Reflection: Napkins & Colliding Rooms
May 8, 2026

I've landed in San Antonio and I'm still landing. Both the heat and my family embraced me the second I arrived. I am grateful for it all and I am unsure how to enter in, back into a room I left over a decade ago, back into life. Feels like when you jump off a cliff and it takes longer than you expected to hit the water and the hang time gives you enough room to question your decision-making skills. It’s frightening. Because the leap is still a leap, even after all your calculations. And believe me, I calculated it a hundred times over. I've got the journals to prove it. I can show you. I just don't know if the calculation that worked best is in my black journal or my red one. Or maybe it's in the brown one. I've got so many nice journals and yet my best thoughts always end up on napkins for some reason. Now that I'm here, I've got plenty of 'em. Because in the US of A, it's not like it is in Europe. Here they load you up with napkins like they're a renewable resource. Maybe the note I was looking for is on one of them. Let me find it for you.

But before I can start my search, my niece and nephew are running down the hallway, screaming that it's time to play outside. I still want to look through my notes but the kids are relentless as the Texas sun. As hyper as border collies. I've never had border collies but I've been told they always want to play. But maybe that's what's needed after all: a ball and some chalk, a water hose and a ping-pong match. And thank God, because otherwise it'd just be me and all those napkins. If left to myself, I'd probably stack them high like the Tower of Babel, stack them high like a religious leader's accolades. I am deeply terrified of becoming a religious leader. If you recall the story, it was they who killed the Christ. But I am deeply religious and often end up leading. What do I do with this? Praise God, it's time to play dodgeball.

Maybe that's what Christ would say to us today: "If any of you wish to enter the kingdom of God, you must play dodgeball." I am simultaneously hit in the face with truth and a spikey yellow ball. Giggling from the two border collies accompanies my shock. Glory to the Father, the way back into life is still child-likeness. Glory to the Son, I am sweating profusely. Glory to the Holy Spirit, everything is falling apart and the world is turning mystical again: napkins used for flags and a fort and as wallpaper; rooms from opposite ends of the world colliding, like a big cannonball splash in the community pool, a splash big enough to send ripples and waves over the edge, down the street and into the Rio Grande, over and across the Atlantic, into the North Sea and back again. I am looking for my place in the world and it's snack time. I am grateful for it all.