My 44th Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday and, while it technically started in the morning, the celebrations really began on Saturday.

Why Birthdays Have Never Been Simple For Me

As I write this on Sunday afternoon, I've been reflecting on my birthday tomorrow (the day I’ve posted this).

I'll be 44 years old.

The Best Worst Christian

I’m not the best Christian. At least not in the way people expect. In fact, many of my old friends used to describe me as “The Best Worst Christian.” It’s a title I’ve carried with pride, especially through the ordination process.

Taking Accountability: Disability Shouldn't Be An Excuse

Recently, a friendship and professional relationship changed for me. It started me reflecting on disability, inclusion, and something I hadn't really considered before.

Friendship Changes

I didn’t sleep at all Wednesday night. After trying my sleeping rituals, breathing techniques, and prayer, I ended up reading blog posts to help drift off. I didn’t. Pain kept me awake, my mind was active, and my body wanted positions it can no longer rest in.

How Do We Carry Disability Theology Forward? Balancing Faith, Healing, and Harm

Following the disability conference, I’ve had a few people ask how to move forward. They loved the Bible studies, the closing talk, and the honesty about ableism, Scripture, and lived experience. They left encouraged, but unsure how to move forward while honouring disability theology and the spiritual belief in healing, wholeness, and sin. They want to support disabled people without falling into the traps we named. It’s a valid question.

Ordination: Placement

The idea of doing a Placement has floated around for almost a year now. It first appeared in my Carousel Conversations feedback. I fumbled a question about how I’ve tested my calling. Instead of explaining fifteen years of discernment, challenge, and growth, I spoke about being put on the spot and thriving in an area of my existing church life. Subsequently, they suggested a placement to give me breadth, experience, and space to see how things fit. I didn’t mind. Experience is valuable.

Parenting James: Five Months Later and Facing a New Battle

I last wrote about James in May. As expected, it’s taken three weeks into the school term and I’m writing about him again. That’s not surprising considering the last five posts have mostly centred around his school life.

Maddy Time: Avengers Endgame Encore

Spoiler Warning: This post contains plot details from Avengers: Endgame Encore.

Midge and I went to see Avengers: Endgame Encore last week. It promised four minutes of new footage that would link Endgame to Avengers: Doomsday. We were curious. Maddy Time is our thing. We do other activities, but cinema trips are where we mostly connect. This felt like something we had to see, even if it was only for those extra minutes.

God Must Hate Me: Disability Conference Talk

There is a belief many disabled and neurodivergent people carry quietly, formed by years of being treated as problems by churches, Scripture, and faith.

A Week of Disability Theology, Church Battles, and Calling

This week has been a lot. Good, important, exhausting, and revealing. 

Pushed Into Complicity

I’ve written about ableism for years, naming the quiet harm disabled people carry, the assumptions people make, the jokes people think are funny, and the way systems misunderstand us long before they understand our needs. I’ve written about privilege, accessibility, independence, autonomy, participation, equality and equity. Topics that need discussing. Today I’m writing about something harder. Complicity.

Amazing Disability Books Everyone Should Read

As a disability theologian, preacher, Enable Team Officer, and general disability advocate I have been reading about disability, especially disability theology, for a long time. With Disability Sunday this week and the Disability Inclusion Conference next week (3rd of October) where I will be running a bible study workshop on the topic of Being Made in the Image of God, I have been putting together a resource pack, including a bibliography of the best books to read.

Below is a top 10 ranked list of the most theologically impactful disability‑theology books, followed by small blurbs explaining their contribution, why they matter for disabled people, why able-bodied people must read them, and my personal view on each. 

Disability Sunday: The Disturbing Truth

Disability Sunday is next week. For the first time, I’m pleased to say, my church will theme a service around it, and I’ll be preaching.

Sleeping with FSHD: When Your Body Wants to Move but Can’t

The more my FSHD progresses the more sleep becomes complicated for me. I’ve written before about pain, anxiety, and the long nights where my body refuses rest. Something new has crept in. I say it’s new, it’s been happening more and more over the last two years and is now a problem. It’s subtle, but it’s constant, and it’s becoming one of the hardest parts of sleeping with FSHD.

Revamping Old Blog Posts

I started blogging in 2010. I was a fresh, new, born again Christian who had spent years searching for faith while being repeatedly battered by Christians. The healing narrative was always pushed. I was trying to justify why I had a horrible health diagnosis. If I ventured into churches I was stopped, prayed for, and turned into a healing story for God’s magnificent miracles. When I wasn’t healed, I was blamed. I hadn’t believed enough. I wasn’t giving myself over to God and Jesus. Typical institutional harm that many disabled people endure. I tried several Alpha Courses. I was theologically minded even then, so I asked complex questions. No one likes being challenged, especially those who valued Scripture over theology. I was kicked out and blamed for my attitude. When I finally connected with God I wanted to document the journey. A friend suggested I start a blog.

A Shifting Relationship

As someone halfway through the ordination process, preparing to serve as a priest within the Church of England, the news surrounding the Prime Minister, the King, and the future of the establishment feels heavier than usual. It’s not just politics. It’s the ground beneath the institution I’m joining.

Meeting PDB

I’ve played War and Order since 2019. Throughout the last seven years some of us bounced between several realms. It started with me, “Minotaur” (now Bigwig), a guy called “Longhorn” from Texas, and a guy called “Moocifer” from Australia. We created an alliance called COW (Children of War) and took on COW‑related names. Over time we picked up others too. Some players drifted away, but a few of us stayed. We’re now in STG (Stronger Together).

The Beauty of Being Alone

Everyone enjoys their alone time. I do get some. Hannah, as my carer, still goes off and does things with her friends and pursues her own calling at church as church warden and eco champion, although the latter not as much as she’d like. In those moments I get space. The kids may still be around so it’s not completely alone, but I can write, watch a show, play chess, or lose myself in a game, like WAO. That’s one kind of solitude, but not the type I want to talk about. There are two moments in my week where I feel genuinely free.

Ordination: Five Months Later

Five months have passed since I wrote about the meeting with my DDO and ADDO regarding my discernment process for ordination. It feels longer. So much of this journey has been shaped by waiting, discerning, and understanding how calling and institution meet in real life. Those early months were hard. I was still processing the February meeting and learning how to navigate a system that had not yet learned how to navigate me.