In memory of Alex’s birthday, I am sharing my speech from the Alex McMinn Prayer Chapel dedication at Anderson University. I have also linked some stories and sites about him for his loved ones to have easy access to them. I especially love watching the memory slide show of Alex that we played at his receiving of friends which you can find on the Harris website below his obituary.

Happy Birthday in Heaven, Little Man.

For Rizpah, on Mother’s Day

“If I ask you, angel, will you come and lead

This ache to speech, or carry my like a child,

To Riot?”

-Edgar Bowers from Autumn Shade

“When does a war end? When can I say your name and have it mean only your name and not what you left behind?” -Ocean Vuong

“Christians are not spared the dark night of the soul; they are accompanied through it.” -CS Lewis

“First thing I’d do is pray for time to crawl. I’d unplug the telephone and keep the TV off. I’d hold you every second. Say a million ‘I love yous’. That’s what I’d do with one more day with you.” -Diamond Rio

The wedding speech for my favorite newlywed.

A letter to my favorite 21 year old

“Part of the inner world of everyone is this sense of emptiness, unease, incompleteness, and I believe that this in itself is a word from God, that this is the sound that God's voice makes in a world that has explained him away. In such a world, I suspect that maybe God speaks to us most clearly through his silence, his absence, so that we know him best through our missing him.” - Frederick Buechner

I would've never thought to do that, but I'm so glad He did.

“Surely the hedgehog, furling and unfurling

into its spiked little ball, knows something

that, with gentle touch and unthreatening

tone, can inure to our benefit, surely the wicked witches of our childhood have died and, from where they are buried, a great kindness has eclipsed their misdeeds. Yes, of course, in the end so much comes down to privilege and its various penumbras, but too much of our unruly animus has already been wasted on reprisals, too much of the unblessed air is filled with smoke from undignified fires. Oh friends, take whatever kindness you can find and be profligate in its expenditure: It will not drain your limited resources, I assure you, it will not leave you vulnerable and unfurled, with only your sweet little claws to defend yourselves, and your wet little noses, and your eyes to the ground, and your little feet.”

-Michael Blumenthal

Not for lack of trying, but there is a lot in the book of Ezekiel that I don’t yet completely understand. But there’s probably not another prophet in the Bible that I’ve learned more from, and there’s a phrase in this chapter that is sort of the culmination of that learning for me “O Lord, You know”.

“And now my brothers I will ask you a terrible question, and God knows I ask it also of myself. Is the truth beyond all truths, beyond the stars, just this: that to live without Him is the real death, that to die with Him the only life?”- Frederick Buechner