Letters to Leland

September 9, 2025

Dear Leland and Everett,

Last week I wrote to tell you about our summer. Today I write to provide an update on me. Particularly when writing about our travel experiences, I typically end on an anecdote providing some sort of new learning, spiritual breakthrough, or healing observation. I didn’t really have that type of story to share this summer, which I’ll admit felt strange while writing: my writing cadence felt off. Instead of one breakthrough or key learning, I found myself wading through a number of smaller struggles and learnings.

One thing I must admit up front: I felt an overarching sense of chaos this summer. Whether we were hanging out with our friends or traveling to Taiwan, I felt the chaos all summer. Ordinarily I can process such experiences during the day while the two of you are at school; this summer, particularly with how much time we were together, I had much less time to process my thoughts and emotions than normal, and which I found pretty challenging. Even still, I did my best to make observations as they came, and process where opportunities allowed. And with the two of you back in school, I’ve had some time to metabolize a little more.

The most pervasive feeling of chaos, I noticed, came when I felt like parents of your friends were not setting proper boundaries with their children, leading to misbehavior of encouraging the two of you to engage in bad habits. This became a recurring theme of the summer, whether it was your friend’s mom indulging your video game habits more than I would like, or friends’ parents in Taiwan letting their kids disregard instructions without enforcement or consequence. To be clear, I still believe I witnessed various parents’ reluctance to set and enforce boundaries this summer, and I suspect to the detriment of your friends’ long term development and wellbeing. That said, being right doesn’t explain the depth of frustration I felt over the matter. Upon reflection, I sense an internal desire to improve at setting boundaries myself. I noticed this specifically in my most recent Spiritual Stew meeting, when a participant sorta attempted to dominate the conversation. Though his actual infractions were small, I found the same frustration from the summer stirring. More than acting poorly, I recognized this newcomer reminded me of a regular participant who more egregiously disregards the rules I set for group. Though I’ve attempted to steer conversations back in the appropriate direction, I’ve not consistently set and enforced clear boundaries. I’m coming to understand that I want to practice setting and enforcing clear boundaries with adults, even (and perhaps especially) with those whom overstep in ways that make me particularly uncomfortable. I don’t really understand *why* I feel that desire, but trust that I’m developing a skill for future use.

My second realization is that the two of you are about to start changing, and changing in ways that I am likely to experience as an accelerating pace of change. For one thing, as Leland enters his fifth grade year, I suspect he’s about to experience a growth spurt that marks the beginning of his transition from kid to adolescent. Leland’s sheer size is likely to change rapidly, and not long after his hormones and body are going to change in pretty profound ways. Even Everett is growing up. Indeed, this thought originally hit me in the first days after we came home; I went for a walk and reminisced about the trip. I thought about what I enjoyed about the trip, and looked forward to the possibility we might do the trip again next year. My mind thought about a few times I wound up carrying Everett; sometimes because we were out past his bedtime and he was sleepy, other times because he was upset at Leland or something that happened and needed comforting, and still other times where Everett was just tired from too much walking. Though I encourage independence, I’ll admit I love holding and carrying Everett (Leland too, though Leland is now really too big to carry for longer than a few moments). Then the thought hit me: Everett might be too big for me to carry this time next year. The overwhelming sadness I felt helped me appreciate just how much I love you guys, and how much I’ll miss you being this age. But as we come home, settle into a routine, and sign you up for some extracurriculars (mostly sports so far), I can already tell that we’re going to be busier this school year than past years, which will contribute to the feeling of accelerating change. It’s coming, and I guess I’m glad to know it’s coming, even if I’m sad to say goodbye to the era we’re finishing.

On another level, I sorta feel like the summer was one big distraction and excuse for me to avoid processing a feeling of being stuck. There are always multiple ways to tell a story, just by how you select and weave data points together. One way to tell my recent story is one of feeling stuck. Somewhere around the time I quit my job, I had the feeling I was going into a metaphorical cave to heal, and that I would eventually emerge from the cave to reengage the world. I understood that I would find the cave seductive, and part of me would be tempted to remain in the cave forever; this thought surprised me because, as an extreme extrovert, I’ve always preferred social engagement to isolation…and yet here I was anticipating I would become seduced by my experiences in isolation. Sure enough, about a year and a half ago I began to understand that the dedicated part of my healing journey was coming to an end, and that I was nearing time to reengage with the world. I’ve enjoyed the last couple years, and I’ll admit I’m reluctant to leave them behind. Partly my challenge has been understanding *how* to reengage with the world. Going back to my old life doesn’t sound appealing at all, and I sense a real opportunity to walk my own path authentically moving forward, even if I don’t really understand what that means. Truth be told, I think my fast and most recent psychedelic experiences were meant, at least in part, to force the issue in an attempt to dislodge or unlock some insight on what my future path should be. Therein lies the problem: I’m trying to *force* the understanding to come, rather than get still and allow insights to flow through me when they are ready.

One fear complicating all of this: I am like my mom in that my gifts don’t have a natural home in the ‘real’ world. [This is where I envy Leland, as I see many paths likely to open for him relatively painlessly; Everett, like his dad and his Gran, is likely to find his gifts map awkwardly onto the traditional job market.] My mom struggled to find ways to maximize her gifts in the world beyond raising her children (and she really was an incredible mom). To her credit, she tried multiple things, including creating a Montessori-inspired elementary school during my childhood and, after my sister and I graduated and left home, going to seminary and becoming an ordained minister. But my sense is that my mom never really felt like she found her place in the world beyond being a mom to my sister and me, and I think she has some regrets. And so now, as I revel in my time as primary caregiver to the two of you, I’ll admit I fear getting stuck in the role, and never quite finding a way to maximize my gifts beyond raising the two of you. And I want to be clear: being your father is enough. But I sense my calling is to bring my gifts to more than just the two of you, even if I don’t quite understand how just yet.

Of course, being your father and primary caregiver is no excuse for not maximizing my gifts. Though taking care of the two of you takes up quite a bit of time and energy, there are plenty of hours left in the day, and I have plenty of energy to take on other projects. My challenge, I sense, has less to do with any supposed barriers and more to do with mental blockages.

I need to reintroduce my second vision (again, the first I wrote about), because I need to leverage some metaphorical experiences. But first, I need to explain that the vision continued to be prophetic. As already outlined, quitting my job was the plunge into darkness, and the first demon was facing a strangely crippling fear of death (partly due to my heart disease, I was irrationally but genuinely afraid I might keel over and die at any moment). Soon after I wrote about that vision, I began to understand that the three demons who emerged next were your mom, my mom, and my friend Jeff (who you affectionately refer to as Uncle Jeff). To be clear, I mean not to imply that your mom, my mom, nor Jeff are in any way evil or even malicious. What I noticed was that I found myself struggling with each of those relationships in ways that caused me to ruminate and genuinely kept me up at night. Over a long period of time (like, a year or so), I came to understand that these relationships were teaching me how to reengage in the world, and how to redefine what healthy relationships would mean for me going forward. This process taught me many things, including how to be authentic to myself when engaging with others, how to let go of any attachment to how others might receive my words or actions (particularly when those words or actions came from a genuine, loving, authentic place), how to lead with vulnerability and understanding the strength that comes with vulnerability, how to discern when to engage with vulnerability versus when others are closed off and not ready for genuine engagement, and how to meet people where they are without judging or wishing they were in a different place. In the vision, after coming to understand that the three demons were really people who were drawn to my light, those demons turned into people; in my actual life, after processing the various learnings I came to understand that each of your mom, my mom, and Jeff were showing me their ugly sides precisely because they wanted (though not consciously) to let go of the ugliness they were holding onto, and on some intuitive level understood I was meant to help them. Over the past year or so, all of those relationships have improved dramatically, and I think all of those people have let go of some pain.

I tell that story to say that I find myself still living out that vision. And in the next stage of the vision I began walking in my path. What I didn’t put in my original letter explaining the vision, but I remember distinctly, is that I could see the lit up billboard, and I could see the step or two ahead of me lit up by my light, but that the rest of the path was completely dark; I didn’t share this detail because I didn’t then understand its significance. I’ve come to think of the lit billboard as something like God’s Light, or my connection to God (or universal Consciousness or Truth or whatever you want to call it). I can sorta see it off in the distance, even if not very well defined and I can’t exactly explain it to anyone else. And I’ve come to understand that seeing the step or two in front of me reflects knowing what I am meant to do next (sorta like how Spiritual Stew came into being, one inspired step at a time, without an overarching vision created by me). Perhaps most importantly, I’ve come to understand the darkness in between as not knowing the overall path. So here’s the uncomfortable conclusions: I have a general sense of where I’m going (toward God’s Light), and at times can see the step right in front of me (which is not isolated to the Spiritual Stew experience, though it makes for the best example), but I have no overarching vision or sense of path or ability to articulate what I am doing or where I am going. I cannot possibly begin to articulate how uncomfortable I find this experience. See, my whole life I’ve been able to see my life goals out in front of me, and I’ve always been able to map out the path to obtain those goals. Now I find that faculty has abandoned me, and I sense God’s invitation to develop new faculties. I’m trying, but I’ll admit to struggling and resisting (thus the fast and the psychedelic journey, in hopes that I might skip or at least shortcut the struggle). But, like with the Spiritual Stew experience, I find I am learning how to follow the path one step at a time.

The other nugget from that journey that’s coming up now (quoting from my prior letter): “It occurred to me I would call on others to join me to illuminate parts of the path I could not see alone”. In fact, I found myself coming upon multiple obstacles. When I couldn’t see the path, I found others joining me to illuminate the path I couldn’t see. When I came across an obstacle or ravine, others joined me in building a bridge or detour or whatever was needed to overcome the obstacle and continue on the path. I came understand that these individuals who helped me find my path or build the bridge to continue on would be doing so because their paths temporarily intersected with mine, and that I would need to be prepared to let them go when the time came for us to part ways. Said differently, when we finished building and crossing the bridge together, I would need to resist the temptation to follow them on their path or attempt to convince them to remain on mine. Though I could value the relationship and cherish the experience of building the bridge together, it was important for me to prioritize remaining on my path, and allowing others to remain on theirs.

It occurs to me that I am now in the part of the vision where I perhaps need someone to join me and illuminate the part of the path I cannot see for myself. And soon I will encounter someone meant to help me build a bridge to overcome an obstacle of some sort. What I notice as I process these ideas: I trust that I have developed the discernment to know when someone is joining me who is meant to help me continue on my path. Where I find resistance: the idea that I might need to ask them for help. I find myself struggling with my codependent tendencies here, and afraid that by asking for help and relying on others, I might tempt myself to fall back into codependent habits. That said, I understand one can ask for help without forming an attachment to the response. And on some level, I understand this is the next stage in my development: to ask someone for help, knowing that they might say no, and knowing I might feel hurt when they say no. Where this gets even more confusing: I sense that I might understand they are being called by God to help me (whether by illuminating my path or helping me build a bridge), and that saying no might not only set me back (by delaying my journey), but also set them back (by perhaps delaying or even outright preventing them from finding their own true path). And yet, I also understand that I must meet people where they are (while *I* might understand they are being called to do something, *they* may think such talk sounds completely crazy), and then expose myself to the possibility they might say no (knowing how deeply that is likely to hurt, sitting so close to my true wants and needs). This is a strange and complicated idea I find myself struggling to explain, but the simple version is that I sense a coming opportunity to ask for help in a way that tempts me to fall back into codependent tendencies, but is in fact meant to help me forge a new path and new understanding of how to ask for help.

Continuing down that path, I discovered a deeper fear. To use the Moses metaphor: Moses led God’s people out of bondage out into the wilderness on a journey of healing before they could enter the promised land. In the wilderness, the people routinely challenged Moses. They routinely found themselves hungry or thirsty, and blamed Moses for leading them out of bondage in the first place. The thought I had: am I not being invited to call folks out of bondage and out into the wilderness? How will I respond when those folks become angry with me and blame me for leading them to escape the perceived security of their enslavement? See, waking up to God’s presence, in my experience, feels like a freeing experience. But the next step is not pleasant: once released from the bondage of the known, we find ourselves seemingly trapped in the wilderness of the unknown. In that place we are invited to heal and develop new faculties, but are tempted to retreat into bondage. The secret, of course, is to trust God. God led us out of bondage (not me), God led us out of the wilderness (not me), and God will provide the tools we need to survive the wilderness (not me). The journey may be difficult, and perhaps not all will make it; that is okay. We all get to decide for ourselves who and what we trust. We will always be tempted to choose ego over God; some of us will always choose ego over God, and all of us will sometimes choose ego over God. But some of us will develop an increasing capacity to choose God over ego. Somehow I sense I am meant to participate in the process, even if I don’t fully understand how.

To be fair, it’s not that I have no idea how, it’s just that I don’t exactly love talking about it. I don’t love talking about it partly because it feels so disjointed, and partly because…well, it feels very real and core to who I am. Letting those parts out is uncomfortable. But here goes.

A year or more ago, during meditations I would repeatedly see myself standing up in front of an audience, speaking. These experiences felt a lot like those that led to Spiritual Stew, so I filed them away for future reference. These visions felt further in the future than Spiritual Stew, but still felt real, as if I should expect them to become real someday. The closest way to describe these experiences would be as if I were playing the role of a Revivalist minister. Coming from the Bible Belt, I do not have a fond association with revivalism. So I dislike the metaphor, but it’s the closest description I can find. And, truth be told, I really was doing some of what a Revivalist minister would do: attempting to awaken that place within us that yearns for a connection to God. One thing I realized about evangelism as currently practiced: we tend to awaken others’ desire to connect to God and then, having created an opening, reach in and grab people in their most vulnerable places; from there, we manipulate others into doing what *we* want, not what God wants. The opportunity is to help others open up without then manipulating them. I don’t know exactly what that would look like (except that it probably looks at least a little like Moses leading folks out into the wilderness), and what frustrates me is that I have no idea how I will get there.

Although I do have one small win to celebrate. The minister at my church asked me to preach a couple weeks ago. And so I did. I found the process of preparing rather effortless; I really enjoyed it. In the moment, I felt like my message really connected with the congregation. Afterward, several people complemented me, some of them looking a little stunned (which I took to be a good sign: I think I stirred something in folks). The minister tells me he also received several compliments, and one member of the church quoted me in a committee meeting. I’ve rewatched the sermon a few times, and I see plenty of opportunity for improvement, but the experience confirms something I sorta already knew: I have a gift for speaking in front of an audience. I always have. As a kid, my peers always chose me to speak on behalf of them whenever opportunities arose. And so I had several speaking opportunities in my teenage years. Somehow I assumed those opportunities would eventually follow me into adulthood. They did not. And so, one of my gifts became neglected. I sense a calling and invitation to return to and utilize that gift. I have no idea how to create an audience that might want to hear what I have to say, but I genuinely believe attempting to awaken audiences lies somewhere in my future. Perhaps I need to be on the lookout for someone who might be able to illuminate the next part in my path. In the meantime, I’ll prepare myself to ask for the help when I sense an encounter with that person. Wish me luck.

I love you,

Dad

September 3, 2025

Dear Leland and Everett,

Summer break ended a couple weeks ago; you guys are back in school, and we are trying to get back into a rhythm with the start of the school year. This summer was pretty packed, or at least it felt that way to me. We took a pretty different approach to summer this year versus past years. Until now, summer breaks have been filled with “summer camp” type activities, where we drop you off in the morning and pick you up at either 3pm or 6pm. In other words, in past years your summers have been minimally disruptive to your mom and my daily and weekly routine, except that we have to pack you a lunch and the pickup and drop-off locations and routines are slightly different.

This summer I only enrolled you in camp for a couple of weeks. I probably would have done more, but our trip to Taiwan made scheduling camps a little challenging. We left for Taiwan midweek and came home midweek, preventing us from scheduling camps either of those two weeks. I was somewhat surprised to learn how few camps ran the week of July 4, which landed on a Friday this year. Those three weeks, plus the more than three weeks in Taiwan, plus a week visiting your Uncle and a couple weeks at summer camp…that was the summer in a nutshell.

As the summer approached I started to realize just how much time I would be spending with the two of you, which simultaneously excited and scared me. Excited because I genuinely enjoy spending time with the two of you; scared because I was a little worried that the summer would go off the rails and we would all be sick of each other by the end of it. Ultimately I found myself sorta glad to let you both experience a summer more like what I remember growing up: a seemingly endless string of days with no plans and nothing to do, except for whatever we might want. The difference is that, for my generation, looking for something to do meant going outside and finding friends to play with all day long. Adults don’t let your generation go out unsupervised (though I’m pleased to report that might be changing, slowly), and so you don’t have quite the same opportunities to explore the world and relationships with kids your age the way I did during the summers of my youth.

In some ways, during our weeks at home we managed to simulate summer the way I remember it as much as possible. One of your closest friends happened to have open weeks (e.g. at home with no summer camp) the same weeks we did. So his mom and I arranged playdates almost daily. Some days we would go somewhere and let you guys explore, like looking for crayfish under a bridge or just heading to a park (or your school playground) for a few hours of outside play. Other days we just went over to your friend’s house and let you all play together there. Unfortunately (at least from my perspective), the thing you guys wanted to do most was play video games. You guys were quite determined to play video games, to the point where I started to wonder of the desire was healthy.

Compounding my concern, an afternoon spent playing video games rarely ended on a positive note. Generally the mood descended into contention. Often Everett would feel picked on, ganged up on by the older kids. Less often but still common, your friend seemed to get disregulated, often becoming kinda mean and aggressive after a few hours of video games. I found myself wanting to (and at times trying to) nudge you guys away from playing video games and into more physically active pursuits. I noticed that your friend’s mom generally agreed with me, but had a higher tolerance for video games than I did; I kinda sense she has fond memories of playing video games as a child, and wants to share that experience with her kids. I didn’t play video games very much as a kid, and don’t have particularly fond memories of video games. And so I noticed how I seemed to have the lowest tolerance for video games out of anyone.

Fortunately, I think you both started to notice for yourselves the limitations on the joys that come from playing video games. As mentioned, Everett repeatedly came home frustrated from the feeling of being picked on. Leland had fewer negative experiences, but did notice how your friend turned kinda mean on occasion during video games. This allowed us to have some healthy conversations around why playing video games endlessly might not be as much fun as we might think. On one particular day, your friend started playing by himself. After a fair amount of time, I started to suspect he had no intention of stopping or sharing any time soon. It was close enough to the end of the day that I asked if you guys wanted to go home. You both expressed a desire to play, which prompted you to ask the friend if you could play. He responded with comments like “I just want to find this one more thing”. After a few minutes, I would inquire again, repeating the cycle. After a few cycles, Leland started to recognize for himself that your friend didn’t seem to want to share. He made a few more attempts, and eventually gave up and we left. I don’t think your friend even put the controller down to say goodbye that day; I’m not entirely sure he noticed we left, even though we made a point of saying goodbye to his mom and sisters. That day proved to be a useful learning opportunity in terms of understanding how we don’t control others actions, only how we react. We couldn’t make your friend share his video games with us, but we could decide whether we preferred to stay and watch or to leave; and so we left. I was proud of you, Leland, for coming to that conclusion on your own, and I was glad for the opportunity to discuss it with you. I hope that proves to be a useful learning experience.

Of course, the highlight of the summer was the trip to Taiwan. As you know, we enrolled you in a three-week Chinese language program designed for non-native speakers. You participated with kids your age from all over, but mostly from America. Your mom and I had three objectives. First, we wanted to give you a more intensive exposure to Chinese than you experience at home (with Saturday school). Second, we hoped to develop slightly more positive associations with learning Chinese. Before the trip, you guys seemed to really dislike learning Chinese, so we hoped that by associating learning Chinese with the joys of traveling to Taiwan, you would start to inherently enjoy the process of learning Chinese. Finally, we hoped to help you understand *why* learning Chinese was important. In America, where everyone speaks English, it can be hard to understand why anyone would want to go through the challenging and discomforting work of learning a new language. We hoped being in Taiwan would help you appreciate how valuable knowing Chinese can be by opening up your ability to speak with folks there who don’t speak English.

It’s early to declare total victory, but the early returns from the trip are clearly positive. Not only did you enjoy the trip, but you enjoyed your Chinese classes. For Leland, you were able to recognize how much Chinese you were learning, and were pretty excited about it; I’ve never seen you enjoy learning Chinese so much before. And when your mom wasn’t around (because she was working), you knew you couldn’t rely on me to speak Chinese for you. On some occasions, you served as interpreter for vendors who didn’t speak English, but could understand it well enough: they would ask me a question in Mandarin, which you would translate for me, and I would respond in English. You received several compliments for your ability to help your dad on those occasions, which I think flattered you and I’ll admit made me proud. On other occasions, you would ask if you could buy a treat at one of the night markets, and I would say yes, but that you had to order for yourself. And so you did, often in Mandarin, and I think those experiences gave you confidence.

When your Saturday school started up again, we asked them to assess Leland’s ability. They assessed you could skip two years worth of classes, jumping from from their level 2 to level 4. Partly I think you had been in too easy a class last year, but I also think what you learned, and your willingness to demonstrate what you knew, played a big role in your ability to jump two levels. Best of all, the teachers told us it was important that you go over the content in level 3, to make sure you learned any words covered there which you didn’t already know. So for the last two weeks, you have spent 15-20 minutes a night reviewing the level 3 book with your Ah Ma. You have approached those lessons willingly and without objection; I won’t go so far as to describe your participating as ‘enthusiastic’, but I also don’t think it would be a huge exaggeration had I. Taken overall, your relationship to learning Chinese seems to have changed completely, and I’m thrilled.

Everett, you did not skip two years worth of class like your brother, and that’s perfectly fine. You are two and a half years younger, after all, and you had previously been at the same level. The program in Taiwan assessed he was slightly more advanced than you, which makes sense given he’s older and had more exposure to Chinese (not least because we had him in Chinese afterschool for two years while you were still in preschool on the same campus, whereas we enrolled you both in on-campus – thus, English based – afterschool when you started Kindergarten). And, oh by the way, you have a good friend in your Saturday school this year, and you are excited to see her on Saturdays. So while we may see if we can accelerate your Chinese learning later on, we have plenty of time to do so.

Of course, the trip to Taiwan wasn’t all about learning Chinese. We arrived the Thursday before class started to give ourselves time to settle in and adjust to the time zones. Your Uncle joined us for that first weekend, which turned into a whirlwind. We saw multiple friends that weekend: my best friend’s family was there (the mom and kids spend most summers in Taiwan; indeed we got the idea from them), two of Leland’s classmates were there (one was even in the same program), and of course we have our local friends that we see anytime we come. Friday through Sunday were completely jammed with social activities, such that we were all pretty exhausted by the time school started on Monday. And so we took Monday night pretty easy, wandering the local night market for food to bring home and eat. As the week continued and we recovered from the weekend and you made new friends at school, you began to ask us to let you hang out with your friends after school. Somewhere along the way we ran into your friend with his family in the night market. We chatted with his dad while we let you guys run off to play and explore a bit. They were from London; the dad was Armenian but (by his accent) clearly grew up in the UK, while the mom was from Korea (and from her accent, she sounded like a recent expat). I’m still not totally clear why this friend was learning Chinese, but you enjoyed your time with him, and we enjoyed our time visiting with his parents.

Your Uncle left the Sunday before school started, but your Gran arrived the middle of that first week. Your Gran and I (and your mom her last week there, when she took a week off of work) explored Taipei while you were in class. I really enjoyed getting to show your Gran (my mom) around Taipei; this was my sixth trip, and I loved telling Gran all about Taiwan every time we went, but I really, really enjoyed showing her as many of the things I loved about Taiwan as I could. Gran and I went to Shifen and Jiufen, we spent multiple days at the National Palace Museum, explored at an antique shop and got massages with your mom, and of course had some wonderful lunches (highlighted by a trip to Din Tai Fung with your mom). I anticipate I will cherish sharing that experience with your Gran.

Our weeks fell into a pattern: recovering from the weekend on Mondays, then slowly building up toward the weekend with increasing levels of activity after school, finishing with a completely jam packed social calendar during the weekends. Early in the week we typically picked up dinners at the local night market; as the week progressed we often met up with friends (typically your friend from London) or went out to dinner somewhere new. One week we even attended a local baseball game, which was really fun (suffice to say that watching a baseball game in Taiwan is a completely different experience than going to a game in the US). By the weekend we were back to meeting up with friends. All our US-based friends left before we did, so we made a point of meeting up with them on the weekends when they were here. After they left, I was shocked at how much time we were able to spend with our local friends: I assumed they would have other plans, but they were mostly able to carve out time to spend with us. We explored night markets, ran around malls to get out of the heat, took in street performances (including a pretty cool diabolo, or Chinese yoyo, performance), ate pineapple cakes, took in a space museum, took in some amusement park and water park rides, took your Gran up to the top of Taipei 101, and of course played some games and ate lots and lots of delicious food. Everett was even able to join a couple gymnastics classes, which you seemed to enjoy. Leland managed to take in a movie with a friend. We made a point to hit your favorites as often as possible, so we at sushi, boba, dumplings (including Din Tai Fung), and snow ice over and over again. At the night markets you guys found games you liked to play, and you reminded us of a Taiwanese pinball game you remembered from a prior trip; our local friends helped us find a place, and you guys spent the better part of two evenings playing pinball with your friends.

The last weekend, we decided to get away from our AirBnB for a night and checked into a local hotel. I’m glad we did: we all seem to enjoy hotel experiences, particularly when the stays are short. The hotel had a pool, so our local friends joined us while you spent hours splashing and jumping in the pool together. We rinsed off and went out for ramen, where Everett managed to score a ramen in a shrimp broth (something I’d never seen before, but something perfectly designed for Everett). Of course, we finished the night with some shave ice. The next morning was Monday, but fortunately one of your friends was able to join us in the morning while we took in the hotel buffet and went back to the pool for a couple more hours of fun. We checked out and headed back to our AirBnB, where I started packing while you guys watched some TV. We met up with the rest of our friends for an active game I can’t describe, one last trip through the night market, and one last stop for snow ice. The next morning we woke up early to head for the airport.

By the end our time in Taiwan, as much fun as we had, we were all ready to come home. Similarly, by the end of the summer, you both were ready to go back to school. I took that as a positive sign; I remember always being ready for school by the end of summer, which felt like success: having had enough unstructured time and fun, I was ready to see my friends again and (if I’m being completely honest) ready for a little structure again. And so it was with you, which made me feel like we’d had a pretty great summer. I know I will remember it.

I love you both.

Love,

Dad

June 20, 2025

Dear Everett,

When we brought you home from the hospital more than seven and a half years ago, one of the first things people noticed was that you had two hair swirls on the crown of your head. As far as I can tell, everyone seems to have a place where hair swirls on the crown of their head. Most people have one, you had two. Multiple people told us your double swirl indicated you would have a temper; I believe one was your Taiwanese grandmother, and the other the Filipino caretaker that looked after you your first year. I found it interesting multiple people from different cultures came to the same conclusion about what a physical trait meant regarding your personality and demeanor. I’m tempted to say that I ultimately wrote off the predictions, chalking them up to “old wives tales”, but that’s not entirely accurate. Over the last decade or so I’ve become more curious about folk wisdom, especially ancient folk wisdom. I find Chinese culture particularly intriguing just because it’s been relatively uninterrupted for the least 5,000 years. I don’t want to suggest that I now wholly subscribe to folk wisdom, nor that I believe folk wisdom trumps science or modern knowledge. What I am trying to convey that I no longer dismiss folk wisdom out of hand as superstitious hokum. I approach folk wisdom with curiosity, wanting to counterbalance against my longstanding bias against.

Anyway, it didn’t take us very many years to discover you do, in fact, have a temper. My earliest recollection of a personal confrontation with your temper happened at our old house, the house we rented and lived in when we first moved home from Singapore. You were probably 2 years old, although you might have been 3. I don’t remember why you were upset, only that you were upset. You were getting ready to take a shower (which, come to think of it, may have been the cause of your frustration: perhaps I was making you take a shower against your will). As you started to cry, you faced directly at me and screamed at the top of your lungs. No words, just a blood-curdling scream. It’s…hard to put into words the level of force and energy you conveyed with that scream. It almost seemed to me that you had suddenly been plugged into an energy socket, and the scream was just letting off the excess energy of the moment. What I can say is that I felt that scream, and I don’t just mean the sound waves: I felt the energy you projected toward me. And it was quite clear to me that was your intention, to make me feel some of the anger and energy you were feeling.

I distinctly remember my first reaction: I interpreted your scream as an affront, as a challenge to my authority as your father. I felt a desire to come down hard on you in that moment, to punish what I perceived to be your provocation. I’ll admit I don’t remember exactly how I handled that moment, but I do remember how I handled the aftermath. Eventually (there may have been another instance before this reality truly set in) I realized this would not be our last such interaction, and that I needed to prepare myself for how I would handle future such interactions. I remember (and I’ll admit, I’m proud of this part) recognizing my interpretation that you were challenging my authority wasn’t necessarily real, and deserved interrogation. With reflection I decided that in those moments you 1) were experiencing big emotions, 2) didn’t know how to handle those big emotions, 3) felt tempted to direct those big emotions at others, and 4) needed a playbook for how to handle those emotions as healthily as possible.

As you got older, your outbursts came to include hitting or screaming at people. Particularly when it came to hitting, we set a pretty firm boundary, letting you know firmly and clearly hitting wasn’t okay. But we also talked to you about what options were available to you. I’ll admit: you internalized and implemented those suggestions faster than I ever would have anticipated. Soon, when you became frustrated or overwhelmed, you would storm off to your room. I don’t know if you screamed into a blanket or punched a pillow, but you separated yourself to give yourself room to let off steam without unnecessarily hurting other people. In some ways, you internalized the new lessons faster than I did: I sometimes followed you to your room in an attempt to talk to you; often you screamed at me, “Dad, I need SPACE!”. I recognized that you were right, and that you were merely setting a clear boundary with me not to invade your grieving process. To your great credit, since you were five years old you’ve maintained the ability to storm off to your room, process whatever emotions you were experiencing, and then return either fully recovered or ready to articulate what help you wanted from others going forward. Those are remarkable skills, ones I’m not sure I possess even today (and certainly not more than a couple years ago).

While you and I have become pretty adept at collectively managing your emotional outbursts, I’ll admit not all of your closest relationships have evolved so cleanly. You and your brother are settling into something of a pattern that I’ll admit concerns me a bit. Your brother will do something that upsets you, and (from my vantage point anyway: I often don’t see the offending incident) you immediately resort to screaming at your brother. Your brother I think finds these outbursts mildly triggering, because he resorts into a part-defensive, part-offensive posture where he alternates between antagonizing you, denying he did anything wrong, dismissing your concerns, and (when parents get involved) refusing to see your point of view or empathize with your situation. Empathy may never be Leland’s strongest suit, but he absolutely has the capacity to understand how others might feel in a situation, so I’ve come to believe Leland’s feelings are deeply hurt by your outbursts, clouding his ability to function at his best self. In those instances, he’s protecting himself from further pain, not looking to repair your relationship in the ways you would want. And so the cycle repeats. I will continue to look for ways I might nudge the two of you toward a healthier handling of those inevitable disagreements…but I’ll admit to wondering whether this is something you and your brother will need to figure out for yourselves (even, quite possibly, as adults). What I can predict fairly confidently: if you guys don’t figure out how to handle these interactions with each other, you will find ways to recreate them in other adult relationships: with your spouses, coworkers, bosses, or children, just to name a few of the most likely candidates. My point being: you and your brother will independently find ways to experience similar scenarios over and over again until you learn how to handle the pain you are both attempting to avoid underlying those experiences.

The member of the family who most struggles with your temper, however, is your mom. While your even-keeled brother can move on to the next situation pretty quickly, your mom gets particularly angry when you direct your outbursts at her. See, you get your temper from your Ah Gong. Unfortunately, your Ah Gong never learned how to handle his temper effectively. Instead, he let his negative emotions build until he eventually lashed out at his family. By then, he had so much stored pain that he couldn’t stop lashing out. His outbursts turned into torrents of vitriol that could fairly be described as verbal abuse. Your mom grew up experiencing these outbursts, and coped by attempting to avoid them at all costs. Now, after a lifetime spent attempting to avoid experiencing emotional outbursts, your mom finds herself confronted with the same temper all over again. Honestly, I feel a lot of compassion for your mom; those experiences must be hard for her.

One dirty secret complicating the situation even further: your mom inherited the same temper from your Ah Gong. To be fair, your mom is not nearly as prone to violent outbursts as you and your Ah Gong. But I’ll admit to wondering how much of that is a function of training rather than nature. Your mom came to understand very early that outbursts were not tolerated, and so found ways to suppress her emotions. And at root, the common thread between the three of you (you, your mom, and your Ah Gong) is that you feel things very deeply. Sometimes those feelings feel too big, and you need to let them out. For you and your Ah Gong, those come in the form of violent outbursts generally directed at loved ones. For your mom, the outbursts come more slowly, but like her dad, once they begin, they tend to come out in a chain reaction of anger, frustration, and bitterness. Fortunately, unlike her dad, your mom rarely reaches the stage of outright vitriol, but your mom’s seemingly endless acerbic tongue lashings are something we’ve all experienced more than we care to recount. To her great credit, your mom is doing her work, and developing tools that help her process her painful emotions in healthier ways. Her progress is slower than the rest of us might like, but (as you will learn in adulthood) it always is.

The thought hit me a couple weeks ago: you are in our lives precisely so that your mom gets another chance to experience her father’s anger. I shared this insight with your mom, and she doesn’t disagree with me. See, right now when your mom experiences your outbursts, she intuitively (and probably even unconsciously) recognizes her father’s temper, which hints at the pain she experienced from that anger. Wanting to avoid experiencing that pain again, your mom tends toward angrily and forcefully attempting to dislodge your anger, which…doesn’t work very well. The opportunity you present is for your mom to develop a new toolkit for how to manage that anger, and the big emotions underlying that anger. While your Ah Gong’s behaviors were pretty calcified by the time your mom experienced them, you are still pretty unformed. It’s harder to ascribe your angry outbursts to deep flaws in character: you are just a kid after all, doing the best you can with the skills you have. Thus, you represent an opportunity to try new things, to experiment, and to find new ways of dealing with old problems.

For your mom that likely includes practicing experiencing her own big emotions. Partly what your mom reacts to in your outbursts is the fact that she wasn’t permitted the space to have outbursts of her own. The idea that she wasn’t allowed to process her big emotions with big outbursts is so deeply ingrained that she can’t believe her own child hasn’t internalized the lesson, as if the lesson should have been passed on genetically. She’s tempted to reach back, leveraging the authoritarian tools of her own childhood, in order to impose order and ‘good behavior’ on her household. The struggle, of course, is the intuitive recognition that the authoritarian toolkit is deeply flawed, but it’s the only one she knows firsthand.

I’m reminded of last night’s Spiritual Stew meeting. The recurring theme was around the temptation (reinforced by a lifetime of habits) to steer away from the storm, but healing comes from steering into the storm. Our intuitions tell us to avoid feeling pain. In fact, the sources of our pain also represent our opportunities to heal; but only by purposely (and carefully, and gracefully) steering into the storm can we find the root of the pain, feel it through to completion, and let it go. From that place we open space to heal and grow. This is rebirth, or resurrection, which I deeply, compassionately wish for your mom these days. For better and worse, you are creating a relatively constant reminder (and opportunity) for your mom; let’s hope she accepts the invitation you inherently extend to her.

Last week, to start the summer break, we went down to see your Uncle in Orange County. You, your brother, and I made the drive down, then slowly made our way back during the work week through Santa Barbara and Hearst Castle before returning home. While in Orange County, I realized that your mom is not the only person who gets a second chance to experience their father’s anger through you. I made a point of saying to you, in front of your Uncle, that I’m convinced you are in our lives so that we get the opportunity to learn how to find healing ways to handle your Ah Gong’s temper. While I don’t think my comment was the only reason (or even the primary reason; your mom had apparently had a good talk with your Uncle prior to our trip), you and your Uncle got along much better on this trip than in prior trips. To be fair, it’s not as if you and your Uncle ever didn’t get along. But I’ve long felt like your Uncle had a bit of a blind spot toward you. Your Uncle and Leland get along famously, and I’m kinda convinced it’s because Leland reminds your brother of your mom without the temper. You always come along for the ride and enjoy being part of the gang with your brother and Uncle, but your personal interactions with your Uncle always struck me as a little less natural and organic. Often your Uncle just flat doesn’t hear what you say. When you and your brother speak simultaneously (as you often do, both vying for your Uncle’s attention), your Uncle tends to respond only to Leland. And when you periodically get upset (generally toward your brother), your Uncle proactively intervenes with a relatively unhelpful “don’t get mad”.

On the one hand, your Uncle means well: he genuinely doesn’t want to see you upset; he is a wonderfully empathetic and generous person who loves you, his precious nephew, dearly. On the other hand, your Uncle also sees your Ah Gong in you, and like your mom remembers his dad when he sees that temper emerge through you. Your Uncle also wants to avoid reliving that pain from his childhood, and so tries to smooth things over and convince you not to feel angry. Your mom and I have counseled him and/or you in his presence that it’s okay for you to feel what you feel, and that it’s important for us to help you develop the tools to handle those emotions.

To his great credit, your Uncle handled you very differently on this trip. On at least one occasion, when you and your brother spoke simultaneously, he responded to Leland first, but made it a point to circle back and say “Everett, you were saying something, what was it you wanted to say?” I don’t ever recall him circling back to you this way, so I was appreciative and proud of his progress. He was generally more responsive and attentive to you. And while he still said “don’t be mad” a few times, he took my feedback well, and showed a clear openness to try new things in order to connect with you. Overall, I’m excited for the healing opportunity you represent in his life, even if I’m sure the work will be slow, gradual, and nonlinear.

In another recent development, I finally convinced you to watch the original Star Wars trilogy. I remain surprised at the contrast: by the time I was your age, I had watched the trilogy multiple times; we recorded Empire Strikes Back on a VHS tape, and I would watch the movie after school while my mom worked in her office. Conversely, you found the movie simply too scary to watch. I finally convinced you, in part, by promising we would start with 15-minute increments. This allowed you to ease yourself into the movie. After we finished Empire Strikes Back at your Uncle’s house you astutely and maturely pointed out that we had finished New Hope and then watched the entirety of Empire on back-to-back days, informed me that was too much, and asked that we take longer breaks between episodes going forward. It was a completely fair request, and I’m pretty stunned that you had the self-awareness to recognize your need and the maturity to articulate it.

But what struck me most of all was your reaction to the end of Return of the Jedi. When Darth Vader throws the Emperor over the bridge (or whatever you call that space), and then dies himself, I remember my childhood reaction distinctly: the bad guys died, the good guys survived and won. For me, this was an unqualified success. Your reaction was completely different. Throughout the series you asked me to pause the movies in order ask questions or process particularly emotional scenes. Through that process, you understood (in a way I did not at your age) that Luke believed he felt goodness remaining in Darth Vader, and was attempting to bring his father back to the good side. Thus, when Darth Vader lies dying as Luke professes his intention to save him, and Darth says “you already have”, you were a bit of a wreck. For you, this was Luke’s father, a father he had been working to save, a father he still believed in, and a father that ultimately came through in the end. For you, the idea that Luke would lose his father then, in that moment, was a bit much to bear. I mean…you are not wrong; I just still can’t comprehend how you are already processing that level of depth. Only now am I coming to appreciate the deeper truths hidden in the Star Wars story, and here you are grasping them as a seven year old? Honestly, I am not entirely sure how to think about that.

This past week you’ve been attending an outdoor nature camp. Last night you had the opportunity to camp out overnight and sleep under the stars with your campmates. At the beginning of the week we agreed that Leland would probably go, but that you might stay home the first week (because we are doing the camp again next week, so you will have another opportunity if you decided this was something you wanted to do). On the drive home Wednesday (the day before the overnight) I reminded each of you of the plan, just to see if either of you had changed your minds. Mostly I was checking to see if Leland still wanted to go, because he had waffled earlier in the week. After Leland confirmed he wanted to go, you mumbled that I was correctly remembering the plan, but that you “really, really” wanted to go. This surprised me, and surprised your mom too when we discussed it with her, but ultimately we had no objections to your joining.

Last night your mom went to the camp’s BBQ dinner and singalong (sadly, I had Spiritual Stew, and couldn’t attend). By the time I came home, your mom was already home and had texted me that you had also come home, and that she had put you to bed and would be sleeping with you. At that point I assumed you had simply changed your mind and decided you would be a little scared or homesick to camp out overnight.

This morning as you and your mom woke me up, your mom asked you to tell me why you wanted to come home. You explained that, during the singalong, you sang a song about shooting stars. Your mom later said that the song was nostalgic and the tune indeed a little sad; she understood the shooting star metaphor to be about the brevity of the experience of the camp itself: a beautiful moment, but seemingly too short. Your interpretation was different: for you, the shooting stars represented people “leaving the Earth”, or dying. You couldn’t even tell me about it this morning without being overcome with emotion. Immediate after the song, the last of the singalong, you apparently turned to your mom and announced “I want to go home”. In the moment, you were able to articulate that the song made you sad (and it sounds like you wept on your mom’s shoulder during and immediately after). Again, it’s not wrong to comprehend shooting stars as a metaphor for the brevity of life on earth…but holy cow, what seven year old processes information that way? Honestly, I’m kinda stunned, and wildly curious to see where this side of you leads.

In the car ride back to camp this morning, I attempted to convey to you that your deeply held emotions are a burden, but they are also a gift. I’ll admit that, even as I said it, I appreciated the burden far more than the gift. You feel things very, very deeply, more deeply than most people. But feeling emotions that deeply often isn’t fun. It’s tempting to try to avoid feeling painful emotions like sadness or fear that deeply. But what I have learned, and I think the lesson of your Ah Gong shows, is that avoiding deep emotions creates far more problems than it solves. Sitting in the painful, deep feelings is hard, and indeed often even physically painful. But underneath the pain we often find inspiration, our deepest feelings of love and gratitude, and a level of wisdom completely unavailable to those who avoid their unpleasant feelings. I applaud your gift, but also your bravery and willingness to express and be with your gift. I hope you will build on this practice, and carry your gift with you into adulthood. But I can’t pretend it will be easy: the world isn’t set up to support and allow the expression of big emotions. Temptations and incentives will encourage you to bury your feelings, and pretend everything is fine, even when it’s not. And while I won’t suggest you should always wear your emotions on your sleeve, it will be important for you to cultivate a life where you can retreat to your safe space and feel what you feel, until you are ready to face the world again.

I love you kiddo. And, honestly, right now I’m a little awed by you.

Love,

Dad

May 30, 2025

Dear Leland,

About a year ago I read you and your brother The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe as a bedtime story. Early in the book, you both enjoyed the experience, and the story captured your interest. You, ever the night owl, typically wanted me to keep reading past your bedtimes. Everett, the early bird, sometimes fell asleep while I read (causing me to reread sections to Everett the following afternoon, so he wouldn’t miss out on the story). Over time, the book prompted us to talk about God; Aslan, after all, serves as something of a metaphor for God. As we neared completion of the book, Everett started asking questions about God, something he periodically does to this day. Conversely, you started muttering skepticism, saying things like “I don’t think God is real”. Part of me interpreted those mutterings as provocative, perhaps even meant to challenge me or my authority; I’m not clear if my interpretation was imagined on my part or intended on yours. Whatever the intention, I declined to take the bait. It’s up to all of us to decide for ourselves how we feel about and react to God, and I attempted to relay as much to you in these discussions.

Our discussions about God temporarily spilled over into car rides; I distinctly remember a conversation or two during school drop-off. During one of these rides you asked why I believe in God. I responded as honestly yet simply as I could: because I feel like God talks to me. Whatever my visions are or have been, they don’t feel as if they come from me, yet they (at least sometimes) seem to hold deep truths.

[I should pause here quickly to note: when I invoke God, I don’t explicitly mean the Christian interpretation of God. My interpretation is that all religions, including much “new age” spiritualism, ultimately reference the same God. God is bigger than humans can comprehend, and so God is revealed to us in images, in metaphor, and in inspiration of unknown origin. My sense is that we attempt to flesh out, interpret, and understand these experiences, ultimately creating the religions of the world. Religions, being created and interpreted by people, are ultimately incapable of fully comprehending God, but serve as potentially useful tools pointing us in the right direction. My point: whatever entity serves as the source of inspiration for the world’s religions, for much of the great art the world has ever experienced, and for the various miracles available for the willing to see…that is what I reference when I talk about God. Christianity seems a serviceable pathway to deepening one’s understanding of God, and it’s a pathway with which I am already familiar, so it’s the pathway I mostly pursue these days. What I am trying to convey is that, to me, God is something we cannot adequately describe nor convey, but we can each experience in our own way…if we allow the experience.]

A few months ago the two of you were preparing to take showers as part of your bedtime routine. Everett asked me a question along the lines of “Dad, does God….”. Sometime during this exchange you climbed into my arms. After I answered his question to Everett’s satisfaction and he turned to get in the shower, you muttered something along the lines of, “The Big Bang created the atoms in the universe. Eventually those atoms formed into stars and planets, and from that matter life formed and evolved. God doesn’t exist!” I asked you who told you that, to which you responded “no one”. The implication: this was your interpretation based on available evidence. I was struck by hearing my then nine year old son rather concisely summarizing the Materialist worldview. I’ve heard many folks articulate some version of the same philosophy, but these were always adults. You were, by about a decade, the youngest person I had encountered to articulate this idea.

I concede the possibility that someone shared with you the Materialist worldview without you remembering. But you have an uncanny ability to recall accurately and precisely where you learned things. It’s also possible that you chose not to share where you discovered Materialsm, but you are exceedingly honest by nature, and I believe I’ve developed some intuition for when you are lying or even withholding elements of the truth. Indeed, the most interesting possibility is also the simplest: you came to the Materialst worldview on your own.

See, I think it’s relatively safe to say that, at nine years old, you weren’t entirely reasoning from first principles. Perhaps said differently, it’s not as if you have dedicated years of deep thought to Materialsm. And yet, you spoke with such determination, as if you wanted to will your point to be true. The thought that struck me forcefully in the moment (and one I still believe): you picked up the Materialst worldview in the ether around you.

You wouldn’t know this as I write, but as far as I can tell Materialsm stands as the dominant worldview in educated society today. This marks a substantial change from my youth and young adulthood; then, Christianity was sufficiently dominant that Materialism (and it’s oft paired cousin, atheism) was mostly confined to highly educated contrarians, at least in public discourse. During my adolescent and young adult years, an intolerant Religious Right emerged; young intellectuals instinctively turned away, and in the process, largely left Christianity. In America we’ve long divorced our spiritual and intellectual selves, but in my adult years our spiritual selves have largely been buried. In intellectual circles, Materialism ascended to become a much more dominant worldview, and Christianity an increasingly marginalized fringe. In one episode of the television show Silicon Valley, the writers made the joke that a startup founder was nonplussed about being outed as gay, but horrified when was outed as a Christian. The joke landed, at least in part, because of how quickly it both became socially acceptable to be gay and socially unacceptable, at least in intellectual circles, to be Christian.

Where this gets interesting to me: again, somehow you picked Materialism up from the world around you. The great irony is that picking up ideas from the ether is precisely a spiritual phenomenon, and itself argues strongly against Materialism. Perhaps more importantly, you can’t prove Materialism (or, in your own words, that the Big Bang led to matter which led to people, and God doesn’t exist) any more than I can prove the existence of God. You can, of course, accumulate evidence you consider compelling…and, of course, so can I. At the end of the day, whether one believes in God, or one subscribes to Materialism, one ultimately rests one’s beliefs on an article (or articles) of faith. There are things we cannot prove definitely, and we just have to decide what we believe. What I want to stress here is the universality of faith, of belief. See, for most of my adult life Materialists have presented themselves as rationalists, and painted religious folk (often referred to collectively by the revealing catch-all term “believers”) as antiquated, superstitious, and of lower intelligence. I’m not sure why it took me until the last few years to understand that all of us, even the Materialists, ultimately rest our faith on something. But once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

What surprises me now is the degree to which others are seeing the same thing I see (which reinforces my perception that some ideas come to us, either through the ether or an inner source of inspiration). Joe Rogan, a comedian-turned-podcaster, recently quipped about how believing in Jesus makes more sense than believing in the Big Bang. A podcast series I follow called the Telepathy Tapes argues fealty to Materialism led to a perversion of scientific scholarship. I even saw a clip from a comedy special joking about how believing “nothing” created the universe seemingly makes less sense than believing God did so. Comedy’s ancient tradition is speaking truth to power in ways that 1) are unthreatening to the powerful, and yet 2) allow the rest of society to blow off steam. When the comedians are coming for you, that means that 1) you have power, and 2) that power has blinded you, at least somewhat.

Materialism retains its dominance, but somehow I find it far less threatening than I once did. I sorta imagine the Materialist as creating a very small box, holding that box tight in his fist, and then demanding I convince him God exists in the box. The parameters of the debate are just so absurd: perhaps, if one makes the box small enough and holds the box tightly enough, one can exclude God. But that world is so vanishingly and depressingly small, even compared to the universe available to us. Compared to the dimensions barely perceptible to us, that box is incomprehensibly miniscule. You are welcome to live there if you choose. I cannot imagine why one would, but again, that’s a decision we must all make for ourselves.

A few weeks after the “God isn’t real” discussion, you woke up in the middle of the night. You rarely wake up at night, so this itself surprised me. That night you happened to be sleeping in my bed while your mom slept in your brother’s. You left the room momentarily, and when you came back I asked where you went. You told me you left to tell your mom you were hearing the voices again. Um, what? I asked for more details, and you explained that you heard loud voices almost shouting inside your head. I asked if this was the first time, and you said it had happened before, but not often. We went back to sleep, but I asked a few more questions the next day. You said the voices (plural, I confirmed there were more than one) weren’t saying anything, but that it felt as if they were shouting at you. You volunteered the sense that, as the voices shouted at you, the world was caving in around you. You did not enjoy this experience, and admitted it being scary. The experience did not sound pleasant, and I’ll admit concerns me at least a little.

Whatever it is, your experience sounds like a spiritual phenomenon to me, and I approached it as such. I reminded you about how you asked me why I thought God was real, and that I told you it was because I sensed God talks to me. I proceeded to explain that this was the type of experience to which I was referring, and posited the possibility that either angels or demons were trying to communicate with you. I offered that, though the voices were scary, it might be wise not to fight them, but instead to try to understand what they are trying to communicate. While you didn’t respond, you did listen earnestly, and I sensed an openness to what I was trying to convey than I cannot imagine happening under other circumstances.

And so now we wait and see what happens next. Was it just a bad dream? Do you have a strange and obscure medical condition? I’m open to any possibility, and will respond when we get more data. For now, we wait and see. Regardless, I celebrate one small aspect of the experience: I sensed you were open to considering the possibility of a world beyond atoms, if only for a moment.

I love you kiddo.

Love,

Dad

May 27, 2025

Dear Leland and Everett

In my last post, I briefly mentioned feeling a darkness in me. I had a helpful, clarifying conversation about that sensation, and wanted to share some insights here.

First off, as I think I’ve mentioned before, I’m starting to sense sometimes we all feel the same underlying energy flows, each of us from our own unique perspectives. I first noticed this trend in my Spiritual Stew meetings, but I continue to notice similar trends in the world around me. After a Memorial Day weekend spent interacting with loved ones across several walks of life, I came to appreciate how the thread of distraction, of discomfort, of…something not quite right, permeates not just me but those I encounter.

In one particular conversation, a friend of mine (about whom I’ve spoken before; he too experiences visions) also observed the seemingly confusing signals (and lack thereof) he’s been receiving of late. Separately, he and I have both experienced the sensation that our messages were evolving (his experience was quite interesting: God literally dismantled a house built for my friend to explore his faith, and was in the process of building a new one; this tracks very much with my sense that the way I would experience things going forward will not necessarily resemble the visions I’ve had the last few years).

During this conversation our discussion turned to the feeling of discomfort or darkness we both felt. I reluctantly admitted the degree to which I’m coming to realize that I have been avoiding that sensation, and am invited to stop succumbing to distraction and face the discomfort I’m feeling.

My friend and I have worked out a metaphor for what our healing journeys have felt like thus far, and completing this train of thought requires sharing the metaphor. Some of this will likely overlap from past messages, but the metaphor expands as I deepen my understanding.

When I set the intention to heal, I often the experience something unpleasant out in the world: an argument with a loved one perhaps, a bothersome life event, or even particularly unpleasant world news. Whatever the specifics, I am drawn into old patterns of righteousness, ruminating as I see the world through the prism of good guys and bad guys. I’ve learned to take this state of righteousness as a sign of opportunity: rather than look for how to defeat the bad guys or defend the good guys, I decide to explore what sits underneath these emotions. So I take the situation into meditation or prayer. Typically I’ll discover some discomfort in my body. I’m always tempted to interpret the discomfort as a distraction, but am learning to explore it with curiosity. In the metaphor, my friend and I describe this process as coming to understand that something is stuck, rather uncomfortably, in our bodies. But rather than avoiding the discomfort, as has been our habit, we now reach in and around to grab it and pull it in front of us so that we might grant it our attention. The progress, at least at this stage, is developing awareness that something is stuck within ourselves (and is the ultimate cause of the discomfort we experience, not what is happening out in the world).

Developing awareness of physical discomfort is not enough to experience healing. The next step is to understand the underlying cause of the discomfort; to do that I’ve learned to just explore the discomfort, sometimes even asking it what it wants me to know. Eventually, when I am ready, some insight emerges. Historically that insight has been some unpleasant life experience. The implication: the unpleasant life experience somehow lodged in my body as an unhappy memory, triggering defensive behaviors meant to protect me from experiencing similar pain the future.

Typically, once I’ve understood the underlying memory associated with the discomfort, I start to see the ways the experience shaped my life. I see the different times I’ve avoided or shied away from situations in order to protect myself from experiencing similar pain again. And I start to realize how these behaviors have come to limit me, and have outlived their usefulness. At this stage I understand that it is time to let go of not just the pain, but the defensive habits I’ve created to protect the pain. Returning to the metaphor: at this point I learn that it is time for me to let go of the discomfort I pulled out of my body and now hold in front of me.

Unfortunately, at this point I realize I am holding onto this discomfort with white knuckled terror. Even though I have come to understand how the original experience and the overprotective adaptations that resulted are hurting me more than helping me, the idea of experiencing the pain is too acute to surrender. I often need a little time and space, and some compassion and grace while I built the strength to let go.

During this phase I typically attempt bargaining with God. Sometimes I might try to justify why I should keep the metaphorical armor I’m clutching. God doesn’t respond, and the silence feels deafening. Then I offer to trade my armor for something else I might want. More silence. Eventually, perhaps somewhat desperately, I ask God to at least explain what will replace this thing I clutch. Still more silence. Finally, I am reminded: I must take the leap of faith, and surrender this thing, and trust that whatever comes next will be better than this protection I surrender.

Eventually, and usually with some invocation of God’s support, I work up the strength and will to open my clenched fist and let go of the pain and the armor protecting it. Immediately thereafter I feel a sense of release, of relief, of relative peace. It’s the feeling one might experience after a particularly challenging workout, or a fight with a loved one that results in reconciliation, or any sort of big emotional release.

The feeling of peace might last a few minutes or a few hours; typically I feel a lingering calm for a few days. Eventually, inevitably, I come to feel a void. I come to appreciate how the thing I surrendered had become so embedded as to effectively become part of me. Letting go of the thing meant letting go of part of myself, and that part of myself warrants grieving. While I recognize the value of letting go of the thing, I come to appreciate that the thing, even if flawed, was a known commodity. The thing was predictable; I could rely on the thing. Even though I recognize how the thing pulled me into suffering, I lament the loss of the known. In the void left behind, I just feel unnerving uncertainty.

Eventually, something new starts to fill the void, slowly. In these moments I am reminded death comes before rebirth: I must let go in order to create the space for something new to grow. Why God works this way, I don’t know. But I’m increasingly convinced this is the way God works.

Okay, backdrop complete (and I hope that was helpful, even for its own sake), I set this metaphor to contrast slightly with what I am experiencing today. Because what I sense today is not that any particular energy is stuck in my body, nor that I’m carrying armor to which I’ve grown attached. So I recognize progress of a sort: I don’t appear to be holding negative energy and protective armor in quite the same ways. And yet, I still feel this feeling of discomfort.

At this point I’m reminded of the dream I had recently. Just a week after my most recent journey, we travelled to Yosemite for your spring break. We spent the week hiking, exhausting ourselves in the wilderness. It was a wonderful trip, though I will admit the two of you are still warming to hiking. In the lead up to the trip I told you about El Capitan, about how climbers ascend to the top, and how you can sit in a meadow and use binoculars to see climbers look like ants on the massive granite face (something we did, twice, while throwing frisbees around the meadow; these two experiences were some of my highlights of the trip). I even explained how climbers will sometimes sleep on cots anchored in the rock face, and showing you images I found online.

That night I dreamed I was attempting to sleep in a cot anchored high up El Capitan. My cot was anchored in, and all my belongings were anchored in. Whether or not I was anchored in was unclear. I wondered whether I might roll off the cot and fall. I imagined looking at my phone (why my phone?) and worrying it might fall. Each time I imagined a specific action, I was flooded with a new wave of fear.

I woke up, appreciated being out of the dream, and then drifted back to sleep. I returned right back to the dream. In fact, I woke up several times, but each time returned right back to the dream. I started to feel a little desperate and hopeless. Finally the thought occurred to me, “what if I stopped resisting this situation, and just embraced it?” Up until that point, I felt as if fear were dialed up to 100%, and all other emotions dialed down to 0%. In that moment, I felt fear dial down just a notch, offset by a small feeling of aliveness. I embraced the situation more fully, and felt fear dial down further. I found that I could, by adjusting my attitude, affect how I experienced lying on that cot. I could resist, and would immediately feel fear surge again. Or I could embrace the situation, and feel fear subside. I didn’t necessarily enjoy the feeling of aliveness, but the aliveness sure beat fear.

My sense is that I am invited to look at the darkness or discomfort I feel. My current hypothesis is that I am invited to treat the discomfort the way I engaged with righteousness: notice it, pull it in front of me and grant it my full awareness, exploring it with curiosity. What will come of that exercise, I do not know for certain. But my suspicion is that I am invited to replace resistance with embrace, and in the process feel uncomfortable but more alive. To what end, I have no idea. But I at least have a sense of where I’m going, if only a limited one.

I love you both.

Love,

Dad

May 21, 2025

Dear Everett,

When you read this, you will almost certainly remember taking piano lessons. What you may not remember is why you started taking them. Last summer we visited some friends, and their teenage daughter practiced her piano recital music for us. You walked over to me from across the room and crawled into my lap, all without taking your eyes off of your friend playing the piano. You looked transfixed. I asked if you wanted to play the piano like that. Without taking your eyes off of her, you nodded. A few weeks later, another family of friends came to visit; seeing our piano, their teenage son sat down to play. Same reaction: you walked over to me and crawled into my lap, and when I asked if you wanted to play the piano like that, you nodded without taking your eyes off of what you were witnessing.

It would be hard to overstate how mesmerized you seemed in those moments. The first occurrence felt like something I could chalk up to novelty; you had never seen anyone play the piano, after all. The second occurrence, playing out almost identically to the first, felt like a sign, either from you or the universe, and something to which I should respond. I reached out to parents of your peers to find out if anyone had piano teachers they recommended. Through that channel we found you a piano teacher, and you’ve been taking lessons for most of the past school year.

You’ve advanced quickly. I never played the piano, so don’t have much frame of reference. But the context clues seem pretty compelling. Your teacher, who though quite friendly does not appear the type to doll out praise frivolously, compliments your progress regularly. She overestimates how much you practice based on how quickly you’ve learned. Your Gran, who did play the piano, periodically seems pretty impressed with how fast you are learning. And your mom, slow to praise lest her kids get cocky, once stopped what she was doing in the kitchen to walk over and watch you play. The relative complexity of your play had caught her attention, and she wanted to see it. As she walked away she raised her eyebrows; she was surprised and, reluctant though she would be to say so, impressed.

Recently you’ve complained about going to piano lessons. I’ve found the complaints confusing and surprising: you clearly enjoy playing the piano (you generally practice without being reminded, and you invariably play songs you know whenever you see a piano, be it in public or at someone’s house). You only complain when I pick you up for lessons, which initially made me wonder if you felt like you were missing out on time with friends at after-school. Your lessons are in the late afternoon, which made me wonder if you were tired and hungry. When you complain, I typically remind you that we don’t make decisions to stop something on the way to that thing; if we want to stop taking lessons, we need to talk about it in advance.

Yesterday when I picked you up for piano lessons, per recent custom you started to complain. I reminded you that we don’t make decisions en route, and suggested that if you wanted to stop that we should talk it over with your mom after lessons that night. You asked me to remind you. I tried asking some clarifying questions. Was it your teacher? Was it the timing? I told you that I thought you liked playing the piano, and was reluctant to see you stop doing something you liked, but that we could look into adjusting it so that you would enjoy it more.

On the way home from the lesson you reminded me that we should talk to Mom about stopping lessons. I said okay. You then proceeded to complain that your teacher was giving you material that was too advanced, and that you wanted to play things that were more appropriate for your age. (I found this line of reasoning pretty entertaining, because I have no idea how you would know what is appropriate for a seven year old on piano). I asked, “Is it that you don’t like playing piano? Or that you don’t like your teacher? Or is it that her lessons are too hard?” You responded pretty quickly and instinctively, “Too hard”.

We proceeded to have a conversation about hard. I told you that one of my favorite quotes comes from a basketball team (the recent NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks), “everything you want in life is on the other side of hard”. We talked about how the biggest difference between those who succeed in life and those who come up short is that successful people are willing to do things that are hard. We talked about watching the NBA playoffs (something we do every couple of nights these days), and how all the teams and players left have to embrace the fact that what they are doing is hard; no one can become an NBA champion without going through hard. I proposed you embrace an identity as someone who embraces hard, because it will help you succeed in life. A little while later, while we were all sitting down to dinner, I said “Everett, is there something you wanted to talk to your mom about?” You said, “No”. I took this to mean you were prepared to embrace hard, at least for today.

This morning it hit me: I needed that talk just as much as you did. I was talking to me as much as I was talking to you. Don’t get me wrong: I have the ability to do uncomfortable things. When I look back on my life to date, and see where I am versus where I started…one cannot make that transition without the ability to navigate challenging circumstances. I have the ability to focus, I have some grit, and when I know what I want I’m pretty good at making that happen. But part of navigating this stage of life is recognizing the parts that have been neglected and overlooked, and adjusting. In yoga, my eternal metaphor, it’s quite clear which parts of my body have been overlooked and neglected. While parts of my body are strong, others are quite stiff and weak. Recently I’ve noticed small evidence of progress, particularly in the form of muscles engaging that frankly, haven’t been. It feels new and exciting, but also foreign, because I don’t have a frame of reference for what it feels like to engage these muscles. It’s uncomfortable, and a little demoralizing: the progress feels so small relative to the time I’ve invested in making the progress. Said differently, I’m struggling with hard.

I wonder sometimes whether I under-appreciate how much progress I’ve made, and whether having proper perspective would help me maintain motivation. You are my example here: clearly you have made rapid progress, and it seems rather clear to me that you struggle to recognize and appreciate how far you’ve come. This is part of the job of the coach, teacher, or parent: help kids see how far they’ve come, so they might appreciate their progress and maintain perspective. Otherwise the familiarity of the discomfort tricks us into believing nothing has changed, and that we’re stuck in the same struggle in perpetuity.

Admittedly, I worry that I’m deluding myself, and fear the progress is too slow, and that I’m ultimately wasting my time, money, and effort. In those moments, I try to remind myself of the objective signs of progress I’ve made, and the people who have given me positive feedback along the way. Those moments keep me motivated to keep going, but I’ll admit, right now is still hard.

So it is with my spiritual journey as well. I wrote you recently about my third psychedelic journey. One element of that experience that continues to resonate: the idea of letting the darkness out of us. Since that experience, I’ve generally maintained an unsettled feeling. I’ve not enjoyed that feeling, and frankly tried avoiding it. I eventually followed up with my guide, admitting that I’ve generally avoided revisiting the experience (part of the “reintegration” process that’s pretty critical to retaining benefits from the experience). Her intuition was that the thing I am looking for is sitting in front me, if only I can get still enough to find it. A week later a friend said to me, unprompted, “I feel like the thing you are looking for is looking for you”, suggesting I only needed get out of my own way. Again, I’m struggling with hard.

I sense a feeling of darkness sitting in (or perhaps more accurately, attempting to rise out of) me. At the same time, I see darkness rising in others all around me. I see your mom struggle in waves, battling with darkness in her. I see it in my church, as we oscillate between accepting the invitation to let go of one trauma and battling with the next (with the battle winning out more often than letting go these days). And of course, I see evidence of our collective struggle all around me in our news and current events. Based on my psychedelic experience, I sense a call to support others in letting the darkness out…and yet I’ll admit to being completely befuddled in terms of how to go about doing so.

Your mom has been helpful. The last couple weeks we have gone for walks together. On the first, when your mom asked how she could help and offered some ideas, I found myself suggesting that I felt drawn to tackle some things on my to do list that had been hovering over me. I asked for some support, in the form of some grace: these were projects that felt daunting, because they felt like things I was bad at. I committed to trying my best, but asked for some grace to do the jobs poorly. Your mom, helpfully, granted me that grace. I almost wanted her to decline my request: part of me wanted to remain feeling stuck, but now I felt compelled to tackle some long-neglected projects.

The next week was pretty productive, if uncomfortable. The projects in question had a couple common characteristics: they all required working with a vendor, and they were all projects where your mom was likely to care about the outcome at least as much as I would. I didn’t like the feeling that I couldn’t control the outcome (precisely because I was working through someone else), and I really, really didn’t like the idea that the outcome would provoke a big argument with your mom. Fortunately, I was able to solve all the problems I set out to solve last week, and with less time and money spent than I anticipated or feared. I strongly suspect the success had something to do with the approach (accepting the discomfort and uncertainty, and not being attached to outcomes), but of course I can’t prove that. I won’t say I enjoyed the week, but I’m glad I did it, and sense I grew from the experience (though to what end I don’t have any idea).

Last week we went for another walk, and your mom let me brain dump all the ideas rattling around in my head, in terms of what direction I want to take my life and vocation: all the ideas, all the places I felt stuck, all the places where I felt overwhelmed in perceived complexity. Through that process we were able to separate out a couple different threads I had jumbled together, and create an opportunity to pursue both independently. Separating the threads allowed me to simplify the potential solutions such that next steps became relatively clear, and I no longer felt overwhelmed by a perception of interconnected complexity. I’m still uncomfortable, but have a bit more sense of direction.

This week I’ve noticed my home to do list growing, at a faster rate than normal. I’ve struggled to decide what to do each day, such that I’ve often defaulted to “very little”. I’ve napped, which I frankly count as a positive (sleep is not what I do best, so I’ll take it where I can get it), but I’ve frittered away a fair amount of time. I’ve restarted my meditation practice after a few weeks off (part of my recent tendency toward avoidance), which is also a positive. And today I’m writing this note, which feels like a win (any day I write, especially to you and your brother, feels like a win).

I was tempted to say next “but I can tell I’m avoiding something”. But that’s not quite right: a more positive (and accurate) framing is that I’m working up to doing the next batch of uncomfortable things. Napping, meditating, and writing are activities that bring me energy; I’m investing in those activities in anticipating of leveraging that energy to tackle the uncomfortable things I want to do.

Another way to frame my recent experiences: I’ve been avoiding hard. But I recognized my avoidance, and started confronting it. I’ve not embraced hard as quickly, completely, or effectively as I might have liked. But I’m attempting to tackle hard in ways I’ve avoided for decades, so I deserve a little grace. I tackled some hard last week, and am working my way back to tackling some more hard this week. Like I suggested to you, I am hopeful that I am able to practice embracing hard, such that I get better at it and am able to sit with it more often. If nothing else, doing so would mean setting a good example for you, which seems like the most important things in the world I can do. Wish me luck, and let me know how it turns out.

I love you kiddo.

Love,

Dad

May 5, 2025

Dear Leland and Everett,

I’m not ready for Pop to step down as coach of the Spurs.  

Don’t get me wrong:  I get that it’s the right thing to do.  Most importantly, I trust it’s the right thing for Pop.  Reluctantly, I even accept it’s probably the right thing for the Spurs.  I’m not trying to change what’s real, nor am I trying to change anyone’s mind.  It’s just that I’m not ready.  

Pop coached my favorite team my whole adult life (at least until this point).  He took over as coach when I was a freshman in college, living in San Antonio.  I was in the stadium for the Memorial Day Miracle, when Sean Elliot hit that 3-pointer while toeing the out of bounds line in game 1 of the 1999 Western Conference Finals against the formidable Trailblazers.  I lived in San Antonio that summer before my senior year, getting some work experience via an unpaid internship and waiting tables at night to make money.  That championship run snuck up on us Spurs fans.  It was a strike shortened season, and just a few years prior the Spurs suffered an agonizing loss to the Rockets despite having the best record in the NBA.  Spurs fans knew nothing was certain.  And yet.  You could feel the excitement building in the city that summer.  The atmosphere in San Antonio during the summer time, when the Spurs are in the playoffs, is always electric…but that summer was different.  On the one hand, a city that had never won a championship couldn’t quite believe they ever would.  On the other hand, it felt like a team of destiny.  I watched the Raptors playoff run in 2019 and the Bucks run in 2021; both times I thought “I recognize that energy: those fans know something special is happening”.  That’s how San Antonio felt in the summer of 1999.  

The thing I’ll never forget about the Memorial Day Miracle:  the sound.  I was sitting about 10 rows from the top of the Alamodome, that football stadium where the Spurs played back then.  I was in the upper deck, technically behind the gigantic tarp the team used to partition the stadium for basketball.  My tickets cost $8, because that’s what I could afford back then (and because the seats were, frankly, not very good; I didn’t care: I just wanted to be in the building).  When that shot went in, the crowd erupted.  The loudspeakers started to play a song; it was at least a minute before I could discern they were playing YMCA, that’s how loud the stadium was.  The next day, a classmate told me that ESPN’s Sportscenter showed a clip from the vantage point of the on-floor cameraman, and that the camera literally started shaking from all the crowd delirium.

I was working the night the Spurs won the first championship later that summer.  After my shift I drove downtown to the River Walk; I just wanted to be around celebrating fans, and assumed I would find them downtown.  I did, though I never made it to the River Walk:  cars jammed downtown, fans honking and yelling in celebration.  I didn’t need to get out of my car to find the celebration; I just sat in my car, in dead still traffic, euphoric with all the other Spurs fans.  

In 2000 Timmy got hurt, wrecking the title defense.  In 2001 I thought we’d take the crown back from the Lakers; boy was I wrong.  In 2002 the Spurs overhauled the roster, signing Bruce Bowen and Stephen Jackson and drafting Tony Parker; alas they still couldn’t overcome the Lakers.  As so often happens in basketball, the next year the newly constructed team gelled: the 2003 team added Manu Ginobili, won 60 games for the first time in the Tim Duncan era, vanquished the mighty Lakers, and won their second title in David Robinson’s last season.  The 2004 team came close, losing to the Lakers in part thanks to a Derek Fisher turnaround jump shot off an out-of-bounds play that started with 0.4 seconds on the shot clock…clearly aided by some lousy timekeeping (not that I’m bitter).  The 2005 team responded by taking the title from the defending champion Pistons in a seven game slugfest, aided by Robert Horry heroics in game 5 and Manu Ginobili heroics in game 7.  In 2006 the Spurs led the Dallas Mavericks by 3 with ~20 seconds left in game 7 when Manu inexplicably fouled Dirk Nowitzky on a layup.  Manu only had one speed, and that was reckless abandon.  We had to take the good with the bad, even if the bad meant a mistake that ultimately cost the Spurs their season.  The Mavericks went on to the Finals, only to lose to an honestly weaker Heat team.  You will never convince me the Spurs wouldn’t have won another championship that season if not for that foul.  Thankfully, they redeemed themselves again in 2007, thanks in part to the Robert Horry shove of Steve Nash late in game 4 of the Western Conference semis.  I’m still astonished how the Spurs either won or came painfully close to winning the title five years in a row. What an incredible run, the type of run all fans dream of experiencing once in their lives.  

With Timmy aging, the Spurs slowly lost their magic.  They made it to the Western Conference Finals again in 2008, only to get beat 4-1 by the Lakers.  In 2009 the Spurs lost in the first round, and in 2010 they were swept in the second round.  By 2011 the team remade itself around Manu, finishing the regular season with the West’s top seed; unfortunately Manu hurt himself shortly before the playoffs, and the Spurs lost, somewhat embarrassingly, in the first round to the 8-seed Grizzlies.  

At this point I assumed the Spurs run was over.  I had loved it, but Father Time comes for all of us.  Little did I know that the team would remake itself again, this time around Tony Parker.  In 2012 the Spurs, again the number 1 seed, won their first 10 playoff games, prompting some sportswriters to start pondering where the team belonged amongst the all-time greats.  Unfortunately for San Antonio, the young but prodigiously talented Thunder grew up overnight, winning the next four games and ending the Spurs season.  Pop’s Knute Rockne-esque “I want some nasty” speech inspired a game 1 comeback win, but wasn’t enough to deliver the Spurs back to the promised land.  

Up 3-2 in the NBA Finals, the 2013 Spurs led the Miami Heat by 5 with 28 seconds to play.  A Lebron James 3 and a Kawhi Leonard missed free throw set the stage for my most painful experiences as a Spurs fan. Pop left Timmy, one of the best defenders and rebounders in the history of the league, on the bench for the deciding defensive possession. LeBron missed his 3, but Chris Bosh secured an offensive rebound Timmy might have grabbed, then passed out to Ray Allen, who hit one of the most remarkable shots one will ever see.  The Spurs went on to lose in OT, and then again in game 7. I’ll forever be proud of how hard the Spurs fought in game 7: most teams can’t recover from the type of soul-crushing loss they suffered in game 6, but those Spurs teams were special.  

Unbelievably (at least to me), the Spurs rallied in 2014, putting together one of the most beautiful seasons of basketball ever.  Pop overhauled the Spurs offense (led by Tony Parker but frankly lacking a true superstar) to be more egalitarian, relying on passing and cutting and dizzying pace.  More than a decade later, the 2014 Spurs remain a shorthand for basketball enthusiasts and talking heads: they arguably represent the peak of aesthetic basketball.  I watched the clinching game from Singapore, taking the day off from work to watch my beloved Spurs win their fifth championship.  When an aging Manu dunked in traffic on a fast break, San Antonio went delirious.  The prior season, Manu’s Finals performance was bad enough that we thought his career as an impact player was effectively over, so that dunk was cathartic. A national sportswriter I follow, who was in attendance, quipped that he thought the were going to have to call an unofficial timeout, like they do at Rucker Park for street ball games, so that the crowd could just fully celebrate.  

By 2015 Timmy was on his last legs, and the Spurs lost a first round slugfest with the LA Clippers.  That offseason the Spurs signed all-star LaMarcus Aldridge.  In 2016 Kawhi Leonard emerged as one of the league’s superstars, and the Spurs won a franchise record 67 games.  Unfortunately, they ran into the OKC Thunder at the peak of their athleticism, right before the Thunder lost to the record-setting 73-win Warriors, right before the Warriors lost to Lebron’s Cavs in an epic seven game series.  That Spurs team gets lost in the top-heavy 2016 season, but they were great.  In 2017 the Spurs led the Warriors by 21 points in the third quarter of game 1 of the Western Conference Finals when Zaza Pachulia undercut Kawhi Leonard, ending Kawhi’s season and the Spurs title hopes.  

And then everything unraveled.  Kawhi never fully recovered from his injuries.  The details remain murky, but Kawhi sat most of the 2018 season before demanding a trade.  The Spurs salvaged what they could, but NBA teams don’t recover from trading superstars in their primes.  The Spurs made the playoffs in 2019, only to lose in the first round.  In 2020, the Spurs missed the playoffs for the first time in 23 years.  

For the next three years, the Spurs slowly dismantled what remained of their roster, moving into a full rebuild.  During that time, they leveraged one of Pop’s core strengths, player development, by drafting and developing players who they then traded to contenders for additional draft picks.  Watch an NBA playoff game the last few offseasons, and you were likely to watch a former Spur contribute to a team’s success.  

The losing and accumulated draft picks are starting to pay off.  Last year the Spurs won the draft lottery, and with it the chance to draft a player who legitimately looks like he could surpass Michael Jordan to become the best who ever lived.  The only thing standing between Victor Wembanyama and a truly legandary NBA career appears to be health; if he can stay healthy, it’s hard to imagine him not winning multiple titles and MVP awards.  He’s genuinely that good.  

Through it all, Pop has been our anchor.  Early in his career, the Spurs invariably led the league (or came very close) in defense.  The offense was pretty simple: dump it down to Timmy on the left block and let him go to work. As Timmy aged and the league evolved, Pop evolved too.  By the 2010s the Spurs were often led by an offense increasingly noted for its passing and cutting and pace.  Pop ruthlessly copied great ideas from other teams, notably the Mike D’Antoni Suns teams.  But Pop’s teams also introduced, or at least perfected, offensive wrinkles of his own.  The Spurs used Hammer Screens to spring open three point shooters, particularly in needed late-game situations.  When zone defenses became legal, the Spurs so regularly fooled the Heat by sending a cutter to the strong side of the zone that the Heat came to call it “the Danny Green cut”, after the Spurs’ marksman.  

Pop set a culture of excellence, one where he and his players deflected all praise to others.  He was stubborn and irascible, but genuinely loved his players and appreciated opposing players and coaches throughout the league.  One of Pop’s rules:  if a former player happened to be dining at the restaurant wherever he was eating, Pop picked up the check.  This rule prompted some former players to scout where Pop would be dining during road trips, so that they might get a free meal from their former coach.  

Pop’s knowledge of food and wine was such that…well, if you are at all curious, I encourage you to read this. The man knew how to recognize and cultivate excellence beyond just the basketball court.

Reliving these memories today drives home the meaning sports can play in our lives. With the announcement of Pop’s retirement, I am flooded with memories, not just of basketball, but where I was during those moments. I most vividly remember the summer of 1999: it was the Spurs’ first championship, I was living in San Antonio at the impressionable age of 21. I remember watching the Spurs get blown out of game 1 of the 2001 WCF on vacation, feeling humiliated in front of my friends after boasting a little too much about how the Spurs were going to win. I remember sitting at my desk in 2003 in Phoenix, or while on a business trip to Indianapolis, devouring all the articles I could find about the previous night’s game, soaking in the wins. I have hardly any recollection at all of traveling to Indianapolis, but I can still see the desk and the office surroundings as I read those articles. I remember sitting at home in Phoenix watching game 7 of the 2005 Finals, making sure no one else was around so that I could cheer as loudly as I wanted (because I knew I wouldn’t be able to help myself). I remember being at a networking function during game 6 of the 2013 Finals, getting text messages from my high school friends about how the Spurs were about to win. I remember checking my phone right about the moment Kawhi missed his free throw; I’ll never forget the feeling of doubt I experienced in that moment, and the feeling of dread that grew as the game unravelled. I’ll never forget the feeling of gratitude and appreciation I felt watching the team win in 2014, and even anticipating how the game would flow (with the Spurs going on a torrential run in the second half). More recently, I doubt I’ll ever forget watching game 81 of last year’s regular season with the two of you in our hotel during spring break in Sacramento, when Wemby scored 17 points in 3 minutes en route to a stunning upset of the defending champion Nuggets. With that win, the 22-win Spurs cost the Nuggets the #1 seed in that year’s playoffs; I’ll always wonder if the Nuggets might have repeated as champions had they won that game, but the broader point is the feeling of hope and anticipation I felt regarding Wemby’s upcoming career arc.

Partly this experience drives home the meaning sports can play in our lives. Those sporting memories create visceral associations, often in astonishing detail. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of another association that can put me in a time and place so vividly. I can see where I was, who I was with, and almost instantly remember what was happening in my life. Without those anchors, I very much doubt I would be able to recreate those eras in my life nearly so accurately. Remembering my life as a Spurs fan during the Greg Popovich tenure is, in many ways, remembering my life as an adult thus far. Having those memories come flooding back all in one day was overwhelming and more than a little emotional. It’s not just closing the book on Pop’s career; for me it’s closing a chapter of my life, one that I’ve loved and cherished and long since known couldn’t last forever. It’s not so much that I fear losing those memories; I assume I will still be able to access them, at least under the right circumstances. It’s more just the intensely personal reflection of my life, and the intimate look I get through the years and eras of my life. I’m coming to understand that getting to the root of our identity is always a vulnerable and emotional experience. Recalling my memories as a Spurs fan provides some interesting windows through which I can see myself, who I’ve been, and who I’ve become. It’s deeply personal, and therefore raw and emotional.

So, this note is my way of processing a change I’m not ready to make.  I know it’s time.  Pop is 76 years old, the end of the line was coming soon no matter what.  The odds he would be able to coach the Spurs through Wemby’s peak years were already pretty remote.  After his stroke last year, those odds became virtually nil.  But I can know it’s time and still not be ready.  And I’m not ready.  

I will be.  First I just need to take some time to reminisce, and appreciate how lucky we Spurs fans have been.  

Thank you for everything Pop.  

I love you kiddos.

Love,

Dad

P.S. In case this makes no sense to you reading this: Greg Popovich announced today (Friday 5/2/25) that he is stepping down as head coach of the San Antonio Spurs. He’ll continue to function as team president, but for the first time in 29 years, he won’t be the coach.

March 31, 2025

Dear Leland and Everett,

I undertook my first true psychedelic experience on Friday. Full disclosure: my first vision stemmed from a guided MDMA experience that I undertook in an effort to pursue some healing and insights. I’ve done two MDMA “journeys” thus far, including one I have yet to discuss (something I hope to rectify soon). Some folks don’t consider MDMA a true psychedelic, and describe it as more of an empathogen. On Friday I did another journey, this time with psilocybin. 

I’m not entirely sure how to explain *why* I decided to take psilocybin. On the simplest level, it was just something I felt drawn to do. I’ve talked about following that “little voice”, and I felt as though the voice was leading me in that direction. As with all things, there are multiple true answers, so I’ll offer another. I’ve been feeling a bit stuck of late. As I’ve mentioned, my visions mostly stopped almost a year ago. I sensed the visions stopped for a purpose, and that I was 1) meant to practice patience and sitting in uncertainty, and 2) being invited to find other ways to learn, to know, to discover truth. Recently I’ve sensed a pending breakthrough, but sensed I was somehow blocked in terms of finding (or, perhaps more accurately, receiving) it. On some level, my hope was to break through the blockage, so that I might at least get past the feeling of being stuck. Finally, I’ve been feeling my energy build of late. I recognize this feeling, because it fits a pattern. From my teenage years, I’ve experienced cycles of burnout followed by periods of recovery. Then my energy starts to swell, and I inevitably take on new challenges (usually posed to me by other people in the form of a new job or other life change). The new challenge starts well enough, but over time I overextend myself and experience burnout. I’m beginning to feel the temptation to go sign up to solve someone else’s problems again, and I sense an opportunity to take a different path this time, one better aligned with my true purpose and gifts. The problem: I have very little sense what that path looks like, nor how to find it. And I’ll admit, I’ve been getting a little impatient. 

You will likely remember that I took an overnight trip, and (unusually) didn’t give you guys much explanation. I wasn’t entirely sure how to explain what I was headed to do. But you guys were excited enough to spend the time with your mom, so didn’t seem too worried about my departure. Your mom and I have taken enough overnight trips (normally to catch up with friends) that this wasn’t entirely foreign to you. Psychedelic journeys are pretty vulnerable, so I wanted something from you to help anchor me. Everett generously agreed to let me take Rainbow, one of his squishmallow stuffies. (This was an act of true bravery and generosity: Everett, you cried to your mom that night, worried I might forget to bring Rainbow home. When I texted your mom to tell her I was returning home, she called minutes later so that you might ask whether I remembered to bring home Rainbow. I cannot express how much I appreciated the gesture of bravery, sacrifice, and love in letting me borrow Rainbow for the night.)

I do these journeys with a guide. Partly this is because the experience is, again, sufficiently vulnerable that I want someone watching over me. From my research on the topic (which has been pretty extensive), “set and setting” matter hugely in terms of dictating the type of experience one has, and the value one gets from the experience. So I use a guide who knows how to create the setting, and guide my preparation such that I might get as much value from the experience as possible. Like past journeys, we started with a brief ceremony.  Similar to my experience with the St Ignatius exercises, the purpose of the starting ceremony appears to be setting the container such that I might experience transformation within.  

The overall experience was anything but linear, making it hard to describe; I will do my best.  The first thing to call out was that the experience was less visual than I expected.  There was a brief (few minute) period where I saw flashes of colors and shapes.  Irregular patterns of shapes would appear on a black background (I was wearing eye shades, lying flat on my back), usually in bright and vivid colors.  The shapes would linger for several seconds while the colors would change, normally rapidly, and normally from bright colors to either duller or earthier colors.  This only lasted a few minutes.

The overall experience broke into four parts, collectively lasting close to eight hours.  The first section was the most intense, and I remember it the least.  I remember saying “I feel energy stuck between my throat and my chest”, which is not language I normally use: I don’t normally sense energy blockages within my being; my bodily observations tend to be more rooted in physical sensations, or things we might describe using scientific terminology.  I remember my body moving, and periodic vocalizations.  My ego was tempted to remember this as more dramatic than it was:  at one point I started ‘remembering’ my body movements as convulsive; doubting this interpretation, I asked my guide later, who confirmed the movements were not rapid nor dramatic.  My guide experienced this section of the journey as me releasing energy, which she described as mostly occurring via vocalization.  When I first began, she was sitting in a chair off the end of the bed past my feet; she later shared that she could feel the energy coming out of me in that direction, enough that she felt compelled to move in order that the energy might have space to get released.  So she relocated her chair off the opposite end of the bed.  The energy release came in waves.  It felt multidimensional, as strange as that might sound.  After each release I felt a moment of peace, assuming the experience was over.  Then another wave would begin.  I felt each wave in a different, fairly specific, point within the three dimensions of my body.  The waves were uncomfortable and tiring, as if parts of my body were resisting the release.  Over time I came to resent oncoming waves, wishing the experience to be over.  The one thought I recall, which later became a theme of the overall journey, was that the mess was all perfect.  Elements of the journey that felt imperfect (for whatever reason), along with my life in general:  I sensed greater messiness than I am normally willing to acknowledge or face, but also a sense that the messiness existed in exactly the ways it needed to exist.  I found myself mentally coaching myself, but also your mom (about our life in general) and my guide (about the journey in particular):  the mess is perfect.  What did that mean?  The shortest answer (and this becomes another theme of the journey):  I don’t know.  There were not specific elements of mess, just a general awareness.  

After awhile I sat up and removed the mask.  Partly I was getting up to use the restroom, partly I needed a break from the waves of discomfort, and partly I sensed that the journey was moving into a new stage.  After using the restroom I lay back down with the mask off; for whatever reason I did not want the mask on.  At this point energy continued moving, but the waves were much smaller and less uncomfortable.  My eyes looked at the ceiling, where I almost sensed energy appearing in places that corresponded with where I was feeling parallel sensations in my body.  Over the course of this stage, I felt energy moving down my torso, from my upper chest to my lower chest to my stomach.  At the end of this section I passed gas a few times, as if that were the final release of energy needed.  As the energy moved down my body, my eyes followed the energy in parallel down the ceiling, such that my eye orientation shifted gradually from straight above me to eventually staring at roughly the point where the ceiling met the wall.  The waves of peace and discomfort continued as I continued to process and release energy.  I yearned for the process to complete and to experience sustained peace.  The thought eventually occurred to me that the goal of sustained peace was likely elusive:  the cycles of peace and discomfort seem somehow inextricable to the human existence.  I experienced the waves of comfort and discomfort partly as a dance between masculine and feminine energy; partly as a dance between me and others (mostly your mom, but sometimes the guide, sometimes the two of you, and sometimes the world at large); partly as a game of chase across dimensions, with chaos emerging for a moment, to be found and smoothed out, only to emerge in another form from another dimension, even if less pronounced with each emergence.  At this point I started having truly bizarre thoughts along the lines of “this already happened, and was always going to happen, but no it didn’t; it always was, but no it isn’t.  How can this be? I don’t know”.  While I’m still mostly confused by these thoughts, they sorta track my thoughts about free will versus God’s will.  Somehow I sense we have free will, but an overarching plan to the universe unfolds with or without us; we get to decide if we are in participation and harmony, or if we are in conflict and suffering.  Finally, during this section I continued to have thoughts along the lines of “the mess is perfect”.  I sort of imagined painting with poop, or watching feces squirt in random direction from behind me, projecting out in front.  

In the third section of the journey I physically turned around and lay facing the opposite direction as before.  Until this point I don’t think it had occurred to me that the “mess” (and at this point I had started replacing mess with “shit” in my internal monologue) was invariably coming from behind me.  And so, without realizing why until I turned around, I was responding to an invitation to turn around and face the shit.  At this point I wasn’t sure what to do with the shit, or even if I was supposed to do anything with this shit; all I knew was that I needed to spend some time facing the shit, letting the discomfort dissipate in the process.  

In the last section, I put the mask back on and started describing some of what I had experienced.  Nothing felt linear, so I felt as if I were piecing together fragments.  But themes emerged.  One, of course, was “I don’t know”.  Lots of contradictions or uncertainties presented themselves, and I kept returning to “I don’t know” (later, I found this deeply unsatisfying:  I came into the experience seeking answers, and the recurrence of “I don’t know” frustrated those expectations).  Another was the idea of facing the mess in order to see it for what it was:  scaffolding that helped bring us to this point, but now we can let it go in order to move on to our next stage in evolution.  

Co-creation was an ongoing theme:  I experienced the journey itself as a co-creation between my guide and me, and I kept thinking of my life as a co-creation between your mom and I (with the two of you playing a growing role over time).  I felt a deep desire for others to join me facing the mess in order that we might co-create from that place.  Here I found myself confounded by another seeming contradiction:  on one level I needed others to join me in co-creation; on the other hand I recognize the *need* isn’t the type of codependent, controlling need I have known thus far.  How could I need others but not need them?  I don’t know, though with hindsight I notice that while it expressed as “need”, it felt more like allowing destiny to unfold in the right ways.  I spent a lot of time envisioning your mom and I growing old together in co-creation, as co-creators of our lives together.  We took turns setting the container and transforming within the container.  Sometimes neither of us were ready, and we experienced conflict.  But we understood this was okay; part of the scaffolding that needed to emerge that we might let it go. This all felt inevitable, as if it had already happened, only no it hadn’t, and maybe it wouldn’t.  I don’t know.  

I saw myself emerging from the experience as a rather large, bright ball of light, wearing a mask.  The mask was my physical body, such that others might recognize me in this dimension.  Wearing the mask invited me to embrace my frailties, the imperfection of my earthly form.  In particular, I found myself, throughout the experience, trying to plant seeds such that I or others might know how to follow my path.  At this point I recognized that I am likely to continue to obsess a little too much, as in these letters, attempting to plant breadcrumbs in the hopes you (or others) might find them and they might support you in the process of finding your path.  I sensed the invitation was to be a source of light, such that others might find their own path without need of the bread crumbs.  

Though I couldn’t have articulated it at the time, I later realized that part of turning around to face the shit is turning around to shine my light in invitation for others to join me.  From my second vision, I assumed that this part of my journey was to walk my path, toward the distant billboard; I now sense that, for now anyway, I am invited to turn around in invitation that others might join me, facing the mess, experiencing life in co-creation.  I sensed as though I had healed as much as I can in isolation, and that I need to support others in healing in order to heal further; indeed, I almost sensed that my longevity requires others to heal, as strange as that might sound.  The story of Exodus has been with me recently, and in retrospect I experienced elements of that story.  After Moses led the Israelites out of slavery, they spent 40 years in the wilderness.  I had always interpreted that period in between as God’s punishment (indeed, that is how the story is told, at least partly).  What I now realize:  after escaping bondage, the Israelites needed to release the trauma they had internalized over the centuries.  They weren’t ready for the promised land, and needed a period of adjustment before they were ready.  Ironically, I’ve long clutched onto the hope that I might emerge from this spiritual journey like Moses from the mountaintop holding stone tablets containing God’s truth.  I’ve repeatedly been disabused of that notion, and something about this journey seemed to shatter this illusion once and for all.  What occurs to me now is that emerging from the mountain with the tablets didn’t even work for Moses:  the people weren’t ready.  They had taken to worshiping other gods, prompting Moses to throw down the tablets in anger, breaking them.  Similarly, even if I (and we) experienced God’s truth right now, we are not ready for it.  We need a period of adjustment, facing into our mess that we might see it for what it is:  scaffolding that brought us this far.  We can love and appreciate the mess, and let it go in order that we might eventually find the promised land.  

I sensed that we are like particles of light:  attached to the sun (God), and yet somehow separate at the same time.  How?  I don’t know.  If I understand particle physics correctly, the particle of light exists as a probability distribution of location until it is observed.  Similarly, we exist as a series of probabilities that only reveal themselves as we experience life.  Thus why I experienced growing old with your mom, and not, all at the same time.  We don’t know, and the truth will only reveal itself over time.  There are likely dimensions where your mom and I grow old together and dimensions where we do not, but how we experience this dimension is yet to be determined.  I emerge optimistic, but there is little point in being attached to an outcome.  

Similarly, I cannot get attached to anyone’s decisions.  Each of us has the opportunity to choose light, co-creation, abundance, at any and all moments.  Similarly, we can choose fear, shadows, and scarcity at any moment.  We get to choose, over and over and over.  I cannot choose for anyone else; I can only choose for me, in this moment.  

I sensed an invitation to sit at the intersection between light and dark.  Imagining myself in that place, I felt tremendous tension, and realized that light and dark are pulling apart right now.  In retrospect, the words that come to me are “the Great Sorting is underway”. Sitting at the intersection, one feels that pull.  But from that place, in co-creation, we let all of the beautiful and horrible things out of us.  By letting both the light and dark within us to emerge, we allow ourselves to see the darkness for what it is, that we might let it go.  But through the act of creation, of expression, we allow the parts out of ourselves that they might get sorted.  We can choose to sit at the intersection, release, and free ourselves to merge toward the light.  Or we can hold onto our darkness, and allow the darkness to pull our souls with it.  We get to choose, over and over and over.  

Finally, I felt an opportunity to live in abundance.  I am enough.  You are enough.  As we join the light, we grow the light exponentially.  I felt an invitation to share from a place of abundance, and to invite others to share from a place of abundance.  I found myself wondering which comes first, like the chicken and egg conundrum.  I noticed more resistance to inviting others to share from a place of abundance, and wondered if that were where I should start.  But then I found myself wondering if I first needed to share in order to unblock myself, in order to get the cycle started.  Ultimately, I don’t know.  But I found myself trusting that I would know when the time comes.  

I found myself holding onto Rainbow at various points throughout the experience.  Rainbow served as something of an anchor, reminding me who I am and who I love.  Thank you again for sharing Rainbow with me.  

The recovery from psilocybin was faster than MDMA.  My last two journeys I felt pretty exposed, porous even, well into the day after the experience.  This time, though exhausted, I felt mostly recovered by the evening.  I partly regretting deciding to stay the night:  at that point I found myself really wanting to reconnect with you two and your mom.  

The next morning I woke up, had a small breakfast, and debriefed a bit with my guide.  I packed up the car and went for a brief hike.  At one point I felt an invitation to touch a tree.  I wandered off the trail to the tree, putting both hands on it.  I felt energy flow out of my body to the tree.  I turned around and pressed my back against the tree, and again felt energy flowing from me to the tree.  I returned to the trail, and a few minutes later felt an invitation to touch a dead tree strewn above the pathway.  I reached up and put my hands on it, and felt a different energy moving as compared to the living tree.  I came near a creek, and sensed an invitation to sit in the sounds of the rushing water.  I felt drawn to a rotting, fallen tree, where I sat and closed my eyes, listening as the water rushed by.  I continued on the path until I came to a bend in the water, a place where the land pushed out over the water.  I walked to the edge and found myself holding parts of my body out over the water, as if letting the water wash away unwanted energy in my body.  I pushed forward my hands, the top of my head, my feet, and various parts of my back.  The experience felt strangely cleansing.  The entire hike felt as if I were following a script, and I were merely being called to play my role.  Is this what living in presence feels like? I don’t know.

I got back in the car and let your mom know I was coming home.  When I arrived I requested help bringing items in from my car.  Everett came running out, and hugged me as if he had really, really missed me.  Somehow I had anticipated this, and I picked him up, hugged him chest-to-chest, saying “Yeah.  Yeah.  Yeah”.  We went for lunch at our favorite Korean restaurant, ran some errands, and watched a movie together.  It was a pretty wonderful day, and I felt as if the four of us, but especially your mom and I, were in co-creation together, creating this wonderful, magical day.  

We shall see what comes next. Will I succeed in becoming unblocked and unstuck? I don’t know. As with God, there is a saying that journeys give you what you need, not what you want. I sense that to be true in this case. I found myself saying to my guide: it felt as if everything happened, and nothing happened; and now, we get to decide.

With a couple days of hindsight, I find myself facing many of the same struggles and temptations as before. But I also find moments of enhanced clarity, moments where new ideas emerge. If nothing else, I sense a few things crystallized for me Friday; these were percolating ideas that finally took a more tangible shape that I can more fully articulate and understand. And every so often I experience a moment where I feel something reminiscent of the journey; in these moments I’m reminded to get present and pay attention, and I’m finding that, much like previous journeys, the tangible learnings often come later.

I love you both. Thank you for granting me a night to go off and do some self-exploration. Thank you for behaving well for your mom in my absence. And than you for being two of the best spiritual teachers I will ever know. I love you.

Love,

Dad

March 5, 2025

Dear Leland and Everett,

An odd and unforeseen benefit has popped up in my Spiritual Stew meetings. The discussions have evolved into something of a check-in, where each participant spends a few minutes giving an update of sorts. Folks are invited to take the conversation wherever they want. Some people raise meaty topics they have been contemplating; mostly though, people talk about their recent struggles, the challenging things going on in their lives. We don’t try to solve each others’ problems, but give participants space to share them, and ask clarifying questions to help each other develop a deeper and clearer understand of those problems.

What struck me the first time we adopted this format, late last year, was how themes appeared to emerge. When I was struggling with the election results in early November, I was somewhat surprised to learn how few participants had followed the election particularly closely; what surprised me even more was the degree to which everyone was struggling with their own form of chaos. I don’t want to divulge too much of what others shared, but I was struck by the myriad ways people were experiencing chaos: in interpersonal relationships, in the life circumstances of their children (like at school, or health scares). Beginning to notice a theme, I started calling some of my closest friends, partially to test my hypothesis but mostly to check in; sure enough, they were experiencing their own forms of chaos.

The idea “we’re all experiencing something similar, each in our own individual ways” continues to surprise me. As we approached the shortest days of last year, I noticed a sadness, brittleness, and fragility in me. Others shared various forms of grief they were experiencing. When we returned from the holidays, I quickly noticed the energy shifting (in me and others) into something more expansive: even though the days were still short and cold, something about the lengthening of the days brought a sense of expansiveness, hope, and joy.

At this point I’m continuously noticing what themes emerge in my own person, and then the parallels all around me: in the meetings, in my key relationships, in the news. Seemingly everywhere I look, I sense we’re all facing different versions of the same struggle.

The theme of the last few weeks I can best describe as a sense of a shifting foundation. Folks talk about recurring organizational changes at work and rapidly evolving relationships and health situations, and I sense each of us feeling as if our foundations are shifting beneath us. Our political discourse implies the same phenomenon: we feel our foundations shifting, and are coalescing to react in tribal ways. The past Sunday I learned was “Transfiguration Sunday”, referencing Luke 9:28-36 where Jesus, while praying on a mountain, transforms into a being of light. Again I see recurrence of a theme, one of shifting foundations, or transformation.

Almost a year ago my visions stopped, but the circumstances probably require some explanation. When I experienced visions I often felt a need to pay attention, to stay alert, in order to remember what I had experienced when my meditation ended. I wanted to capture the stories, so that I might learn to understand the meaning (which wasn’t always obvious as the vision occurred). Over time I came to understand that my vigilance was unfounded and unnecessary, because I would retain what I was meant to retain, when I was meant to retain it. As I relaxed into some faith, I did notice some visions did not survive the meditation into my awareness. I would remember having thought “oh, I should remember this!”, but I would not remember the thing I wanted to remember. Over time this phenomenon became increasingly common. One of my last visions, I recall something of a curtain; as I pulled back the curtain, I found a room full of people working, somewhat like factory workers building something. Eventually, my ability to recall visions stopped entirely, even as I retained a sense *something* was happening during my meditations. I came to believe that something was at work in me, and that I would understand it when I was meant to. In the meantime, I assumed I was meant to find other faculties, or other sources of meaning, in the absence of my visions.

A few things I have noticed in the intervening period. First, I have come to feel energy as either dense or light. Dense energy typically associates with emotions like fear, while light energy associates with expansiveness and creativity. I feel the energy in my own being, and at times in those around me. I have experienced expansive states, which I’ll do my best to describe. It feels as if my energy expands to be larger than my physical body; I feel lighter and more porous than “normal”. At first I experienced the sensation after particularly healing meditations. Now I can summon that sensation, and a corresponding sense of presence, pretty much on demand. I can carry that sensation around with me, whether while interacting with our family or walking around at the grocery store.

When I am in the expansive state, encounters with particularly dense forms of energy are jarring. In my more porous state, I feel more exposed, unprotected, and vulnerable. People expressing their negativity are able to hit closer to the core of who I am, as opposed to deflecting off the armor I used to constantly wear. Matthew 7:6 (“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.”) takes on a whole new meaning for me now. I understand that I should only share the best of myself with those who are ready to receive it, and protect myself from the unprepared.

How to protect myself has become an interesting question for me. Recently I have noticed a tendency to overconsume alcohol or food (particularly unhealthy food) when sustaining a presence around dense energy (think negative people). I find that overconsumption of alcohol or food condenses my energy, and helps me feel protected and more calibrated around dense energy. But I don’t particularly enjoy the overconsumption of food and alcohol, and don’t necessarily think condensing my energy is the best approach to being around negativity. Nor do I think avoiding negativity is the goal; indeed, I feel a calling to bring light into the world, which means engaging with the world. And dense energy isn’t problematic in itself: all of us experience prolonged periods of negativity, and become dense as a result; the opportunity is to invite those who are ready into expansiveness, and out of density. Those who insist on remaining dense, so be it. Those who accept an invitation to expand and grow in the presence of light are the point.

This idea of how to engage with the dense forms of energy without getting frivolously hurt, and without engaging in unhealthy behavior, is one I’m exploring these days. If the last couple years are any guide, this is a topic where I will first form a few hypotheses, and then come to an intellectual understanding; with additional meditation, the intellectual understanding will transform into a deep “knowing” of how to approach certain situations. My current hypotheses return me to my old friends intention and surrender. I suspect I will learn that the injuries occur because I am still holding emotional baggage meant to be released. I suspect once I let go of said baggage, I will find myself able to maintain an expansive state around dense energy without feeling exposed to injury. But I also suspect I will learn discernment, and when to share all of my gifts and energies, versus when to move along when facing those firmly rooted in and controlled by their traumas. How that will look is still a mystery to me.

One vision I did have occurred while alert and lucid. My visions typically occur during meditation; this one came to me as a thought form during a typical waking state. I saw a castle and sensed God approaching that castle in the form of a storm. The castle I understood to be constructed of false gods, or more precisely our ephemeral attachments. I understood that our temptation in the face of the storm will be to retreat to the deepest part of the castle, and perhaps even chain ourselves down, in an attempt to feel secure. But when the storm comes and destroys and floods the castle, we risk trapping ourselves in a hell of our own creation. The invitation is to face the storm and…fly? Swim? I’m not entirely clear, beyond allowing God to sweep away our attachments to the ephemeral, even if that means letting go of some deeply held beliefs.

My visions returned this week. I don’t know why, but I’ve had visual experiences twice in the last three days, after almost a year without any.

My point, to the extent I have one: I sense we are in a period of deep transformation. I am being transformed, the people around me are being transformed, and humanity itself is being transformed. We’re experiencing that transformation, presently, as a shifting foundation; we feel the world shifting beneath us. Our temptation is to cling to the dogmas, institutions, and tribes that have historically brought us feelings of security. My sense is that clinging to things meant to be swept away will result in suffering, potentially on vast and incomprehensible scale. Accepting the invitation into transformation will be challenging, particularly because we will feel like we are navigating without a compass. But we will learn discernment, intuition, and the type of knowing that comes from feeling our connection to the Universe and everything in it.

Wish me, and us, luck. I love you.

Love,

Dad

February 26, 2025

Dear Leland and Everett,

Y’all had last weekend off from school. California, unlike other places I’ve lived, takes a week off of school in February. I thought it was formally called “winter break”, but you insist that name refers to the Christmas and New Year’s break. You refer to last week as “February break”, which seems a horribly uninteresting name. Colloquially it’s referred to as “ski week”, because families commonly use the break to go into the Sierra Nevadas and ski. I am not much of a skier, so we used the trip to go to Texas, my home state, instead. 

More than anything, the trip served as something of a pilgrimage for me. I spent my first 24 years in Texas, and then the next 10 or so returning annually (or more) to see family. But as your mother and I were moving to Singapore in 2019, my parents were moving to the Seattle area to live near my sister and her family (who had moved there just a few months earlier). Since then, our reasons for returning dwindled. We made one trip to San Antonio in 2016, when Leland was less than a year old, to see my ailing Granddad one final time. Prior to last week, that was my last trip to Texas, nine years ago. 

For the last year or two I’ve felt a strange desire to get back to Texas. I’m not entirely sure why, only that Texas feels like part of who I am, and I think I felt a desire to reconnect with that aspect of myself. But Texas is a big state, so deciding where to go proved difficult. My childhood friends, whom I haven’t seen in probably two decades, are concentrated in the Dallas and Houston areas; I’d like to plan a reunion with them someday. At some point I’d like to take you boys to my hometown, which I also haven’t visited in twenty years. Ultimately, those trips seemed too daunting, and so I went for something simpler. I decided to take you to San Antonio, my personal favorite city in the state, and probably the most tourist oriented. 

I managed to convince my mom and sister (and her family) to come. Both your aunt (and her husband) and I went to college in San Antonio. And because my grandparents lived there, we spent lots of holidays in San Antonio together. It was a place of shared experiences, so it seemed natural to have a bit of a family reunion there. 

Except that it was cheaper (and, thanks to the direct flight, faster) to fly into Austin.  So we flew into Austin and drove down to San Antonio.  Except, once we flew to Austin, we might as well spend a couple days.  So that’s what we did.  

Sadly, your mom wasn’t able to come. She had thrown her back out the week before, and her chiropractor / Chinese doctor suggested that a long flight was about the worst thing she could do for her recovery. Truth be told, I think your mom was relieved. After spending Thanksgiving in Mexico, Christmas in Seattle, and New Year’s in Orange County, your mom was a little travelled out. Plus, your mom has been under a bit more work stress than normal, with big deadlines moving (creating more work than usual) and organizational changes creating uncertainty and anxiety throughout her team. Once we decided your mom would stay home, she looked decidedly more relaxed; fortunately, I think she enjoyed her week of relative quiet, and recharged her batteries while we were gone. 

We had travelled without your mom twice before, to Sacramento and Orange County last year.  But this was our first flight together without your mom, which made me a little nervous.  The night before we left, I asked the two of you for a little extra help.  I explained that your mom and I typically tag team such that one of us keeps an eye on you, while the other takes care of tasks like checking in and printing board passes.  I asked that you guys try to keep an eye on me at all times.  And you guys were great.  Leland, thanks to his extra years a maturity, was especially helpful.  I could feel Leland keeping track of both me and Everett, particularly when we moved into transitional areas like security, the bathrooms, or baggage claim.  Later that night, when I tried to complement Leland to your mom by saying he had been particularly helpful, he deflected saying “we both were”.  My favorite anecdote:  after we picked up the rental car and were driving away from the airport, Everett was asking me interesting and thoughtful questions about Texas.  After answering a couple, I noticed I was getting overwhelmed, and explained that I was struggling with the car (I had adjusted the seats and mirror, but couldn’t figure out how to adjust the steering wheel, which was much too far away) and figuring out how to navigate the highway and where to go in the dark.  After about four seconds, Everett asked another question.  I was so preoccupied with driving I almost automatically started answering before Leland cut in:  “Everett, dad JUST SAID he needs to concentrate on driving”.  Leland was absolutely right, and I really appreciated him reminding both of us; I really did need to concentrate.  

When we landed on Saturday, it was late afternoon California-time but dark in Texas.  For our first stop, I took you to Whataburger, Texas’ version of In-n-Out (where the food is made to order, so not technically “fast food”).  Everett wanted an avocado bacon burger, fully loaded.  Um, okay; you’ve never had one of those, but sure.  Leland wanted a burger (plain: just meat and bun) as well as chicken strips.  We agreed to start with the burger, and get more if needed.  I got a burger for me, plus fries and a chocolate shake to share.  You all enjoyed the food, which thrilled me (I have fond memories of Whataburger; it was my personal go-to fast food option in high school).  I took pictures of you happily eating, both to record for posterity, but also to send out to let family know our status.  Sure enough, Leland finished his burger and asked for chicken strips.  When I went back to order, the guy behind the counter said playfully but somewhat incredulously, “you’re coming back for more?!”  I explained that this was your first trips to Texas, and that this was our first time at Whataburger.  He chuckled something to the effect of “that explains the pictures”.  When he dropped the chicken strips at the table, he joked “you guys are just having your own potluck here, huh?”.  

This reminds me about what I think is the key difference between Californians and Texans.  Though Californians are very left-leaning politically, there is something of a libertarian ethos in interpersonal interactions.  Californians generally stay out of your business; they are more than willing to let you live how you want, and generally assume you prefer to be left alone.  The upside is a freedom of movement and expression; the downside is that California can feel emotionally cold and distant, resulting in feelings of loneliness and isolation.  Texans are somewhat the opposite:  they are warm, friendly, and welcoming; the downside is they tend to be in your business, and don’t always take kindly to what they perceive as unusual behavior.  

I forget who noticed it first, but we marveled over the size of the cups for the soda and the shake (I’m guessing the soda was 48oz, and the shake 36oz).  I explained the saying “everything’s bigger in Texas”.  The next morning, Leland asked me to start a list, onto which he proceeded to add items the rest of the trip.  The final list:  drinks, shakes, cars, ice, houses, burgers, flags, grills, BBQ, high school football stadiums, parking spaces, and grocery stores.  That list fills me with an irrational amount of pride: you guys accurately captured a lot about Texas just in that list.

The first weekend of our trip happened to coincide with a “guys” trip planned by some of my college friends.  So that Saturday night, after we got to our AirBnb, a couple of my friends came over.  Everett convinced everyone to play Kids Create Absurdity, which was perfect.  The next day (Sunday), we drove out to Lockhart to meet up with the larger group and eat some BBQ (which was awesome).  They proceeded to go to a gun range, and we joined them.  For better or worse, we didn’t shoot guns ourselves (I still haven’t ever fired a gun).  Leland was pretty mesmerized watching, while Everett got bored and eventually got frustrated with all Dad’s talking.  Fortunately, we needed to go pick up your Gran, so we left and drove back to the airport.  We proceeded to eat some Tex Mex (Chuys, down in South Austin); Leland really enjoyed the fajitas; Everett not so much (though you particularly enjoyed the chips, rice, and beans).  

Monday we toured around Austin.  We started with breakfast tacos, a must in Austin.  A couple of my friends met us at the taco joint for one last visit before they flew out, then proceeded to join us for miniature golf.  After golf, we drove around the UT campus before parking near and exploring the Texas state capitol.  We ate Indian food at the Clay Pit, which has been there since I lived in Austin 23 years ago.  We visited where Gran went to seminary (after my sister and I finished college), and we stopped by Amy’s ice cream (another must in Austin) before heading back to our AirBnb.  

My sister’s family flew in late Monday night.  On Tuesday morning I picked up breakfast tacos for everyone.  We feasted at the kitchen island of the AirBnb before packing up, checking out, and heading down to San Antonio.  Tuesday was the only day forecast to have decent weather in San Antonio, so we decided to head straight downtown.  We started at Market Square, an outdoor shopping area heavily influenced by San Antonio’s Mexican culture and heritage; my mom picked up something like 16 oz of pure vanilla extract, imported from Mexico, for $7.  We ate lunch at La Margarita.  Leland had chicken tacos, which came with a red sauce that looked like enchilada sauce to me; I was worried, but he really liked it.  Everett was quite happy with his Camarones al Mojo de Ajo (shrimp broiled in a garlic-butter sauce).  We proceeded to walk the River Walk, and then take a boat tour.  Inside the Rivercenter Mall, Leland insisted on doing the SkyTrail ropes activity; Everett got scared and bailed early, but Leland and your cousins enjoyed the adventure of climbing and traversing as if up in treetops, secured by ropes.  

Wednesday was cold and windy, and after a couple busy days we decided to take it easier.  I think I let you guys play on your iPads in the morning.  The adventure for the day was eating at Papacitos, where we got a combination of meats to make fajitas, including some shrimp for Everett.  Back at the hotel, you kiddos spent 3 hours in the pool (thank goodness our hotel had an indoor pool).  

Thursday was cold again, but we decided to brave the cold and visit Trinity, my alma mater.  We waited until the afternoon, letting the temperatures get above freezing, and had a light lunch at Mama Margies (a fast-casual Tex Mex spot I hadn’t known previously, but which was excellent) before we left.  The lunch outing helped us realize Everett was underdressed, so he and I went back to the hotel to put on warmer pants and an extra fleece.  We gave you guys the Trinity tour, and I think all of us alumni particularly enjoyed being back on campus.  One highlight was getting to hear a student practice the pipe organ in the chapel; Everett in particular seemed mesmerized (you really love listening to live music).  Another was buying a few items (including a t-shirt and a water bottle for Leland, and a coffee mug for Everett) at the campus bookstore.  After an hour or two in the pool, for dinner we travelled out to the original Rudy’s in Leon Springs.  I first experienced that Rudy’s in college, approaching 30 years ago.  Back then it was in the middle of nowhere.  The area has since been annexed by San Antonio, and looks about as urban as the rest of the city.  But Rudy’s will always have a special place in my heart:  the attached gas station and convenient store, the wax paper “plates”, the picnic bench tables, and of course the food:  Rudy’s is low-fuss the way Texas BBQ existed traditionally.  We finished by introducing you boys to Blue Bell ice cream, along with the experience of buying groceries at HEB.  

Friday we went to the Natural Bridge Caverns, which had the benefit of being underground and thus naturally climate-controlled in the 70s.  On the way home we made our final Tex Mex stop (our fifth, for those counting), at the Chuys where my family used to eat when we got together (well, after the location moved from the original, but we’ll still count it).  Leland had chicken strips (fair enough, it had been a lot of Tex Mex), Everett had a quesadilla; both of you enjoyed some fresh tortillas with your rice and beans.  Plus I got you both virgin margaritas this time (openly acknowledging my attempt to bribe you into wanting to come back to Texas).  After another couple hours in the pool, I took you to HEB to pick up an evening snack (potstickers for Leland, spam musubi for Everett), plus a little more Blue Bell.  

On Saturday after breakfast we checked out, said goodbye to your cousins and their parents, and drove your Gran to the airport.  At your request, after we dropped Gran off we made one last stop at Whataburger.  We enjoyed burgers, chicken strips, and shakes one last time before heading to the airport.  Check-in and security went fast, so we had some time to kill.  We got Amy’s ice cream for you and an adult refreshment for Dad before boarding our plane.  On the flight home, as is his recent habit, Leland threw up during landing.  Unfortunately, this time he dropped the open barf bag on his seat while reaching for a napkin.  Leland had to walk through the airport with a pant leg wet with vomit.  Fortunately, our luggage came out quickly, and he was able to change before your mom picked us up to drive us home.  

I’ve gone into painstaking detail on the trip.  I hope you’ll indulge me; these details are precious to me.  But I do have a few overarching observations.  First, it really was great to get back to Texas.  I felt some sort of resonance with place that I really appreciated and probably kinda needed.  I don’t have any intention to move back to Texas (though goodness it would be cheaper), but I also do plan to go back more often moving forward.  Singapore and Covid are behind us, and I plan to stay connected to my home state.  Silly things, like just being in an HEB, brought me joy.  I don’t know how anyone created a grocery store that inspires such love and affection in me, but I always loved HEB, and especially appreciate it now that I have lived without.  

Everett continued his sporadic trend of exploring his independence.  One morning you got dressed and ready in a focused, somewhat hurried manner; I’ve noticed this manner usually precedes an effort to assert independence.  You then asked if you could go down to breakfast alone; we quickly went through some safety protocol, agreed on where to meet, and confirmed you remembered our room number before I said yes.  When I met you downstairs you had picked out your breakfast:  cinnamon raisin bread, Lucky Charms cereal, and juice.  That’s…not a breakfast your mom and I would normally allow, but I decided to let you explore your independence…once I added some milk to the mix.  You proceeded to have that same breakfast the next two days (sometimes trading a hard boiled egg for the milk).  I’ve enjoyed watching you explore your independence.  As the youngest, you still like being babied sometimes; but you are also clearly realizing you have new capabilities, and are clearly motivated to practice using those newfound skills.  I’m proud of you, and enjoy watching you grow.  

Sleeping arrangements were somewhat entertaining.  In Austin we slept in nearby bedrooms, one with a queen bed and the other with bunk beds.  Everett wanted to sleep in the queen bed with Dad, while Leland wanted to sleep in the bunk beds…but Leland wanted Everett to sleep in the other bunk bed, like we do at home.  Our eventual compromise:  the first two nights you guys went to sleep in the bunk beds while I visited (the first night with my friends, the next night with my mom), and then scooped Everett up to join me when I went to bed.  The third night in Austin we all slept in the same bed, and learned that a queen bed was a little too small for the three of us.  In San Antonio our hotel had two queen beds.  We stayed four nights, and Leland wanted for the two of you to take turns sleeping with Dad.  Everett was having none of it: he wanted to sleep with Dad every night.  Leland finally negotiated to be able to sleep with Dad the last night; I almost wondered if Everett just couldn’t be bothered to worry about something so many days out.  As the older brother, Leland dominates most competitions and even most negotiations.  Everett was more than willing to sleep all three of us in the same bed, but was completely unwilling to sleep alone.  So, in a strange way, it was nice to see Everett get his way in a negotiation with his brother.  I didn’t participate at all, and to your credit you guys worked it out between you.  On the last day, Leland took at three hour nap, so I let him stay up later than usual.  One benefit:  I was able to lie down with Everett and put him to sleep before joining Leland; all seemed happy with this arrangement.  

And now, I’m glad to be home again, attempting to get back into a rhythm.  We counted six weeks until spring break, and then after that eight weeks until summer.  I look forward to spending spring break and summer with you boys, but I also plan to cherish the fourteen weeks of routine and relative downtime before then.  

Oh, and your mom says we all came home with chubbier cheeks versus when we left; she’s not wrong: I noticed it too.  So routine will be good for us, just in terms of us all getting back in shape a bit.  But the Tex Mex and ice cream were so good, I have no regrets.  

I love you both.  Thank you, sincerely, for going to Texas with me.  

Love, 

Dad