, again and again, to the Source.

    Lake Tahoe, Incline Village – shot on my iPhone 13 Pro Max

    An Invitation

    So here’s my invitation, as much to myself as to anyone else: Get off social media. Turn off the screen. Step outside. Look at the sky. Listen to the trees. Notice the sound of your own breath. Life is still here. It’s still beautiful, and It’s still worth choosing.

    Grieve, yes. But don’t weaponize grief.

    Mourn, yes. But don’t turn mourning into mockery.

    Life is sacred. And in times like these, remembering that might be the most radical act of all.

    Memento Mori.

    -JD

  • Why I’ve Been Silent

    Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Pexels.com

    Hi there! It’s so good to see you again.

    I haven’t posted a blog since like, what… May!?
    Not because I ran out of things to say, of course. Come on, who are you talking to? Sure, I can be silent, but it’s not because I have a lack of things to say. I’m an etymology nerd, I can use words all day long.

    But life, man. Life got loud.

    The kind of loud that isn’t just about volume…although there is constantly either Blippi, or K-Pop Demon Hunters, or just loud toys assaulting our noise floor here at the Merrill household.

    This loud is a kind of spiritual static.
    Kids, summer, work, therapy, emergencies, exhaustion.
    The kind of noise that comes with long days, short nights, and not enough bandwidth to put deep sacred truths into words, let alone sentences.

    And here’s the paradox:


    In the silence is where the real work started.

    Not performative, not public.
    Not polished, not posted.
    But real.

    I’ve been in the cave. Writing in my mind, rebuilding my inner sanctuary brick by brick, sweeping out the dogmas, whispering into the void, knowing that at one point I had left my faith behind but I can’t help this unshakable feeling at my soul that there’s still something holy here. There’s still a new song that’s begging to emerge.

    And I think I’ve found it.

    Revelation from Silence, Compost from ALDI

    Photo by Lisa from Pexels on Pexels.com

    If you’ve been following along on this blog, you’ll know that I’ve been gardening both for food and herbalism.  This silence that I’ve been experiencing feels a lot like my compost pile that’s sitting just outside my window in a little rolling compost box that we got at ALDI this spring.

    Lawn clippings, food scraps, dry leaves, all go into this temple of silence and begin to slowly transform.

    Not with fireworks. No little jingle.
    But with silence. 

    time. 

    heat. 

    darkness. 

    and unseen alchemy.

    It looks like rot. It smells… questionable.
    But given enough stillness and stirrings, it becomes something magical:
    Soil. Rich. Alive. Full of potential.

    That’s what this silence has been.
    Not an absence, more like a fermentation.
    Not failure, but formation.
    The slow decomposition of what no longer serves,
    so something nourishing can rise in its place.


    Rich with breakdown and decay, but alive with the promise of fruit.

    I’ve been dreaming and drafting what might be the most important work I’ve ever written:
    a Systematic Theology.

    (A systematic theology is just an organized way of explaining your beliefs about God, humanity, and the meaning of it all. Basically, it’s me putting all my beliefs in one place so people can’t say, “You’re just making this up as you go.”)

    This isn’t a theology of fear, control, or empire.
    It’s a theology of embodiment, mystery, and divine interconnectedness.
    This theology is a map for those who still care about Jesus but can’t stand what’s been done in his name.
    It’s for the ones who left the church but never stopped aching for the truth underneath it all.
    It’s for the burnt out, the exiled, the deconstructed who still feel a flicker.

    What I’m building isn’t about certainty. It’s about resonance.

    Not dogma, but depth.

    Trading definitive answers for divine alignment.

    Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

    Why a Theology?

    You might be wondering: why bother writing a theology at all?

    Because theology still shapes the world.
    Even bad theology has consequences: political, psychological, relational, environmental.
    The stories we believe about God shape how we treat ourselves, our neighbors, and the Earth.

    If all we ever do is deconstruct the broken systems without building something true in their place, we risk leaving people in the wilderness with nothing but rubble and good intentions.

    I don’t want that.
    You deserve better.
    We all do.

    I’m not here to tear down your faith. I know what it means to believe.

    I grew up inside a 25 year living and loving relationship with God. That is until the theology I was handed started to suffocate the Spirit that I had intimately known all along.

    I didn’t “walk away” because I just “stopped believing”.

    There’s a running joke amongst the Deconstruction community that we’re not drop-outs, we’re Graduates. While I find that to be a bit pretentious, I do think there’s some truth to that because I didn’t walk away.

    I walked deeper in… past the labels, past the identities, past the frameworks, past the fear of rejection, past the doctrines that couldn’t hold the weight of love.

    What I found wasn’t a new god.

    It was the same Spirit, more alive than ever, pulsing through everything.

    This is a theology where “Christ is King” doesn’t mean some goofy form of theological tribalism. It means radical surrender to the Love that holds the universe together.

    The Blog Is Becoming the Movement

    This blog …The Way of the Source… was never meant to just be a place for my thoughts.

    It’s becoming the hub of a movement.

    A new kind of spiritual community is quietly forming here.
    Not defined by buildings, denominations, or doctrines…
    but by resonance, reclamation, and remembrance.

    The remembrance of who we are,
    where we came from,
    and the Love we never left.

    I’ll be writing more in the days to come:

    • Finishing the eBook “How Not to Lose Your Friends and Family While Losing Your Religion” a Field Guide for Deconstructing Christians who value their relationships
    • Drafting chapters of this Systematic Theology
    • Finishing the memoir that started it all

    And I want to bring you along the journey for all of it.

    Not because I have the final answers, but because I’m willing to ask the deeper questions and give new language to the God beneath the wreckage of the faith that failed me.

    Let’s Begin Again

    So, if you’ve felt the silence too, I just want to say thank you for waiting.
    Thank you for still being here.

    Maybe the quiet has been working on you too.
    Maybe your roots have been growing deeper, even if nothing has seemed to bloom.

    How it works in the soil is often how it works in the soul.
    First the dark. Then the sprout.

    First death, then life.

    Resurrection.

    We’re still in this. We’re still becoming.

    Let’s begin again.

    Thanks for reading! Let me know in the comments what’s been speaking to you or giving you life lately. There’s only a few of us here, so let’s connect!

  • The Gospel of Rain

    Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric on Pexels.com

    It’s been raining here.
    A lot.

    Not the soft, wistful kind of rain that makes you want to stare out a window with a cup of tea and listen to Sigur Ros. We’ve had that too, but this has been the relentless kind. The kind of rain that soaks through boots and schedules and small talk. The kind that doesn’t ask permission before it starts washing things away.

    And yet… I’ve been paying close attention.
    Because something in me has started to wonder if the rain knows what it’s doing.
    I’ve been learning about soil. About herbs and healing and the ancient ways—those old paths that understood the body as part of the Earth, the Earth as part of the divine, and healing as a return to harmony and flow, not just the absence of pain.

    I’ve got garden beds waiting to be filled in the backyard. One will be for fruits and foods, the other for herbs and medicines. I’m making my herbalism dreams a reality. An aloe on the windowsill that was thriving until the repotting and still might make it, if grace holds. Grow bags lined up like little promises to my future self. And in the middle of it all, I’ve been watching how the rain seeps into everything—how it turns the compost, softens the crust, reminds the seeds they’re not forgotten down there.

    But this isn’t just a story about gardening.

    This past week, our friends lost everything in their basement. Three feet of rainwater swallowed their world. We spent the weekend cutting drywall, lifting soaked furniture, tossing years of life into a dumpster while their kids watched from the stairs. There’s a particular kind of silence that fills a house after the flood. And there’s a strange kind of holiness in carrying waterlogged pieces of someone’s story, shoulder to shoulder, soaked to the bone, laughing when you can, crying when you need to.

    I work with water for a living. Storm drains. Pipes. Septic tanks. Systems that most people only think about when they fail. I know firsthand what happens when the flow gets blocked. I know how dangerous it truly gets when what was meant to flow stagnates.

    And I think that’s what this rain has been showing me.

    So this is not a weather report.

    This is a gospel.

    A gospel written in raindrops.
    A gospel for anyone who’s ever felt the ground beneath them has turned to mud.
    A gospel for the overwhelmed, the uprooted, the ones learning to grow again.
    Because the rain isn’t here to ruin us.
    It’s here to bring life.
    It’s here to return us.
    To the soil.
    To each other.
    To something older and deeper and far more alive than the life we built on the surface.

    Welcome to The Gospel of Rain.
    Let it soak in.

    -JD

    We are made of these…things…

    dirt… and water… and breath.

    That’s not poetry. That’s Genesis. That’s biology.

    Rain doesn’t just fall from the clouds. It gives. It baptizes the ordinary. It brings the hidden back to life. And if you truly pay attention you’ll start to notice: the Earth doesn’t just respond to rain. It remembers it in a beautiful way.

    And maybe we do too.

    We as people have forgotten the gospel of the ground. The good news written into roots. The sacred story woven by weeds and worms and wild herbs growing in the cracks. Somewhere along the way, we’ve traded the ancient truth for convenience, plastic packaging, and produce that doesn’t rot because it’s so stripped of life it doesn’t even know how to properly die.

    But the gardens still sing the old song. And if we’re willing to slow down, become aware, and listen, it will teach us how to sing along again.

    Jesus, Soil, and the Mystery of Seeds

    Jesus didn’t build temples. He didn’t establish seminaries. He told stories about soil.

    In Matthew 13, he says the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, small and overlooked but capable of becoming a tree that is a shelter for birds. He says some seeds fall on rocky ground, some on shallow soil, some among thorns, and some on good soil…and the difference isn’t in the seeds. It’s in the readiness of the Earth.

    The soul, like the soil, must be open… soft enough to receive, nourished enough to sustain, deep enough to grow.

    This wasn’t purely metaphor. It was sacred geometry. Divine agriculture. A cosmic parable encoded into every living thing: life comes through death, transformation takes time, and good fruit only comes through rootedness.

    Jesus didn’t say believe these doctrines or memorize these creeds. He said:

    “Consider the lilies…”

    “Look at the birds…”

    “The kingdom is like a seed…”

    He was pointing at the Earth, not away from it.

    Photo by Akil Mazumder on Pexels.com

    Honor Your Father and Mother

    There’s an old commandment, one many of us learned in childhood:

    Honor your father and your mother.

    It’s usually read as a family ethic. But I’m beginning to wonder if it isn’t so much more.

    What if the Father is referring to our Divine Source, the heavenly blueprint in the stars, the radiant Spirit that animates all things…

    And the Mother is the Earth, the womb of form, the soil of becoming, the very dust from which we were made?

    In Hebrew, the word for “earth” is adamah—the root of the name Adam. In the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, Adam represents not just a man, but humanity as a whole—the cosmic being, both formed from the dust and filled with divine breath.

    To honor the Father and the Mother, then, would be to walk in alignment with where we come from—Spirit and Soil. Breath and Body. Mystery and Matter.

    When we dishonor either; by spiritualizing everything and denying the body, or by commodifying the Earth and forgetting the sacred, we lose our way.

    We lose our very selves.

    Wisdom from the East

    The Taoist tradition teaches us about living in harmony with the natural rhythms of life. The Tao is the Way—the Source from which all things emerge and to which all things return. It flows like water, nourishes like rain, moves like wind through trees and time.

    “The Tao does nothing, yet nothing is left undone.” – Lao Tzu

    In gardening, this wisdom becomes real. You can’t force a plant to grow. You prepare the soil, tend the space, and then you must trust the seed to know what to do. This is the heart of both mystical faith and herbal practice: alignment and harmony, not control.

    In Hinduism, the idea of dharma reflects your truest path—your alignment with nature, spirit, and self. There’s a beautiful teaching that all beings have their own dharma, even a leaf or a river. To live your dharma is to live like a tree: rooted, patient, in service to the whole.

    Herbalism becomes dharma when we begin to see each plant as a bearer of wisdom, each root as a teacher. We don’t just utilize them—we commune with them and we learn from them.

    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    Soil as Scripture, Rain as Revelation

    We were made from the dust. That’s not a demotion. Honestly, it’s a deep honor. The same elements that form stars form your cells. The same carbon in a fallen tree lives on in your bones. The Earth isn’t beneath us. She is of us.

    The Bible says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1).

    And the Earth?
    She doesn’t just absorb the rain
    She listens. She remembers. She responds.

    Rain isn’t just water falling from the sky.
    It’s the memory of the heavens returning to the soil.
    It’s the baptism that makes resurrection possible.

    Soil isn’t just dirt.
    It’s alive. Teeming. Holy.
    A thin place where death becomes nourishment.

    And the herbs we plant?
    They’re not just medicine.
    They’re messengers.
    Whispers from the old world,
    carrying healing that’s older than any of the systems we’ve created.

    The Garden is Calling Us Back

    We live in a time when disconnection is profitable.
    But reconnection is powerful.
    Revolutionary.
    Healing.

    When you grow your own food, you remember that abundance isn’t just an idea, it’s a practice.

    When you tend to your herbs, you remember that healing is not always instant.
    It’s relational.

    When you let the rain baptize your garden, you remember that nothing living thrives without receiving.

    This is the gospel of the garden.

    The truth that’s been growing since the beginning.

    Eden is not lost, it’s waiting for us to honor our Father and our Mother.

    Since you’re still here, I wanna know:

    What are you growing this season in the soil?
    In your body?
    In your spirit?

    What rhythms are you aligning with that the world told you to ignore?

    What would it look like to honor both your Father in heaven and your Mother beneath your feet?

  • Sleep Token – Euclid: The Perfect Worship Song

    Photo by Josh Sorenson on Pexels.com

    There’s this moment.

    If you’ve ever been in a worship service—like, really been in it—you know the one.

    It’s not the opening song, where people are still settling in, still checking their phones, still thinking about where they’ll eat after. It’s not the big anthem in the middle, the one designed to stir things up, to get people moving and responding.

    No, the moment comes later. Near the end.

    It’s the one where the room feels different. Where the lights are low, and everyone is connected by something more. Where the music swells, not because it has to, but because it can’t do anything but split open the sky.

    It’s the moment where the weight of everything—the doubt, the longing, the unspeakable ache—finds its way into the melody. The guitars shimmer, the drums carry like distant thunder, and the chorus, once whispered, is now belted from the deepest part of the chest.

    And then, just like that, it’s gone.

    That moment?

    That’s Euclid.

    This isn’t just a song. It’s a Benediction.

    Sleep Token has returned with Even in Arcadia, an album that feels like it emerged from the wreckage of a collapsed cathedral, still echoing with unanswered prayers. It opens with the haunting question: “Will you halt this eclipse in me?” That’s not just poetic. That’s liturgical. That’s a soul asking for the sun to rise again inside their own chest. And while the album offers no easy resolution, it does what all sacred art does—it leads us deeper into the ache, and maybe, gently, toward the light.

    And in the context of this new release, Euclid doesn’t just feel like a final track from the previous arc. It feels like an intercession whispered across time. A response to the eclipse.

    Vessel from Sleep Token

    For those unfamiliar with Sleep Token, Euclid is the final track on their previous release Take Me Back to Eden, the last of a three-album arc that has unfolded like some kind of a modern mythos.

    It’s a story of devotion, obsession, of something (or someone) greater-than beckoning from beyond. A love that might not be love. A god that might not be god. A voice that calls and calls until you can no longer tell if it’s leading you home or leading you into the abyss.

    And here, at the end of it all, we get Euclid.

    Not with a bang. Not with fury or vengeance or some grand declaration. But with a soft, fragile acceptance and surrender.

    Like the best worship songs.

    Like the best endings.

    The Worship Song Structure™, Perfected.

    Worship music lives and dies on its ability to create space. Space to feel. Space to ache. Space to let go.

    And Euclid? It builds that space like a sanctuary. Listen along if you want as I break it down.

    • The Opening: A Whispered Prayer
      Soft keys. A voice, hushed, almost afraid to enter the room.
      It’s the vulnerable invocation. The invitation.
      Come and see.
    • The Build: Anticipation & Devotion
      The instrumentation layers build slowly, reverently, like walking into something sacred. Each verse adds weight, each chorus expands, the vocoder gives musical space for tension, the pulse quickens… kinda like a heartbeat in a quiet room. The drums are in complete control of the energy building here.
      And then, everything shifts.
    • The Release: The Spirit Moves
      The final chorus erupts, the guitars crashing like waves, the drums relentless. Voices layered upon voices. A song that was once a whisper is now a flood.
      It’s the “Oceans” moment.
      The “With Everything” moment.
      The moment in every worship set where arms lift, eyes close, and the room isn’t just a room anymore.
      It’s so much bigger than that now.
    • The Benediction: Letting Go
      And then?
      The fade. The sigh. The last note rings out, soft as breath.
      No resolution. No closure. Leaving something stirring within your soul which is now ripe for transformation.
      Like the best worship songs.
      Like the best prayers.

    Why It Works (And Why Worship Leaders Should Take Notes)

    There’s a reason modern worship music thrives on these dynamics. It’s not just about lyrics, or theology, or even belief. It’s about energy. Tension. Release. Surrender.

    The best worship songs aren’t just sung or performed.

    They’re entered into. They’re experienced.

    And Euclid is nothing if not a complete experience.

    It starts in a place of intimacy. Moves through longing. Climbs toward something unspeakably powerful. And then, in one final breathtaking surge, it arrives like a flood—not at certainty, not at resolution, but at the only thing that ever truly remains:

    Love.

    Not the easy kind. Not the simple Hallmark all-smiles kind.

    But the real kind. The aching kind. The kind that knows loss, and still chooses to give. The kind that breaks, and still finds a way to hold on.

    So maybe Sleep Token didn’t write Euclid as a “worship” song.

    Maybe they did.

    But either way, if you’ve ever stood in a room filled with voices that were bigger than those in the room, if you’ve ever let a melody carry you beyond yourself, if you’ve ever felt something break and build and become—

    Then you know.

    This song belongs there.

    A Quick Word on Sleep Token

    For the uninitiated, Sleep Token is more than just a band—it’s a ritual. An anonymous collective led by the enigmatic Vessel, they blend genres and spiritual archetypes with reckless grace, weaving metal, R&B, ambient, and pop into something altogether sacred. Their live shows are called “Rituals.” Their lyrics read like confessions. And their music often feels less like performance and more like invocation.

    To those of us exploring the Way of the Source—a path rooted in oneness, mysticism, and sacred resonance—Sleep Token doesn’t just entertain. They echo. Their work hums with that same divine ache: the desire to be known, to be transformed, to belong to something greater.

    It’s not doctrine. It’s devotion. And in a world drowning in noise and algorithms, that matters.

    Let those with ears to hear, listen.

    If this stirred something in you, make sure to subscribe and join the conversation—I’m building a community of seekers, skeptics, and mystics who see beyond the surface and hear the sacred in unexpected places.

    Also, keep an eye out for my upcoming field guide: How Not to Lose Your Family While Losing Your Religion. It’s a resource for navigating the beautiful, brutal path of deconstruction without burning every bridge along the way.

    🖤JD

  • The Death of a Pope

    and the Birth of a New Way

    A man has died.

    Not just any man… a Pope.

    A figure crowned in white robes, seated atop a centuries-old empire of marble and gold, proclaiming the name of a carpenter who once said the Kingdom of God belongs to the poor. And have you ever considered the amount of land and real estate that the Vatican owns? That’s a rabbit hole.

    For many, the death of the Pope is a deeply spiritual moment.

    For others, it’s merely political theater and religious grandstanding.

    But for all of us, it is a mirror… if we’re willing to look.

    And if that mirror wasn’t surreal enough, we now have the leader of the free world posting an AI-generated image of himself as the Pope. Yes, that actually happened. The President, high priest of culture war Christianity, dressed in digital robes and algorithm generated holiness — as if to crown himself not just king, but god’s mouthpiece.

    If there was ever a moment that exposed how desperately we want power to appear holy — even if we have to fake it — this is it.

    Because in moments like these, we are reminded:

    Most of us still believe power comes from above.

    We still ache for someone else to be the bridge between us and the Divine.

    We still hunger for kings and leaders, even when we say we want freedom.

    Everything is Spiritual.

    Everything is Political.

    It’s easy to see it on the religious right.

    Easy to call out the way faith has been weaponized for nationalism, fear, and control.

    But here’s a deeper truth, the one most of us Exvangelicals don’t like to face:

    Aligning yourself to the “left”, the “woke”, the “progressive”, the “Democratic party” without true awakening is just Empire in a new robe.

    Different slogans.

    Different crowns.

    Same sickness.

    Empire is still Empire, even when it marches under rainbow flags.

    Even when it preaches tolerance and inclusion instead of tradition and superiority.

    We are not free simply because we changed which king we cheer for.

    We are only free when we stop

    needing

    kings…

    …at all.

    The Deeper Problem

    Outsourcing Our Power

    We have spent centuries outsourcing our sacredness to something else.

    • Outsourcing belief to the churches we attend.

    • Outsourcing conscience and action to political parties we align with.

    • Outsourcing hope to presidents and popes.

    It’s easier that way.

    If someone else carries the weight of the depth, we don’t have to.

    We can stay small.

    We can stay angry.

    We can stay obedient, thinking we are righteous because our side is winning.

    But the Way of the Source suggests another truth:

    You were never meant to be ruled.

    You were never meant to be rescued.

    You were meant to rise up.

    Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com

    The Bible Saw This Coming

    Long before democracy, before left and right, before presidents and parliaments — the ancient writers of the Bible named this sickness.

    When the people of Israel demanded a king to rule over them, God warned them:

    “They have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.”

    1 Samuel 8:7

    He warned them what would happen:

    • Kings would tax them.

    • Kings would send their sons to war.

    • Kings would seize their land, their labor, their daughters, their dignity.

    • Kings would become the very oppressors they thought they were escaping.

    But still, they insisted:

    “No! We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations…”

    1 Samuel 8:19-20

    It was not enough to live in direct connection to the Divine Source.

    They wanted hierarchy.

    They wanted visible power.

    They wanted someone else to carry the burden of leadership, responsibility, and trust.

    And so it has been ever since.

    The Bible is anything but an outdated book.

    It is a constant cultural mirror.

    It shows us, if we’re willing to truly see , how deeply we still crave kings, even as they devour us.

    The Bible is not about building new empires.

    It’s about tearing down the illusion that we ever needed one at all.

    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    The Way of the Source: A New Way Forward

    The Source… that deep current of life, love, and creative energy that we call “God” or “Spirit”… is not found on a throne.

    The Source is found:

    • In the soil under your feet.

    • In the electricity of your mind.

    • In the heartbeat thumping in your chest.

    • In the breath moving in and out of your body right now.

    The Source does not descend from above like royal decrees.

    The Source erupts from within — from the ground up, from the inside out.

    The Kingdom is not coming in banners and parades and elections.

    It’s coming in gardens planted, tables set, wounds healed, and bridges built.

    We don’t need a bishop.

    We don’t need a senator.

    We don’t need a savior in a white hat or a red tie or blue tie.

    The Spirit has already made its home in you.

    The Divine has already put its signature on your soul and everywhere around you.

    ⸻

    A Call to Radical Awakening

    So mourn the man if you must. Honor what was good if you choose. Grieve the brokenness if you need to.

    But do not fall asleep again.

    Do not trade one master for another. Do not swap empires like jerseys and call it justice.

    Awakening is more radical than that. It will not be televised. It will not be decided in a conclave or a caucus. It will begin here:

    • In your remembering.

    • In your reflecting.

    • In your returning.

    The Revolution the world needs is not another battle between kings.

    It’s the end of needing kings at all.

    Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Pexels.com

    Remember. Reflect. Return.

    • Remember the Source within you.

    • Reflect it in your living, your loving, your building, your becoming.

    • Return to it every time you forget… because we will forget, and that’s okay.

    You are not powerless.

    You are not lost.

    You are not waiting for the future to be handed down to you.

    The future will be grown

    from the ground up, from the heart out, from the ruins of every collapsing throne.

    We don’t need a better empire.

    We need a new way.

    The Way of the Source.

    It starts with us, and it has already begun.

  • The Cross Was Never “Plan A”

    Photo by Luis Quintero on Pexels.com

    At my church growing up, Easter was an event.

    Not just Sunday morning services. I’m talking full-scale theatrical production, like small-town Broadway with a crucifixion. We called it an Easter play, but really, it was a full-blown Passion drama — complete with billboards along the highway featuring my sister on Jesus’ lap, men in the congregation growing out their beards for historical accuracy, and a backstage makeup crew armed with fake blood and latex scars like a low-budget horror film masquerading as salvation.

    My actual sister talking to Jesus, aka my friend’s dad Jim, for our Easter Spectacular

    The sanctuary would transform into ancient Jerusalem. Lights dimmed. Smoke machines puffed out an eerie haze. Roman soldiers stomped around in homemade armor. I can still hear the clank of their plastic spears on dowels against the grey-carpeted plywood stage. And then there was Jesus — usually played by the same middle-aged volunteer every year, my friend’s dad Jim, who somehow managed to look both exhausted and radiant under the spotlight as they lashed him and led him to the cross he had just carried through the audience.

    Musical numbers were woven throughout, of course. These weren’t your tame, soft-rock worship hits. (Although we definitely included Avalon’s timeless CCM banger, “Testify To Love”) These were operatic, full-throated ballads about blood, sacrifice, and salvation. High drama. Choir robes swaying. And every spring, as the trees outside the church began to bud and bloom, those songs would crawl back into my head like ghosts of Easter past.

    We didn’t just perform it once, either. No, we ran it for a full weekend, sometimes longer. And after the play wrapped, we’d leave the cross standing at the front of the church like a trophy. For weeks afterward, during regular services, it loomed there — scarred, splintered, stained — casting its shadow over every sermon, every song.

    I remember sitting there as a kid, sandwiched between my friends, half-distracted by thoughts of holding hands with one of the girls in the youth group, sneaking glances during altar calls. Hormones and holy fear mixed together in a strange cocktail of confusion.

    But beneath my adolescent daydreams, another thought kept gnawing at me.

    Why did it have to be this way?

    Even as a kid, part of me wondered why the story was written in blood. Why the whole spectacle — the torment, the torture, the grotesque display of violence — was presented as good news. Why God, who supposedly loved us beyond comprehension, needed so much suffering to be satisfied.

    I didn’t have the words for it then. I just knew something felt off.

    Now, all these years later, I’ve started to understand what that feeling was.

    It wasn’t doubt.

    It was an invitation.

    That invitation would take years to answer. But eventually, it led me to question everything I thought I knew about the cross.

    Photo by Patricia McCarty on Pexels.com

    I grew up believing the cross was God’s “Plan A”.

    That from the dawn of time, God had been building toward this gruesome, brutal solution to the problem of human sin. That our rebellion was so total, so cosmic, that the only way for God to stomach our existence was to watch His own Son be tortured to death like a common criminal.

    They told me this was love.

    But I remember staring at the blood-stained cross in the sanctuary, week after week, and feeling something under my ribs tighten. Not reverence. Not relief.

    Grief.

    Confusion.

    A quiet, trembling sense that something here didn’t fully add up.

    Because if God is love… real love, unconditional love, not transaction-in-disguise love… then why the need to demand blood at all? Why set up a system of cosmic justice that could only be balanced by violence? Why build a universe that requires innocent suffering to fix what fear and separation broke?

    The deeper I went, the harder it became to reconcile the claim that Jesus’ death was necessary with the belief that God is, at essence, goodness itself. Not just good “to us,” but good at His very core level of being.

    And it turns out, the language had been whispering to me the whole time. I just didn’t know how to listen.

    Photo by Karol Wiu015bniewski on Pexels.com

    See, we inherited a story shaped not just by scripture, but by centuries of empire. Empire loves blood sacrifice — because empire lives by the sword and dies by the sword. Empire loves a violent god, because it justifies its own violence.

    But buried beneath the empire’s version of the gospel is an older song.

    Take atonement, for example. We were taught it meant appeasing God’s wrath. But the English word comes from “at-one-ment.” Union. Restoration of relationship.

    Or repentance. The Greek is metanoia — not groveling, but a change of mind. A widening of perception. A turning toward the light.

    And in Hebrew, there’s teshuvah — not a groveling apology, but a return. A homecoming. It literally means “to turn back,” not toward punishment, but toward the Source of life itself. Teshuvah is the art of remembering where we belong, of finding our way back to wholeness when we’ve lost the path. (I wrote about it at length in this blog post a few weeks ago.)

    Even sin. The Greek hamartia means “to miss the mark.” Not a legal violation deserving execution or bloodshed, but a distortion of aim. A sickness needing healing, not punishment.

    And sacrifice? Long before it became code for slaughter, the Latin roots point to “to make sacred.”

    To make sacred.

    What if Jesus didn’t die to satisfy God’s demand for violence, but to make sacred even the ugliest parts of our human story? To enter into the belly of the beast — into the empire’s machine of war, death, and brutality — and expose it for what it really is?

    A sham.

    A system built on fear, fed by scapegoats, perpetuated by people too terrified to imagine another way.

    The cross was never Plan A.

    Plan A was — and always has been — union.

    Plan A was the Garden. Walking together in the cool of the day. No separation, no shame, no sacrifice needed.

    Plan A was breath. Spirit. Ruach. The animating presence of God in all things.

    But we lost our way. Not because God demanded blood, but because we did. We built religions of fear and altars of violence, believing that blood would keep the gods at bay.

    And Jesus — Yeshua — stepped into our madness not to affirm it, but to dismantle it from the inside.

    To let it exhaust itself on his body.

    And then, to rise from the grave, holding out his wounds not as receipts of divine satisfaction, but as evidence of our deliverance from the system we thought would save us.

    The cross is not a transaction.

    It’s a revelation.

    A revelation of what happens when divine love collides with human fear.

    And a revelation that, in the end, love always has the last word.

    I’ll be unpacking this more in my next post: Does God Need Blood?

    But for tonight, let this question linger:

    What if the cross was never Plan A?

    What if God’s original plan was never punishment, but participation?
    Never condemnation, but communion?

    And what if the resurrection is not God’s bailout of a broken system, but the unveiling of a love, miraculous and powerful, that has been beneath it all, waiting to be discovered?

    We’ll go there.

    Soon.

    Stay tuned.

    Thanks for taking the time to read my blogs! I’d love it if you subscribed or left a comment, especially if something resonates with you or if your church had an easter play and I brought up some memories! -JD

  • John the Baptist

    The Wild Prophet

    Photo by Tobias Bjørkli on Pexels.com

    When we think about John the Baptist, we tend to picture a ragged, half-crazed desert preacher — camel hair for clothes, wild honey in his beard, shouting about repentance while dunking people in the Jordan River. A supporting character at the beginning of Jesus’ story. The opening act before the main event.

    In my opinion, we’ve sanded down his rough edges a little too much.

    John the Baptizer wasn’t just a quirky preacher paving the way for Jesus. He was a societal disruptor. A revolutionary. A wilderness prophet who stood outside the system not just geographically, but theologically. He wasn’t just announcing Jesus; he was embodying a radical shift — one we still wrestle with today.

    Let’s take a deeper look at the man Jesus called “the greatest among those born of women” (Matthew 11:11).

    Photo by Ron Lach on Pexels.com

    The Wilderness Prophet

    John didn’t preach in the temple. He preached in the wilderness. That alone should be setting off all the lights on your dashboard. Something more is going on here just beneath the surface.

    In Jewish thought, the wilderness wasn’t just a location. It was a symbol. Chaos. Testing. Transformation. Israel wandered there for forty years. Prophets met God there. Jesus would be tested there.

    And John? He didn’t just visit the wilderness. He became it.

    • He wore camel’s hair and a leather belt — the uniform of Elijah (2 Kings 1:8), signaling that he wasn’t just another preacher but a prophet in the old tradition, standing in defiance against the powerful and idolatrous.
    • He ate locusts and wild honey — food of the poor, the unclean, the untamed.
    • He rejected the privilege and status of his priestly lineage (his father, Zechariah, was a temple priest) and instead lived on the fringes of society.

    He wasn’t a prophet within the system. He was a prophet who was raging against the system.

    Repentance: More Than Feeling Bad

    John’s central message boiled down to one word: “Repent!”

    But the Greek word used — metanoia — doesn’t mean “feel bad for your sins.” It literally means “change your mind,” or more deeply, “go beyond your current way of thinking.”

    John wasn’t calling people to wallow in guilt. He was calling them to wake up. To see differently. To think differently. To change their mind.

    Repentance wasn’t about religious rule-following. It was about freedom — stepping out of old patterns, old assumptions, old ways of being, and into something new. It was about loosening the grip of fear, power, and control so people could be in a state to recognize the Kingdom that Jesus was bringing.

    My friends in Convictions actually released a song all about this type of spiritual shift aptly titled “Metanoia” and if you’re in to Metalcore you should check it out!

    “Underwater Swimming” by Tim Marshall/ CC0 1.0

    Baptism: A Radical Act of Rebirth

    Baptism wasn’t new. Ritual washing was already a part of Jewish tradition. But as with most things in the scriptures: John did something different. Something new.

    In the temple, ritual washing was about purity — preparing to enter God’s presence. It was something you did repeatedly, cleansing yourself over and over.

    John took it out of the temple and into the Jordan River. And suddenly, it wasn’t about ritual purity anymore.

    It was about death and rebirth.

    Going under the water was a symbolic burial of the old self. Rising up was a step into new life. A life not defined by Rome, not controlled by the temple, not shackled by fear.

    It wasn’t about being clean. It was about being free.

    The Baptist and the Lamb

    Then one day, Jesus showed up at the river.

    John saw him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)

    It’s easy to miss how shocking that was. The crowd would have expected a Messiah described as a lion — a warrior-king, a liberator.

    But John calls him a lamb — a symbol not of power, but of sacrifice.

    John saw what others missed. Jesus wasn’t coming to conquer through violence. He was coming to conquer through self-giving love. Flipping the whole thing upside down.

    What John Means for Us

    John’s life wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t safe. It ended in a prison cell, with his head on a platter.

    But his radical message still echoes:

    • Go to the wilderness. Sometimes you have to leave the familiar — the systems, the beliefs, the comforts, the noise — and go out into unadulterated creation to hear God clearly.
    • Repent. Not by beating yourself up, but by letting go of the old familiar ways that no longer serve truth or love.
    • Step into the water. Leave behind what’s false. Rise into what’s real.
    • Point to the Lamb. Even when people expect a lion or a king. Even when they want power and control, point to self-giving love instead.

    John reminds us that sometimes, the way to prepare for new life is to step outside of the old one — even when it’s messy, uncomfortable, or lonely.

    Because the wilderness isn’t where life ends.

    It’s where new life begins.