Quick note about how I’ll hand expletives / profanity in this series. The Latin word from which we get the word “expletive” means “to fill” or “serving to fill out.” By the 17th century, expletives—such as “there are”—were empty, linguistic buffers that filled space without adding meaning. Eventually, the term broadened to include crude or profane language. Dirty fillers, basically.

There will be instances when we revisit music or statements by the artists that contain certain four-letter fillers. My goal, writing from a Christian perspective, is to present the material as-is. Not to be edgy for edginesses sake. Not to excuse their lazy use of language. Nor to glorify it. But to honor the intent and given-ness of the world as it presents itself to us. To seek an integrated, unfiltered approach to these cultural artifacts and the people who made them.

Last week, Lindsey took our two older kids, James and Rain, to Jr. high week at a Bible camp in Nebraska—the same camp that Lindsey frequented every summer when she was in Jr. high and high school. They had a special week (Lindsey was even Rain’s cabin leader) and are already dreaming about next year.

I also had a special week, but in a different kind of way. I stayed home with our youngest, Lily, and together we held down the fort. We enjoyed a slower, quieter home together, doing lots of everyday things—work and yard work for me, summer school and piano and lots of reading for Lily—with some bigger adventures sprinkled in. On one afternoon, Lily and I spent some time on a stretch of the Cache La Poudre River not far from our home. The flows were perfect for a bit of lazy-river float tubing, and after a few runs we relaxed on a sandy embankment and drank in the glory of midsummer in Colorado.

And it was while we were resting on this embankment in the shade of towering narrow-leaf cottonwoods, that I happened to look upstream to see a family of common mergansers shuffling across the river. I didn’t know it at the time, because they were some distance away. But I knew it was something uncommonly rad. I called to Lily and followed a footpath upstream 75 yards or so. We rounded a bend, waded out a few yards from the bank, and there they were. A mother merganser and at least a half-dozen fuzzy juvenile-aged ducklings darting along behind her. It was quite a scene. I had only seen a merganser once before and it was an adult, by itself. (So much for being so common!) And then I remembered that I featured a merganser in the spring installment in my “Psalm 1” series. Yes, it's now technically summer, but a merganser is a merganser no matter what season. Here’s the poem, in both written and audio formats:

Guatemala missions trip funding update

I want to offer a sincere and heartfelt bit of gratitude for all of you who donated to our Guatemala missions trip fund. I am frankly a bit blown away by the generosity shown by readers of this newsletter, by friends, family, and neighbors, and by members of our church community. I am pleased to report that all four of us—myself, Lindsey, James, and Rain—are fully funded for the trip. There is still a lot of prep work to do, but seeing how God provided financially has taken a weight off and freed us to set our hearts and minds fully on the trip itself now.

We would still covet your prayers as we get prepped and especially while we are in-country July 18-24. You can read more about what we’ll be doing and who we’ll be serving here:

Let’s get ready to podcast

Tomorrow—Wednesday, June 24—the first episode of my new podcast, The Songs We Know By Heart, will be available at an internet near you. I am beyond excited for this and can't believe that after a year-plus of dreaming and percolating and ruminating that it's going to become a real thing.

Subscribe by email here so you get notified every time a new episode arrives—go to the Notifications section and click the toggle button next to The Songs We Know By Heart. You can also listen to each episode on Spotify. And if you know any 40 something-year-old dad’s in need of a free, belated Father’s Day gift, this tops the list in my opinion. Please share and like and subscribe and thanks in advance for listening. Here’s the teaser in case you missed it last week:

That’ll do for now. Happy midsummer to all ya’ll. Thanks for reading.

Okay, maybe not original. (There’s no new ground to break, Copernicus.)

But I am starting a podcast. If you’ve ever wondered what life and music felt like between January 1, 2000 and September 11, 2001, I am the guy for this:

Here’s the basic gist: I’m dubbing this a “small-batch podcast series” about the music that helped define the cultural mood between January 1, 2000 and September 11, 2001. By “small-batch,” I mean that, unless things go differently than I expect, this is going to run for a handful of months this summer and fall, with the timing tied to the 25th anniversary of 9/11. This also means that I won’t be exhaustive in the albums that I cover. Some that deserve attention will have to be left on the studio floor.

We’ll kick things off on Wednesday, June 24. You can follow along on Substack or Spotify. (Go here to subscribe via email. Step-by-step instructions for this below.)

But, yes, it’s hard to believe that September 11, 2026 marks 25 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That’s a quarter of a century. That’s sobering and almost incomprehensible.

In my podcast, I’m going to go a little further back, back to that sliver of time between the close of one century and the defining moment of the next. To a a time of cultural, technological, and spiritual transition. A time of brooding moodiness and restless contradictions.

So much of the music released between January 1, 2000 and September 11, 2001—this in-between era—captured and accelerated this existential moodiness. Didn’t matter if it was U2 or Jimmy Eat World or Eminem or Modest Mouse or movie soundtracks like Mission: Impossible 2. The songs that millions of American teens and young adults came to know by heart during these 21 months not only gave voice to this this mood but also, in a way, prepared us for what came next.

That’s what I’ll be exploring in The Songs We Know By Heart. In each installment, we’ll dust off our proverbial CaseLogic Compact Disc organizers and slip a CD into the proverbial stereo to see what kind of retrospective light it can shine on those early, undefined days of the 21st century—and maybe even our present moment.

How to subscribe via email

I’m stoked and terrified and, to be honest, a wee bit unsure about how all of this will go.

But I’ve been mulling over this idea for about a year. I pitched this podcast series to a couple of outlets and got turned down. So, I decided it was time to do something about it or add it to the Regret Pile of ideas that I didn’t act on.

I’m choosing the former.

If you’ve been following me for any amount of time, you know that music criticism is something I’ve dabbled in. My review of Mumford & Sons’ Rushmere for World News Group is a good example of this kind of work.

And because this kind of stuff is different from my normal Side Notes fare, I’m going to let you opt in to subscribing via email. Here’s how to do that:

1. Go to trevorsides.substack.com/account

2. Under “Notifications,” toggle the slider-button thing to make it orange

   

I do hope that you will subscribe. But if rock criticism / The Early Aughts aren’t your jam, please share this with 2-3 people whom you think will enjoy and be edified by it.

Also, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. My mom and dad are paid subscribers, and they’re pretty cool people. So if you want to be cool like Mom, here’s your chance.

In the meantime, I am not 100% sure what my output on Side Notes proper will look like. I have a couple things in the works, but writing and editing and engineering a podcast has me feeling like a one-armed paper hanger. So I appreciate your understanding if things are slower than usual.

Thanks for reading (and listening!).

So much of the music released between January 1, 2000 and September 11, 2001—this in-between era—captured and accelerated the existential moodiness of this sliver in history between the close of one century and the defining moment of the next.

Didn’t matter if it was U2 or Jimmy Eat World or Eminem or Modest Mouse or movie soundtracks like Mission: Impossible 2. The songs that millions of American teens and young adults came to know by heart during these 21 months not only gave voice to this this mood but also, in a way, prepared us for what came next.

In each installment, we’ll dust off our proverbial CaseLogic Compact Disc organizers and slip a CD into the proverbial stereo to see what kind of retrospective light it can shine on those early, undefined days of the 21st century—and maybe even our present moment.

The first episode drops Wednesday, June 24. Follow along on Substack or Spotify. And who knows, maybe I’ll release the WAV files on iTunes so you can burn a CD of the episodes and listen without The Algorithm knowing what you’re doing.

There’s some big news out of the Sides household that I wanted to share with you, dear reader. And this news comes with an invitation for participation, as well.

This summer, Lindsey and I are taking our two older kids, James and Rain, on their first missions trip.

A group of 16 people from our Anglican church in Fort Collins, CO are heading to Guatemala in July with an organization called Filter of Hope. Filter of Hope is a Christian non-profit that works with local churches and other in-country organizations across the globe to distribute and install clean water filters for families living in poverty. And that’s what we’ll be doing for a week in July: taking the gift of clean water and the good news about the Living Water of Jesus to communities in the countryside around Antigua.

Help us meet our fundraising goal

A milestone for our kids

As soon as James and Rain heard about this opportunity, they insisted that we should go. Something struck a chord in their hearts, and their disposition from the get-go was, “Let’s go.” In many ways, Lindsey and I said yes to this trip as a way to honor their willingness and desire to do something big and hard and outside their comfort zones.

James will be 13 in the fall, and Rain turns 12 in the summer. They are growing up—more and more every day, it seems. They are in that season of life where they’re starting to take ownership of their faith. We are trusting that this will be a formative experience in their walk with the Lord as they hit their teens. They’re showing initiative in expanding their Spanish vocabulary. And even though day-to-day specifics of the trip are a bit TBD at this point, they are hoping to get to play soccer or baseball with kids in the villages we’ll be visiting. Our kids showed up in amazing and unexpected ways when we fostered the two littles a couple years ago; I am eager to see how God works through them in this context. I am thankful to be doing this with them, to be putting ourselves in a position to depend on God to provide and guide.

Still, this will be a revealing experience for them—for all of us. Lindsey and I have spent time in Native American reservations both in the United States and in Canada. You can’t fully prepare yourself for the kind of poverty you’re immersed in. It’s a big world, full of hardship and suffering, kept at a distance by our affluence and comfort.

Even something as simple as turning on our kitchen faucet and drinking clear, clean Rocky Mountain water is an unimaginable luxury for billions of people across the globe.1

Why clean water filters?

Roughly 41% of Guatemalans do not have indoor running water.2 Put another way, nearly 7.2 million Guatemalans live in households not connected to the national water distribution network. And a staggering 58% of homes lack connection to a drainage system for their bathrooms. Therefore, most wastewater is discarded without treatment—a practice that compounds the health risks associated with unclean water. According to Human Rights Watch, the Guatemalan government estimates that over 90% of its surface waters are contaminated.

This is a tragic irony, given that Guatemala has more freshwater per capita than most nations. Without getting too deep into the details or history, Guatemala’s water crisis is primarily about poor infrastructure and poor (or corrupt) political leadership.

What are the downstream effects of this lack of access to clean water in Guatemala?

• Approximately 9.5 million Guatemalans lack safely managed water3

• Nearly half of children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition

• As of 2019, Guatemala’s Unsafe WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) mortality rate is 15.3 deaths per 100,000 people—more than double that of any neighboring country

• That equates to roughly ~2,800 deaths per year across all ages from WASH-attributable causes (diarrhea, intestinal infections, and malnutrition linked to unsafe water and sanitation)4

• And 47% of all diarrhea deaths in Guatemala are attributable to unsafe WASH conditions—the highest rate in Central America

This is why Filter of Hope exists. And this is why we’re going. Filter of Hope can operate around ineffective infrastructure (physical and political) to provide an elegant solution to families in poverty without access to clean water. Each day of our trip, we’ll be traveling into the countryside with members of their team and partners from local churches to distribute filters and share the gospel of Jesus. There will also be a considerable amount of hiking to villages or homes that are not accessible by ground transportation.

Which is why they made their filters small, light-weight, and easy to transport. They fit inside a quart-sized plastic bag, even as they use the same technology as kidney dialysis: hollow fiber membranes. The perforations are just 0.1 micron in diameter—three times smaller than e. coli bacteria. According to their website, the Filter of Hope filter is 100% effective at removing all “harmful bacteria and microorganisms.”

The filters can produce up to 250 gallons of clean water per day and, with regular cleaning, can last for up to 10 years.

This is literally a life-saver.

Watch how easy it is to install and use:

What’s the spiritual state of Guatemala?

In Psalm 63, we read how David sought for God in a “dry and weary land where there is no water.” In Guatemala, the people’s spiritual thirst is matched by their physical thirst in a land where there is an abundance of water—but water that’s been compromised. Water that needs to be cleaned before it can safely and properly clean and satisfy the parched.

It’s a fitting (but imperfect) analogy for the spiritual realities on the ground in Guatemala, as well. Here’s a snapshot.

• Roman Catholic = roughly 45% of the population

• Protestant / Evangelical (non‑Catholic Christian) = about 42%, mostly Pentecostal and independent evangelical churches5

But according to the fact sheet provided by Filter of Hope, “Mayan religion and spirituality still has a very strong presence in Guatemala.” This is a “natural, cosmological sort of spirituality that’s polytheistic as well as animistic.” Many indigenous people identify as Catholic or evangelical “on paper” but still practice Mayan rituals (altars, offerings, folk saints, etc.). The Gospel Coalition sums up the health of the church in Guatemala by noting the prevalence of “syncretistic paganism, immature leadership, and a health‑and‑wealth gospel.”

That is to say, Guatemalans are spiritual and religious.

It sounds very similar to what you’d find on many Native American reservations in the United States and Canada: lots of Christian influence and statistical dominance that’s watered-down by Mayan religious practices, compromised by prosperity teaching, and weakened by gaps in Bible literacy and proper discipleship.

How you can help

We’d love to have you be a part of this endeavor with us. We’re asking for two things:

The first is praying for us, our team, and the Guatemalans we’ll be meeting and spending time with. As Oswald Chambers said, prayer is not preparation for the greater work, prayer is the greater work. So this is no small ask. Cross-cultural humanitarian work combined with evangelism is going to draw the ire of sinister spiritual forces, and the more prayer the better.

The second is by giving financially. The cost per participant is about $1,990, which includes the cost of the 80 filters we’ll be delivering and coaching families on how to use. As of this publication, we’ve met half of our goal, and you can help us fully fund the trip. You can make a donation here. All contributions are tax-deductible.

(Quick note: the above link is only for “my” trip page, even though all four of us are registered together. If you want to, you can make donations to each of our “trip pages.” Here are the links if you want to do that: Lindsey, James, Rain.)

Clean water + Living Water in Guatemala

I’m happy to answer any questions or share more details about the trip and what we’ll be doing. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email directly.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for your prayers and for prayerfully considering giving financially to help make this trip—and clean water for families in need—possible.

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (John 7:37-39)

Red foxes are rad. Red foxes have the best Latin-science name. Vulpes vulpes. How rad is that. Do you know how uncommonly rad you have to be to have the same first and last science name? Pretty stinkin’ rad. Red foxes are that rad.

Red foxes are so uncommonly rad because, though a member of the canidae family, they share many characteristics with felines. Rad-ness correlates to cat-ness, is what I’m saying. (Not to be confused with Katniss.) Search your feelings: you know it to be true. Here’s a partial list of the uncommonly rad things that red foxes and cats have in common:

• Vertical slit pupils—super suitable for night vision and judging distances

• Slyly sensitive whiskers for navigating in the dark

• Active at night (see: previous two points)

• Retractable claws for all-round rad-ness and also for climbing trees (I have seen a red fox run up a tree after a squirrel—it was so rad)

• They stalk and pounce on their prey, solo—whereas wolves and other lame canines hunt in packs to chase down their prey

Did you know that red foxes (and other varieties of foxes, just to be clear) use the earth’s magnetic field to locate field mice and other prey hiding under snow or grass? It’s true. This is the most rad thing about red foxes, if you ask me. When foxes align their pounce to the northeast—true magnetic north—their kill rate is 73%. This is called “magnetoreception.” It’s like a rangefinder, but one that only a fox can use.

That is uncommonly rad. Also, that is very cat-like kill rate.¹ That is an uncommonly rad kill rate. Have you ever seen your average, slobbering grey wolf or your average, slobbering golden whatever-oodle align their pounce to true magnetic north? Can your dog even pounce? What is your dog even doing with its life if it’s not aligning its pounce to true magnetic north like rad-es rad-es vulpes vulpes? True magnetic north for true fox.

Yeah, science. Yeah, Latin. Yeah, foxes.

If I were to ask any of the uncommonly rad graphic designers I’ve had the privilege of knowing and working with to design a family crest for our household, I’d ask for the incorporation of a fox somewhere in that crest. Maybe the shape of the crest itself is in the shape of a fox head. Like that overpriced outdoor gear brand from Scandinavia.

Why am I talking about foxes and fox-themed family crests? What are we doing here? Why is the title of this post so obviously but immaculately pun-y?

It’s because the foxes are back.

Get the full fox news update

Poets’ corner

Note: I wrote this poem a handful of years ago about a different fox. One I used to see from a distance while on walking breaks at work. I figured now would be a good time to share it.

The Fox

I can see you walking down the path
with unhurried delight. All you want
is to watch me and smile.
Fear prefers distance, and before
you’ve rounded the bend by the willow
I’m already half way across the pasture
headed toward the taller grass
at an anxious trot, only stopping
once or twice to look back
to make sure you’re still there.

Thanks for reading, y’all.

The trip came together after we pulled the trigger on extending the existing hardwood in our kitchen and dining rooms throughout the rest of the main level of our home. This project was going to displace us for a week-and-a-half. So, on a half-whim, we decided, hey, let’s get outta town.

About a week before we departed for the East coast, the kids helped me tear out the carpet (they had a great time!), and a handful of stout friends helped move furniture and decor out of the kitchen, dining, and living rooms. I joked that we were fasting from our home for Lent, but we were going to be returning to resurrected floors. (We got back the Tuesday of Holy Week.) And that is what happened. It feels like a new house, and we got a healthy portion of things put back together in time to host the Easter meal at our place with Lindsey’s mom (who, thankfully, did most of the cooking).

I do not have time for a full recount of our trip right now, so I think most of this will be mostly show with a little bit of tell. The high-level summary is that it was one of the best trips I’ve ever taken, and far and away the most extensive, embodied, and enjoyable trip we’ve done as a family. Extensive in its scope (four-ish days in D.C., 9-ish days in central Virginia), embodied in its approach (American history has been the concentration in homeschool this year), and enjoyable for a whole host of reasons (e.g, spending time with my extended family was a blessing, and it was the kids’ first time on an airplane).

For the kids, their big highlights included the Air and Space Museum, boat tour to Mount Vernon, Museum of Natural History, musket and artillery demonstrations at the American Revolution Museum, Jamestown Settlement, playing and romping about the Virginian countryside with all of their awesome second cousins, and spending so much time (and all my money) in the gift shops at every place we went.

This was the first time I’d been to DC since my freshman year of high school. But I left this trip feeling more gratitude for my country—even given the state of *feebly waves hand at all that’s going on right now*—than I have it a long, long time.

Visiting the Library of Congress has a lot to do with this refreshed gratitude. I was not prepared for its beauty, austerity, and the way it steeped you in the classical, Christian tradition that’s the beating heart of Western Civilization and, by extension, America. Sorry to get all culture war-y, but if all libraries made this their objective, things might be a wee bit different these days.

It’s easy to think that the United States is just a baby country, even as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our independence from Britain this year (the swag of which was everywhere we went, from DC, to central Virginia to Yorktown). But in a sense our country is much older. It has its roots in a tradition that goes back millennia. This was literally on display at the Library of Congress. One of the original Gutenberg Bibles was on display. At the lookout room, where you can peer down into the actual library part of the Library, the rotunda is surrounded by bronze statues of figures from the core disciplines (art, philosophy, poetry, religion, etc.), ranging from Moses to Plato to St. Paul to Newton to Shakespeare. This is our legacy as much as Washington or Hamilton or Madison and Jamestowne or Plymouth Rock.

Not that age is the only thing, but it is something, and it is comforting to be reminded of the richness of the soil so easily taken for granted. The monuments. The narrow cobbled streets of Alexandria, VA (and the pubs where Washington and Jefferson and Adams once ate and drank together). The redoubts at the Yorktown battlefield. The random historical marker along the roadside at Wilmington, VA, about Lafayette’s celebration tour through the area years after the Revolutionary War ended. Jefferson’s original book collection. The forest trail leading to the bowling green at Mount Vernon.

I was moved to tears a couple of times at Mount Vernon, the estate of George Washington. I was surprised by this, but perhaps I shouldn’t have been. I was, after all, in my (founding) father’s house. The tour group we were part of was standing in the foyer or guest entrance of Mount Vernon—the original and oldest part of the house, built by Washington’s father. And I think it was a combination of the artwork and the talk of the parlors and the kind of guests who were ushered into those parlors (Lafayette, etc.) and touching the black walnut banister that those same guests out of the classical, Western tradition had also touched that moved me through time and space, yes, but also to tears of gratitude because of the fact that my family and I share in this story. The second time I cried was at Washington’s tomb. This was not a monument. It was a resting place. I thanked God for Washington and for all that he made possible (and I wasn’t referring to the Virginian provision bundle for sale on the grounds that we had for lunch—freshly baked bread, ham butter, cheese and prosciutto). I was thankful for his courage and fortitude and all the other virtues he possessed—the same ones depicted at the Library of Congress—and what that kind of life made possible for my family and the countless other families throughout the last 250 years.

(Not pictured: all the 35mm photos I took on my dad’s 46-year-old Pentax MX but haven’t developed yet.)

Note: Pairs well with Psalm 32.

The snow is imposed against the world.
Against lawns so thirsty in the winter drought.
Against trees so bare with penitence.
Against hearts so banked,
against wills so scattered,
strewn, and cold under the purple night.
The ashen-white flakes create as they cover,
promise as they prolong.
Somewhere in all that dark,
mercy sparks dead fires—
a gladness I can’t impute to myself,
an embrace that may be found,
a love always waiting,
no matter how long the winter.

I like to ease into January. To let the 12 days of Christmas help inform my approach to the new year with a reminder that life is not about optimization. To find the balance between reflection and action. And with kids and life and work and all the other things hardly ever slowing down, I usually end up needing more time than not to finish reflecting on the year that was so that I have some amount of clarity and wisdom about what to set my hands to in the year that is.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve worked through YearCompass. My boss recommend it, and now I am recommending it to you if you are looking for a tool to help you close out 2025 and start up 2026 with clarity.

Looking back on my what I wrote in 2025 has been part of that process. And today I’m rounding up my most-read pieces of 2025 into a single entry. There are a few reasons for this:

• As I mentioned, reviewing my writing output has helped put a bow on 2025. Much of what I write is directly connected to what I live. What does the trail of ink say about where I’ve been and what I’ve learned?

• For those who have recently subscribed, consider this a very belated Christmas gift. Thank you for being here, and I hope you enjoy and get value out of this year-in-review recap.

• Lastly, I hope that the re-upping of these posts will serve you in some way as you reflect on 2025 and put intention to 2026.

Okay, let’s get to it. Here are the five most-read posts from 2025, in descending order. (Ascending? I can never keep this straight.)

Honorable mention: My review of Rushmere by Mumford & Sons

While not a post on my own platform, it was one of the highlights of my year (writing or otherwise) and my first foray into podcast work for World News Group.

5. The one in which I make fun of Star Wars (and riff on the excellence of summer 2025)

4. The one about Charlie Kirk

3. The one about the leaves not dying (poem)

2. The one about Psalm 1 in the spring (poem)

1. The one about our cat

I don’t think I say this enough, so, thank you. Thank you for actually giving a portion of your very precious time and attention to the words I put on the page. It’s super humbling—and also life-giving. Thank you for being part of this journey.

And this happens to be your first time on this particular corner of the internet, t’would be delighted if you subscribed.

Subscribe now

Here’s to more words, more stories, more glimpses of the Father’s spirit of adoption in the stuff of this world.

Blessings to you and yours in 2026. See you soon.

Last week, we laid to rest one of our two cats. His name was Dimitri, but we called him Meters.

He had been struggling with his health for quite some time. And over the last year, there were a few moments when we thought that this was it. But each time, he found another life, found a new level of stability, and carried on. There was no cure for his multiple conditions, and we talked often with the kids about that reality.

Even then, there’s nothing that can prepare you for when the time finally comes to put down a companion animal. Meters took a decided and definite turn for the worse two weekends ago. We scheduled an appointment with our vet. Over the next three or four days, we kept him comfortable, snuggled as much as possible, and started saying our farewells. Lindsey’s hospice nursing experience was a Godsend, and she knew exactly what to do.

When it was time to take him to the vet, Meters was camped out on his favorite spot on the back of our couch, sleeping in the low December sun. The tears were many. Everyone gave him one last embrace in his home. Lindsey took his paw prints on pieces of clay. He cried out only once or twice in the pet carrier.

We took the kids with us to the vet’s office. The drive was mostly silent. We were taken to a small room and we huddled around him as the doctor explained the procedure. As she went to prep the medications, I read Psalm 23. Or tried to. My voice wasn’t working quite right. And then came the end of his suffering and pain. Lindsey stroked his fur as he settled down for his long, final nap.

As I said, Meters had not been well for quite some time. He was not the cat he once was. He required a lot of attention and care. I never thought I would be that kind of pet owner, but I definitely became one over the months and months of dispensing meds and specialty kidney food. As the euthanasia was given, I did feel a wave of relief. And I also marveled at the paper-thin wall between life and death. After all these months of doing what we reasonably could for Meters and waiting for him to go, he was at last gone. And we wept.

On the drive home, we talked about the foolishness of trying to escape suffering in this life. About the surety of receiving comfort in Christ. We told some of our favorite stories about Meters.

Earlier that day, I had dug a grave in our backyard. (Nate Bargatze is right: there’s nothing harder than digging a hole in the ground.) We took Meters there. Lindsey had wrapped him a blanket inside a small box, and he was curled up like he did when he slept in his favorite spots around the house—on the couch in the sun or on the blue recliner. In Every Moment Holy, there’s a liturgy “For the Loss of a Living Thing,” and I barely managed to get through that and needed help from everyone to read it as we sat and stroked his fur one last time. The kids had drawn pictures of him, and these we laid inside the box before we laid him in the ground. The kids helped me fill the grave with dirt. They each grabbed a handful of landscaping rocks and set them over the mound. I was thankful for their help. And I think it was important for them to partake in this austere and heavy work.

I think we may have prayed the Lord’s prayer, and I think I found a couple words to say after the liturgy from Every Moment Holy. We may have even sung the verse from “O Come O Come Emmanuel,” the one about Jesus giving us “victory o’er the grave.” I’m thankful for the proper goodbye we gave him. It was as beautiful and meaningful as it was sorrowful. The “Liturgy for the Loss of a Living Thing” helped us lean into that seeming contradiction. Here’s how it ends. Tissues strongly recommended.

Continue reading at TrevorSides.com

Related read no. 1: “Jesus is not the dingo of Judah, after all.”

I mention this later on in the piece about Meters, but this isn’t the first time I’ve written about the spiritual / metaphorical significance of cats and Narnia. For Mockingbird, I reviewed Weezer’s 2023 EP Winter, in which frontman Rivers Cuomo trudges through an existential winter void of Christmas. Here’s an excerpt:

Starving for connection, we murmur a prayer of desperation to a God we despise while seeking substitutes that can’t bring our cold, dead hearts to life. We’ll take the dog instead.

Oddly enough, Cuomo admits that he and his family don’t own a dog. They have two cats. And at the very end of “I Want a Dog,” right as Cuomo’s falsetto “Oooh” fades out, a cat meows. A thrill of hope.

Look, I don’t want to turn this into a debate about cats and dogs. Because it’s obvious that cats are the more spiritual animal. From ancient Egypt, to the Hebrew scriptures, to C.S. Lewis, cats, not dogs, are the metaphor-bearers. Jesus is not the dingo of Judah, afterall.

Maybe Cuomo — and the rest of us shivering in spiritual and emotional solitude — doesn’t need a needy, therapeutic lap dog for a companion as much as he needs a cat. A friendly cat, to be sure, but also mysterious and less desperate for constant approval. A good-but-not-safe cat who is Lord of the Seasons. Who can bring about a happy Christmas amid our bleak midwinter. A cat — nay, a Lion — who has overcome the deep sleep of death to bring us life.

Related read no. 2: “Can we listen to the wardrobe?”

A throwback to August 2024 when the 7-year-old boy we were fostering was going through a rough time—and one of the few things that brought solace was The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Related read no. 3: God hides us in the shadow of his wings

From 2021, this extended reflection on birds in both Scripture and poetry remains one of my favorite things I’ve cobbled together on my blog / Substack. It’s been rewarding looking through it now, as our kids are focusing on birds in their Christmas school this week.

That will do for now, friends. Thank you for reading. Have a blessed Christmas.

One of the core beliefs in this here corner of the internet is that adoption is at the heart of ultimate reality. In a very real sense, we’re all orphans, longing for our forever home (see Psalm 84). The God of the Christian Bible knows a thing or two about adoption (see Romans 8). About caring for orphans (see Psalm 68 and James 1). About making families out of less-than-ideal circumstances (see Luke 2). And it was that giant of an Anglican, Jim Packer, who summed up the New Testament’s message as “adoption through propitiation.”

This big, ultimate story about a Father who stops at nothing to make us his children inevitably finds its way into our smaller stories; the Word who promised not to leave us orphans (John 14:18) shapes the words we tell ourselves about what it means to be human.

And this has been the focus of Side Notes: to sit on the banks of the confluence of adoption, poetry, and pop culture, sharing about my own family’s adventures in these waters and noting when the water of adoption spills over and into the stories we tell ourselves.

I think I’ve done a pretty solid job of adhering to the theme. Even when current events, especially of the political nature, have tempted me to spill some ink. But I’ver never written overly about politics or political things in this space. I’ve stayed in my lane and let lots of other people write very capably about regional, national, and international politics that so relentlessly capture our collective attention spans.

But politics won’t leave us alone. And if the theme of adoption and foster care overlaps with current events, I want to have the eyes to see and the follow-through to stay true to my mission, even if it gets “political.”

Which brings me to Charlie Kirk.

It’s been over two months since his assassination at a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University. I’m not here to add to the takes about what his death means or doesn’t mean for the future of America or conservatism or Christianity. (If you’re looking for thoughtful reflections on Kirk’s life, legacy, as well as some what-ifs, I’d point you to these pieces by David Bahnsen, (for World News Group and on her Substack, Albert Mohler, and Matthew Lee Anderson.)

(There’s also… Charlie Sheen?!?! You know the world is going crazy when Charlie Freaking Sheen is numbered among the voices of reason.)

Returning to these articles now feels a little bit like a time warp. Even though Kirk’s murder was only ~8 weeks ago. But that’s how fast time flies in the age of “social” media, unrelenting news cycles, and constant controversy.

(The current controversies swirling around Kirk and TPUSA center on utterly crackpot characters like Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and Candace Owens. And I adamantly refuse to go there. You’re welcome.)

For what it’s worth, I was not a regular follower of Kirk or TPUSA prior to his murder. Maybe I wasn’t quite in his Ideal Customer Profile. Maybe the algorithms, in their infinite wisdom, decided videos of his conversations with disaffected youth on college campuses wasn’t my thing? Either way, as I read about Kirk’s life and watched video after video of his dialogues with college students in the days after his death, the magnitude of his loss grew and grew. As Bahnsen noted, Kirk was a once-in-generation talent. His death was a loss for our country, for the conservative movement, for the idea of ideas, for the Socratic method, and for the defense of the Christian faith.

But the weight of his loss will be felt most in the lives of his two young children. And in the lives of the children he ministered to on college campuses.

Continue reading on TrevorSides.com

Poetry appreciation: last chance to say goodbye to autumn

ICYMI, or in case you’re still not ready to say goodbye to autumn, here are a couple poems of mine to keep you company in these graying November days. Check these links 👇

From the vault: “I have more in common with a Pilgrim.”

A Thanksgiving-adjacent reminder that Nate Bargatze is the best. And his monologue on SNL a couple years was a moment for dads everywhere. Me included. 👇

Thank you

You, here, reading this is no small thing. And I’m deeply, truly grateful for your support. Thank you.

Have a contented and blessed Thanksgiving.

The leaves are not dying because they were
never alive in the first place. The trees

are the living things, and the leaves are organs
full of cells full of chloroplasts for harvesting light.

We were taught this in kindergarten as
we copied the fingerprints of an ash

or maple onto wax paper with a crayon:
the leaves make food so the tree can eat

and so we can breathe cleaner air and this
is why the leaves are green and the sky is blue

and there’s really no reason to go making
up metaphors where there aren’t any—

let the trees stand and let the leaves fall
and I’m probably going out on a limb here

but that’s because the public schools aren’t
what they used to be and the kids

aren’t taught logic, nor can they tell
a syllogism from a deciduous tree—

oh, but now I’m getting off track, because
my real point is to remind you that this season

abounds in metaphors, so let’s not go
looking too hard for one to help us make sense

of our frail, fleeting life that changes
from green to red or yellow or rust

as the sun’s rays angle lower in the sky,
as the days drop from the tree of your life,

never to be put back on the stem again.
So, instead of talking about death where

death isn’t actually taking place, consider the fact
that the colorful pigment in the leaf is present

year-round, like, say, that grief you carry
or the hope and love you pour into an endeavor

that might not ever get done, but it’s
the green pigment from the light harvesters,

turning the sun’s energy into starches and sugars,
that hides those hues, that conceals the deeper

reality of things that lies hidden just below
the surface of your eyes that even now

are starting to brim with tears.
So don’t talk about the leaves dying;

they are being let go by the tree after
a summer of growth and hard work.

It’s a protective mechanism, an
intentional abscission, a means to retain water

for the long winter months, and this is
terribly convicting for someone who

tends to white-knuckle his way through life,
clinging to good things even when it’s time to move on.

The veins in the leaf did not labor in vain
and neither have you, though it’s hard to see that now.

Autumn is an apocalypse, a revealing
of life’s inner workings that could only be unveiled

as October’s truth slants across the yard
onto a pile of time and energy and dreams

that your kids raked up with twice as much
joy and cheerfulness as you can muster on a good day.

Turn and repent and believe, for the kingdom
of light is drawing near and this colorful farewell

is trying to show you something, to say something.
But don’t turn facts into pumpkin-spiced similes;

let the shorter days and colder wind do their thing
and take heart: the leaves are not dying.

"Here, the eye learns to appreciate slight variations, the possibilities inherent in emptiness." – Kathleen Norris, Dakota

The meadowlark is the only bird you need
if you want to make a prairie
(as someone once sensibly suggested).

For the meadowlark is the only bird
whose song can fill the pitcher of prairie
sky and sound across the grassy swells

in a single, mighty trill. It's a song
both big and fast, able to cover all
distances both out and up, wide and deep.

Once you have the meadowlark, the other
birds can take their place to complete the theme—
grouse, spotted towhees, redwing blackbirds,

buntings, burrowing owls, and all the rest.
But first, get yourself a meadowlark to
take the edge off the brimming emptiness

of such a place, so exposed and expansive,
all grass and forbs, with hardly a tree
for shelter and shade from your discomfort.

This is why you'll need an evening primrose
when you go about making a prairie,
to keep you company when the birds

settle down at dusk. The white and yellow
blooms welcome the vesper light and take up
the meadowlark's song all through the swirling

black of night, sharing their glory with the
spheres when all other flowers conceal theirs.
Larks, primrose, clover, bees, stars, and planets—

so much, so little, all necessary
for the keeping of open horizons
and the endurance of deep down things.

Note: It’s been a full and beautiful and big summer around the Sides household. And the writing has been a bit sparse. So, this missive is basically an update / proof of life that, yes, this here Stack is still kicking—by way of a handful of things that I’ve been digging lately (i.e., thankful for, excited about, enjoying, etc.).

1. I got a job.

In my last non-poetry post, I shared a bit about finding myself unemployed at the age of 40. Midlife—the middle valley between the first and second halves of life—can come at you fast. But so does the abundant goodness of the Lord. I’m thankful for the people I’ve met and the opportunities that came my way over the last couple months. And I’m extremely thankful and excited to be landing where I’m landing. God has provided things that I didn’t even think to ask for, such is his prodigal generosity. However, I don’t start until August, so the Summer of George continues apace.

The job offer came on Day 57 of my… well, I’m not sure what to call it. Sabbatical? Existential open space? I had thought about “live-blogging” my unemployment experience, daily sharing learnings and insights, joys and challenges. Maybe I’ll do a recap of sorts at some point. One thing I’ll share now is just how fast time goes. Even when that’s seemingly all I have. “The days of our life,” says the Psalmist in Psalm 90, come “quickly to an end” and “are even as a dream and fade away” and are “like the grass” that is “dried up and withered” by evening. I mean, the writing and fine-tuning of a resume for a single application can take all day; I’d look up from my work, realize it’s dinner time, and wonder where the day went. I’ve kept a pretty comprehensive log of the things I’ve done each day during this season, which is less about notching accomplishments as it is about keeping a record of how I spent my time. Whether it was biking to the library with one of my daughters or cleaning out the garage or updating our garden’s drip system. Here is how I used my time; here is the life I lived as life came to me. Lord, have mercy and do something with these loaves and fish.

Alright, this got deeper and more serious than I thought it would. Quick, let’s lighten the mood!

2. Anthropomorphic summer reading.

The subject line comes from the first chapter of The Wind in the Willows, which we’re reading as a family, and which I’m reading for the first time, period. So far: gorgeous. I’m also currently reading Watership Down for this time. What can I say? I’m a late bloomer, Alex, and this summer, I’m gonna bloom with anthropomorphic literature.

3. Baseball.

Our son just finished his first season of baseball, and because I had some extra time on my hands, I jumped in as one of the assistant coaches. It was an amazing season, and it was so fun to see James’s improvement as it progressed. Our team was the Riverdogs, and James wore no. 99 in honor of his hero, Aaron James Judge. (Who played Single-A ball for the RiverDogs of Charleston, no less.) Yankees haters can see themselves out now if you want. Or leave a comment below.

Baseball has so much culture and, dare I say, liturgy. Again, a longer post possibly for another time. Lindsey and I did our part in this enculturation process by watching The Sandlot (multiple times) and the Abbott and Costello “Who’s on first?” routine. For my money, this is the best version of it. You’ve seen it dozens of times. You know you want to watch it again:

4. Competition.

Between baseball games and the kids’ swim meets, it’s been a summer full of competition. (As I put the finishing touches on this newsletter, I’m at a neighborhood pool waiting for the girls’ final meet of the season to begin.) Even though I’ve owned Every Moment Holy for several years, just this summer I discovered the prayer “For Those Who Compete.” And it’s really great, and it’s helped me guide my kids into big moments on the diamond and in the water. Here’s how it opens:

There are, O Lord, eternal patterns—
fragments of the story of redemption—
etched into our competitions.

So let me be shaped by my participation
in them—in this active parable of struggle,
in this drama of things to be risked and lost
or gained, of heroics, of hope defeated, and
hope resurgent, of wars waged against
doubt and the voices in my own head, of
struggle against the elements, struggle
against the limits of my own strength and
endurance and ability, and of struggle against
a real opponent who seeks my defeat.

For these are each small echoes
of the fights that a life of long obedience
to Christ might entail.

5. Compact discs.

It seems like more and more people are coming to the realization that, like Jack in that one episode on the TV show Lost, we have to go back to physical media.

So, the other day whilst moseying through a vintage / thrift store in town, I made it a point to sort through the CD racks. And tell ya what, we made out like we were in a Sam Goody store (but with better prices). A best-of John Denver album, No Fences by Garth Brooks (!!!), and Collective Soul’s debut album. “Shine” is the song you probably know, but “Pretty Donna” is the stirring, string-centric, instrumental jam your soul needs right now.

6. 60 Songs That Explain the 90s: The 2000s.

Rob Harvilla continues to kill it in the second season of this Ringer-produced podcast. You can’t go wrong with any of the episodes, really, but the one on “How to Save a Life” by The Fray—epic. (See also: the episodes on “Hurt” by Johnny Cash and “Can’t Stop” by The Red Hot Chili Peppers.)

(FYI for the parents out there: Rob uses lots of profanity in most episodes, so keep the ear pods in while listening on the way to soccer baseball practice.)

7. Star Wars with the kids.

Okay, look. I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan. It’s fine for what it is, which is a B-minus fantasy / fairytale with D-plus science fiction. Disney has absolutely sucked the soul out of what was left of this intellectual property after Revenge of the Sith. (Insert all necessary caveats about Rogue One and Andor.) But the bloated, always-in-your-face, non-stop deluge of crap from this franchise has been remarkable to behold. And it is this never-ending sludge that further soured my desire to sit down with my own kids and introduce them to one of the most defining cultural artifacts of the last 100 years.

But we finally did it. I broke down, and over the last couple weeks, the whole fam watched the original trilogy, followed by Rogue One. And of course, the kids love it. They talk about it all the time. They’re super desperate to watch Episodes I - III. And I’m just like… friggin’ Jar Jar Binks.

ALSO. I have other things to get off my chest. FOR INSTANCE, Disney+ only has the “special edition” versions of Episodes IV, V, and VI, filled with all of George Lucas’s mind-numbingly inane and pointless—ahem—flourishes. Which meant that I had to explain who shot who first and why it matters. And, look, it’s hard enough raising kids these days without having to buy the 2006 DVD collector’s edition just so I can watch the original theatrical version of the original trilogy. We all have our crosses to bear, but holy midi-chlorians, our streaming technocrat overlords drain all of the fun out of consuming their shamelessly marketed IP. Like, you really gotta hand it to them. (Ask me about my Disney+ password sometime.) And this is why I haven’t seen Episode IX—and probably never will, unless my kids make me.

And another thing! It’s really difficult to see how the Empire got to be the Empire with all of their shoddy and lackadaisical security protocols. Two examples: in New Hope, the entire crew of the Death Star has been combing the galaxy for two droids. And, oh, hey, whaddya know—two droids randomly happen to show up in the coat-check room in the Death Star, and the Storm Troopers don’t even blink an eye or raise a blaster (not that that would have done any good, mind you).

(Also from New Hope: when Han, Luke, Chewey, and Leia go dumpster diving to escape the hot-pursuing Storm Troopers, WHY DON’T THE STORM TROOPERS CONTINUE THEIR PURSUIT?!?! Like, it’s fish in a barrel at this point! Just walk down the hallway and blast away!)

Example number 2 (the first one was a two-for): in Return of the Jedi, the Emperor tells Luke that he’s sent his best troops to stop the Rebels from blowing up the shield generator on the moon or whatever. Well, the Emperor’s best troops got their white plastic armor pushed in by a bunch of TY Beanie Babies. They’ve got the generator / base on full lock down, the Rebels are right where they want them, but then they fall for the classic blunder of chasing a bunch of Stone Age bears (?) into the woods because… plot reasons. Vapid. Stupid. Frustrating.

Example number 3 (okay, I underestimated the force of ineptitude exemplified by the Empire). This one is from Rogue One. Does the Empire not believe in radar? The Eadu Energy Conservation Laboratory is utterly rocked by, what, a half-dozen Rebel fighter jets? That’s all it took? A little monsoonal moisture and suddenly the early detection systems are kaput? If it was that easy, why didn’t the Alliance bomb that and every other research facility to smithereens a long, long time ago? Just check the 10-day forecast, Mon Mothma, and schedule the bombing run when the chance for precip gets above 50 percent. Sheesh.

Okay, whew, I feel better now. Sure, Rogue One was better than I remembered. And, truly, that shot of Luke on Tatooine, at sunset, as he kicks at the goads of his life’s story—an orphan and a dreamer, so hungry for significance and truth and telos, with John Williams manipulating every last one of our heartstrings—it is quite a moment. A truly moving bit of celluloid. A moment that underscores the reality that every last one of us is in need of adoption by a Father who redeems all of life’s disappointments and frustrations.

Thanks for reading. Til next time…

I do not want to over-contextualize this poem. Sometimes additional context in this format—sharing a poem via the internet—is helpful. But I want you to transplant this into the soil of your own soul without too much "what does it mean" amending. What I will say is that I share it this week for a reason, as a kind of memorial stone for a particularly trying yet beautiful and formative season in our lives.

Trial Gardens

We walked through the gardens one June evening
remarking upon the beauty on trial—
clematis, hummingbird trumpet, penstemon,
veronica, delphinium, blanket flower.

Or was it the trial
that made these things beautiful,
that brought forth the blooms and Latin,
names within names within identities?

Was it the suffering of drought and clay soil
that established the roots?
Was it the grieving of autumn’s certainty
that made growth possible?

I feared this was the truth, that beauty
does not first stand trial but is shaped by it,
raises its head to the sun because of it.
I stood on the path by a hedge of tickseed coreopsis

Processing this, a photosynthesis of the soul,
yet still doubting the fruitfulness
and cursing the cruelty of the season,
when you walked up behind me

And wrapped me in your arms.
I did not know how much I needed the embrace
until I felt the skin of your reassurance
and breathed the midsummer blossoms of your hair.

You, there with me, perennially in my heart.

Previously, on Side Notes

I wrote about finding snippets of Rudyard Kipling’s “If—” in a 20-year-old emo song. And how these proved timely and encouraging, given recent changes in life. (Hello there, unemployment.) In the post, I also reflect on the fact that at this time last year, we were welcoming two foster kids into our household. (There’s an Easter egg in there about today’s poem, actually.)

A couple excerpts:

And yet, for me at least, the verb that both the poem and the song revolve around, the gravitational force that holds everything together, is “stoop.” To stoop means to get low, to come down to the reality of things, to get your hands dirty. It requires a steeled meekness, equal amounts humility and fortitude. Two virtues needed for sowing seeds and maturing to manhood.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about what it means to stoop. I have been having to practice stooping. Taking up the tools at my disposal—however worn-out—for some repair work, for some re-giving of my life to.

In particular, the stooping has centered on two things: my work / job / vocation, and life in general as our family nears the one-year anniversary of when the two foster children were placed with us.

And:

There is so much to thank God for. In this spirit of gratitude, we’ve been taking a prolonged celebratory lap here at the end of the homeschool year, reflecting on how well our kids did in their school work and their extra curricular activities, even with two additional household members causing no small amounts of chaos for most of that time. They persevered; they grew so much; they learned so much more than any textbook could ever teach. I am so proud of them. And I am so proud of my wife. She continued to give of herself to our kids while standing (and stooping) in the gap for two orphaned souls, utterly exposed to generations’ worth of chaos and sin. It was a garden of trials, and her true beauty blossomed under the shadow of God’s gracious wings.

Keep reading

More on beauty

Ted Gioia takes the arts to task for abandoning beauty and abdicating the stewardship and cultivation of it to the “beauty” industry. “Alas, the culture power brokers gave up on beauty long ago. They don’t even use the word anymore. They now deal in content.”

The Honest Broker

Beauty Is Stone Cold in the Arts, but Hot as a Consumer Product

If I do a search for beauty online, where does Google send me…

Read more

a year ago · 443 likes · 125 comments · Ted Gioia

I can’t mention what one Gioia has to say about beauty without bringing up what the other Gioia has to say about beauty. Here is Ted’s older brother and super-dope poet, Dana, defining what beauty is and why it matters. It is so, so good.

Over at Beauty Through Faith, the Substack arm of Kalos Arts Foundation, Fr. John Strickland is asked—per Dostoevsky—if beauty really will or can save the world. The answer depends on what (or who!) Dostoevsky had in mind when he talked about beauty. This convo is a rewarding listen.

Beauty through Faith

Will Beauty Save the World? with Father John Strickland

Welcome to Beauty through Faith, where we explore how divine truth, goodness, and beauty shape our lives and our world. I’m your host, [Your Name], and today I’m honored to welcome Father John Strickland—Orthodox priest, historian, and author of the acclaimed…

Listen now

a year ago · 1 like · Benjamin Harding, Kalos Arts, and Gustav Hoyer

A question for you

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about work and vocation. Specifically, the risk-reward nature of entrepreneurship and making art. Here’s my question: When’s a time you took a risk—in art, work, or some other calling—and how did you decide it was the right time to take said risk? Leave your response in the comments or reply to this email.

‘Til next time, y’all.

I’m recently unemployed. Our family is nearing the one-year mark of when we took in two foster kids. And here I am, taking courage from “If—” by Rudyard Kipling, “Sowing Season (Yeah)” by Brand New, and a John Mark Comer teaching. What is going on?

Look, this is going to get very Midlife Crisis Dad very, very quickly. I will be—as the kids today are saying—giving large amounts of Dad Energy. So, if you a) aren’t a middle-aged dad, b) weren’t a middle-aged dad, c) don’t want to be a middle-aged dad, or d) don’t know someone who is a middle-aged dad, then, well, I’m just saying: you’ve been warned.

Okay, here we go, into a dark valley, thick with unemployment and decades-old emo songs. Yikes. But first: some poetry.

Our two older kids memorized Rudyard Kipling’s beloved poem “If—” as part of their coursework at our Christian classical co-op this year. At the co-op’s end-of-school-year celebration, they stood with the rest of their class and recited it from memory. You likely encountered this poem when you were in elementary school, like me. I don’t remember ever memorizing it, though. Which is why I was a bit surprised to find myself quietly reciting from my seat in the audience these lines from the second stanza:

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

Somehow, I knew these lines but from some other other context. As my mind dug for the source, I realized that I knew them as song lyrics. Yes, they were lyrics—but to what song? Ah, of course: an emo song. And not just any emo song. The second half of the second stanza of Kipling’s “If—” (I love the em dash) appears almost word-for-word in the song “Sowing Season (Yeah)” by Brand New (yes, the name of the band is Brand New), the opening track and lead single from their third studio album, The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me, released in 2006 when I was a junior in college.

And so, as a 40-year-old father, watching my fourth- and fifth-grade kids recite Kipling’s poem, I marveled at the fact that I had been listening to “Sowing Season (Yeah)” for almost 20 years without realizing that I had also been, in part, listening to Rudyard Kipling. How’s that for the value of classical education? How’s that for the staying power of emo? I bet Kipling never envisioned his work would rock as hard as this:

I don’t want to make this one of those click-baity, nostalgic bits of music criticism. But I do want to say a couple things about this song.

First, the lyrics in question. The Kipling lines. I want to make sure you understand how perfectly emo they are. “If—” (em dash FTW) was written around 1895, which is roughly 111 years before “Sowing Season (Yeah)” was released. Here’s how Jesse Lacy, lead singer for Brand New, transposed these lines for 20-something men trying to make something of the 21st century before they knew the full weight and significance of these words:

Is it in you now
To watch the things you gave your life to broken
And stoop and build them up with warn-out tools?

It’s the “Is it in you now” that gets me, that tweaks Kipling’s sentiment ever so slightly in a very emo way. Because as a single 20-something college student—or as a 40-year-old husband and father of three—I may not have it in me. But guess what? That’s okay.

Because—and here’s my second point—there’s good news in the twinkly, hopeful guitars that usher in the opening lines of the second verse:

Nothing gets so bad
A whisper from your father couldn’t fix it.
Your whisper’s like a bridge, he’s a river span.

Thinking of God the Father as a “river span” warrants bright and twinkly guitar chords. The father dynamic also brings in and reflects the fatherly warmth of “If—,” which is a wisdom-poem written from father to son. In some weird way, Jesse Lacy was fathering a subset of Millennials, even though we may not have realized it.

And yet, for me at least, the verb that both the poem and the song revolve around, the gravitational force that holds everything together, is “stoop.” To stoop means to get low, to come down to the reality of things, to get your hands dirty. It requires a steeled meekness, equal amounts humility and fortitude. Two virtues needed for sowing seeds and maturing to manhood.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about what it means to stoop. I have been having to practice stooping. Taking up the tools at my disposal—however worn-out—for some repair work, for some re-giving of my life to.

In particular, the stooping has centered on two things: my work / job / vocation, and life in general as our family nears the one-year anniversary of when the two foster children were placed with us.

Continue reading

Music appreciation

I’ll spare you the curated playlist featuring the essential and authoritative Brand New cuts. You’re welcome. (For all you emo kids reading this, though, hit me up with your top 10 Brand New songs.)

One very not-emo jam our fam has been digging of late is this arrangement of the “Phos Hilaron" (O Gladsome Light). We usually cue it up every so often as we’re getting ready to sit down for our evening meal. When we do listen to it, we’ve found it helpful to prepare our hearts to give thanks for the day that was as we gather around the table.

Good reads (and more music recs?!?!)

Fiction: We recently started listening to the audio version of The Book of the Dun Cow (narrated by Paul Michael, who is superb), and holy cow, is this beast-fable fairy tale a real treat. Think Watership Down meets Lord of the Rings.

Non-fiction: Speaking of LOTR, I am midway through C.R. Wiley’s In the House of Tom Bombadil, a profound little book about one of the most intriguing characters in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth legendarium.

And holy cow Old Man Willow, did you know that Nickel Creek (yes, that Nickel Creek) has a song called “In the House Of Tom Bombadil”?!?!? I did not know this until literally five seconds ago. Which I am ashamed to say, because my wife owns the CD that this song appears on! It’s in her CD case in our entertainment hutch! What a world!

Okay, that’s enough serendipity for one newsletter. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go play this song on repeat on the CD player for, like, an hour straight.

‘Til next time, y’all.

Here is the third installment in my “series” on Psalm 1—this time with an audio option. For the other installments, you can read the autumn one here and the winter one at the bottom of this post. Feel free to read the real Psalm 1 before or after to get the most out of the experience.

Psalm 1

but in spring.
The way of the sinners
is vacant, the seat
of the scornful is empty.
The blessed man
walks along the river
(roaring with resurrection)
under neon trees,
and the white choke cherry
blossoms promise fruit
in due season as it fills the air
with fragrant prosperity.
The ungodly scatter at the scent
and tremble at the runoff
that foams from on high
and swells the banks.
But the Lord knows the way
of the common merganser,
who delights in and has long looked
for each swelling cubic foot.

The English-American folk trio Mumford & Sons are back. And so is the banjo. On March 28, the elder statesmen of the 2010s indie-foilk movement released RUSHMERE, their fifth studio album and first since 2018. And, yeah, RUSHMERE sounds like the Mumford & Sons of old. Not the Mumford & Sons from Wilder Mind and Believe, where they cosplayed like a mashup of The Kings of Leon and The National. What’s more, RUSHMERE finds the genre-chasing prodigals possibly returning to their faith, as well.

Oh, and look at what we have here. It’s my review of the album—in podcast form—on WORLD’s The World And Everything In It. (Web link here, too.) Like I’ve always said about myself: a face for radio and a voice for print. Jump to the 18:42 mark if after hitting play it starts at the beginning of the episode.

I am pretty stoked about how the feature turned out. I am extremely grateful for the wonderful team of editors and audio engineers at WORLD who brought this to life. Hoping more such things can come to life in the future.

Some behind-the-scenes fun. The above photo shows some snowflake-smudged pages in my pocket notebook. On the second page, you can see a Taylor Swift reference taking shape, which, alas, did not make the final cut. (RIP.) And a quick making-of story. One afternoon, I went to a coffee shop to work on the VO script. Shortly after I arrived, this establishment played the full album, front to back, over the house speakers. It was a sign, I tell you.

As you may recall, Mumford & Sons have traditionally been reserved for autumn-only listening. RUSHMERE dropped March 28. Listening to this band in spring has been a new experience for me. I’ll maintain that Mumford & Sons are best experienced on roadtrips through the mountains of Colorado in late September, but RUSHMERE is a very good album for the spring. It is, as I note in my review, teeming with resurrection, restoration, and the sense that all things can be made new. I commend it to you this Eastertide.

Listen to my review here

Related reads

Hungry for more background on the indie-folk scene circa 2012? Here’s my mostly definitive rundown of the best and most relevant bands from that age, with a special focus on The Oh Hellos’ masterpiece, The Deep Dark Valley.

Above, I stated that Mumford & Sons are a trio. This was not always the case. In 2021, their banjo and lead guitarist, Winston Marshall, voluntarily left the band after fallout from a post he made on social media. Well, here he is in The Free Press with a super-interesting piece about his own return journey to faith and the banjo. (But I repeat myself.)

And for kicks and gigs, I also wanted to share one of my favorite reviews of RUSHMERE that I came across in my research. It comes from The Irish Times and opens with a sentence that sounds like it came from the Hipster Ipsum text generator: “As nu-folk figureheads, Mumford & Sons helped set the template for a sort of beard-positive weepy man-pop.”

This is what I want to do with my life: take walks in the snow and let sentences like that fall on me.

Easter poetry recs

Easter isn’t a day. It’s a season. So let’s feast. A few years ago, I shared a couple poems that can help you lean into the feasting. Our family read one of these, George Herbert’s “Easter,” before our Easter Sunday meal this past weekend. And it was delicious. “Rise, heart; thy Lord is risen.”

Check the recs

Thanks for the reading. And listening!

February has come and gone. March is almost half-way through. I last wrote to you in January. And while I don’t have a hard and fast policy, I generally aim for one piece / newsletter a month. This tends to work out pretty well from a capacity perspective, but my posts tend to be lengthier than shorter. Let’s make this about math:

Capacity (time + energy) multiplied by Word Count = x posts per month.1

For most writers, solving for x leads to a whole host of neuroses and/or mental, emotional, and spiritual issues. Or, worse, it can lead to writing. (This reminds me of my favorite Baptist joke: Why don’t Baptists talk about sex? Because it could lead to dancing.)

Yes, I would like my output to be more. I would like to shorter dispatches more regularly. As Jonathan Rogers at recently framed it, when people share creative work, they are making more of the world they want to live in. So, I want to make more of and live in *gestures like Tom Hanks in this scene from Castaway at the Side Notes dashboard* this kind of world. There are days when I am more or less at peace with the current arrangement. And then there are days when I feel the stiff wind of Resistance in my face (per Steven Pressfield) and can’t even summon the Capacity to get up early to plunk out even a sentence or two.

Still, what about February? What accounts for the gap between my last post and this one? I do not intend to give you a blow-by-blow account of the gap. You, dear reader, have your own life, and you know as well as anyone how much life can take place in any given stretch of weeks.

But I will say that more than anything, I (and my family) have been exhaling—exhaling from not having The Littles with us. (For those of you who have recently subscribed, The Littles are the two foster kiddos who were placed with us in June 2024.) We’ve been back to a household of five for only a handful of weeks. This feels like an eternity and also like no time at all. (We have visited The Littles a couple of times, most recently over this past weekend. Staying involved in their lives is an exercise in expectation-management: how should we be present and involved when it’s so hard to know how to do either of those things?)

So, we’ve been catching our collective breath. These breaths take on a number of forms. We hosted a Groundhog Day watch party. We un-decorated our house from Christmas. All three kids got sick multiple times. The two older kids turned in their first big paper-writing project in our homeschool community and played a pirate and Brave Girl, respectively, in a stage performance of Peter Pan Jr. We struggled to know what to do with each other on normal, mundane Saturdays because what are those? I read a book about the Children’s Blizzard of 1888. We’ve been praying. We’ve been seeking wisdom and discernment about what’s next. Where are we? What do we need? What needs attention? What needs our “yes” and what needs our “no”?2

This act of exhaling can require an odd amount of Capacity. (My day job has also required large amounts of Capacity lately.) Subconsciously, after I shared my prayer for when a foster child returns home, I knew I needed to step away from the keyboard. To take a break; to let grace and space do their things (which can be painful, as Flannery O’Connor observed).

But I can never turn off the writing part of my life. I have some things marinating. I’m working on an outline of a series of posts about IVF—which, yikes, I might be crazy for even considering this. I’m noodling on something about the disease of poverty. Our family just finished Book 1 of Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga, and I have some issues with the parenting choices on display that need addressed, and tell ya what, I feel qualified to address them. Also, I might have a new piece of music criticism on the horizon in audio form (!). Most if not all of this is TBD. But I am feeling mossy.

There are plenty of things on which I’m itching to spill some ink. It’s just a matter of working out that pesky math problem, of resting and breathing and creating more margin. Because math problems and Resistance can’t stand margin. One last equation, courtesy of a good friend of mine:

Margin = Limits minus Load.

And on the point of future content, I would love to hear from you. As I’m pondering future things and future writing, I want to bring you into that process. What do you want me to write about? What do you want more of? Less of? What topics or questions would you value hearing me riff on? If you have thoughts along these lines, please complete this short survey. (Or just shoot me an email!) I’d value nothing more than getting some good ol’ honest insight from you amazing people.

Start Survey

Okay. That’s it for now. Lord willing, more to come. Blessings to you as you solve for the x-es in your own life.

Note: We prayed through a version of this liturgy for and with our two foster kiddos the last night we were all together. Somehow, I didn’t cry! If you know of other foster / kinship families who are in similar place, please feel free to share.

Father God, we thank you for [Name(s)].
These children are precious to you, and you love them so much.
You love all of your children so much
that you make homes for them.
You love them even more than the birds,
the sparrows, and you make homes for them, too,
nests where their young can feel safe and warm next to you.

God, you made us to want to be at home with you,
and our hearts are sick until
we make our home and find our rest in you. 

In your wisdom, Lord, you thought it best
to make a household out of the people gathered together
in this room right now—people who were once strangers,
who were once not part of the same home.
You made a home for those in need of a home;
you called those with a home to open their doors,
and you were with us every single day.
We can thank you for this even as we acknowledge
the many hardships and sorrows that made it necessary
for us to come together as a household.

Many things happen in this world that ought not to happen.
And it breaks your heart when children
have to leave their home, their parents,
and go to another home,
even if it's just for a short time.
These things leave us feeling scared and alone
and all sorts of other big feelings that we often
cannot find the courage to name.

But nothing is ever out of your control,
and nothing happens without your knowing.
May this give us comfort.
May we find comfort in your Son,
Jesus, who knows what it's like to leave home.
He came to earth as God With Us.
He made our home his home, even as he suffered
and wept and felt the loss of his own Father.

Yes, and:

Jesus also knows resurrection.
He knows what it's like to return home.
He knows how to bring an end to everything sad.

So we give thanks to you, Father,
that you know our ways
and that you will not leave us as orphans.
We ask that Jesus would be with us now
as [Name(s)] get ready to return to their home.
May your Spirit be at work in their family,
replacing anger with love, hurt with healing, fear with safety. 

We ask for the grace to end well our time together with [Name(s)].
This, too, is a kind of loss, yet more change
when all we want is the grace of stability.
Still, we give you thanks for all that you gave us—
the fun and laughter we shared,
the tears we cried,
and the way you moved us from strangers
to a kind of family.

What a joyous thing it is to go home, God.
What a joyous thing it is to be in your forever home.

[Silence is kept. If you wish, you may join hands in a circle.]

[The foster / kinship / host parents and/or kids go first to bless the children.]

It has been such a gift to have you in our home.
We are sad to say goodbye, and we are happy
that you are saying hello to your home and family.
May the Lord bless you on your journey.
May the Lord bless your parents and family.
May he bring you into a place of plenty.
Remember that Jesus is always with you.
Remember that he has good things to give you.
Remember that God made you wonderful
because he is wonderful.

[The children respond with the following.]

You showed us kindness when we needed it.
We are thankful. We are excited. We are hopeful.
God is good!

[The leader resumes as everyone continues to hold hands.]

Our lives are in your hands, Father,
and there is no safer place for us to be.
Now, may all our days, which are begun and continued
and ended in you, be filled with love and hope,
and may we, by your mercy, find all our happiness
and all our longings for home in you.

Amen.

Related reads

A liturgy for moving away from a beloved home

A prayer before a court hearing

Through the dark, deep (and crazy) woods of foster care

Adoption and mercy on the road to our forever home