Yes, I'm a minister. No, I don't have a church.

You can catch previous editions here. First Edition: Caveats and Privilege Second Edition: Respecting People, Also Known As God's Creation This is a post about space. If you have been on a plane in the past five years, you know space is a premium. The smaller spaces available as airlines cram more seats into each plane require us to be a bit more, shall we say, self-aware. I have a few #protips to suggest. A caveat: Of course, I understand not everyone is my size. Some people literally take up more space. That’s cool. I think God made us in all sizes. But that doesn’t mean some of us get to monopolize all the space. Tips for flying: Put your smaller item under the seat in front of you, unless your height makes it really uncomfortable. Nothing throws me into a rage faster than a man (it’s always a man) who is 5’7” with no discernible disability who puts his slim briefcase FLAT in the overhead bin space. Or the man (it is often a man) who puts his coat into...

(This post is the second in a series. The first post in the series is "Caveats & Privilege," which you can read here .) Dear Fellow Business Travelers, Don’t be a jerk. No, I’m serious. Don’t be a jerk. This goes for all travelers, not just the business ones, and not just the ones who are Christian. I do think that being a Christian means acknowledging that all people are children of God. All people are sacredly human. And we are radically equal in terms of our created-ness. Here are a few examples of how to live into that belief that God’s creation is sacred. A flight attendant once told me one of his least favorite things a traveler can do is hold up her or his trash without looking up at the human being collecting said trash. Just because someone is there to serve you (and arguably, flight attendants are there for way more than to serve you) doesn’t mean you get to ignore them. It’s rude. Also, you know enough not to yell at a flight attendant,...

I will begin with my usual caveats. First, yes, I’m about to talk about what we might call Upper Middle Class Problems (or Upper Middle Income, but most don’t think about the difference between wealth and income, so I’m trying to keep it simple). This might seem ridiculous in the face of the reality that the vast majority of the world’s population will never see the inside of a plane. But I’m talking specifically here about a small portion of the world’s population: those who travel for work. A whole lot of us live in the U.S. Probably a quarter of my friends are like me: business travelers. Upgrade-hunting, frequent flyer mile-hoarding, million-miler, spending real money on high-quality luggage, hotel point-collecting business travelers. Now that I work at one of the six agencies of a mainline denomination. While I travel a lot, my travel schedule is paltry compared to the travel of many of my colleagues. I have many colleagues who fly to all corners of the world, not just the U....