i’ve never read an anne rice book. i’ve never seen an anne rice-adapted movie. i’ve never been interested in vampires or books about vampires. despite these things, though, i’ve been a distant and intrigued observer—over the last 10 years—as anne rice has come back to faith. growing up in the catholic church, at the age of 18, she left her [...]

let’s talk menstruation, shall we? ok, so we can talk about more than that, but certainly, it does play a part. we’ll get to that later, though. in the meantime, how about a little biblical interpretation to tide us over? people often view the bible as some kind of transcendent record of endless grandiose, sacred moments. sure enough, the bible [...]

several days ago, a friend and i were talking about how ubiquitous religion is. obviously, we didn’t stumble upon some kind of shocking revelation, but we certainly affirmed that—even more than what we may realize—the concepts of good and evil, gods and devils, dark and light are broadly washed across the expanse of global cultures. certainly, across ages and timezones, [...]

over the last half a year, i’ve blogged about derek webb’s latest innovative project called democracy vol. 1. earlier this year, fans could cast votes for up to 12 songs that they wanted webb to cover. then, the 12 songs receiving the most votes would be covered by webb for the album. the album has been in the process of [...]

time flies when you’re having fun, right? well, what does time do when you’re living in the wake of loss? truth be told, time has flown and we’re approaching 6 months since we lost rob. i was actually going to wait to write this until august 13—the 6 month anniversary of his death—but this is just one of these things [...]

it’s 5th grade. you’re on the playground. you see billy mcgee—the class bully—coming your direction. billy doesn’t beat people up with his fists. but billy knows how to beat people up with his words. you know it’s coming. “hey you. yeah, you. your mom’s so dumb she brought a spoon to the super bowl.” his entourage—little eddie hankins and robby [...]

ok, ok, i know: enough with the sheep, ryan. yes, there’s only so much ryan-poo-poos-on-guns talk one can take. i get it. i swear. one last post. in the aftermath of my previous posts about guns and the culture of fear, i got quite a bit of feedback. it varied from people retweeting the link to posting it on facebook [...]