**Q: What version of yourself do you _not_ want to be, and how do you avoid becoming like them?** A: To answer what version of yourself that I don’t want to be, begins in what version of my vocation I don’t want to be and that informs how/who I am. For those who do not know I am a Baptist Minister, but most importantly not that kind of Baptist. I am the kind of Baptist minister who is at the brewery and marches in Pride Parades, and see’s the image of God in all of humanity, regardless of what my co-followers of Christ sometimes say. So the version of myself that I choose to be, is one that authentically follows Jesus Christ, by leading with a love that chooses to see and value others, and be curious not judgmental. Like every white millennial man, who had access to Apple TV during the pandemic and beyond, I hope to be the Ted Lasso of my field, not in success but in the way I invest in others around me. Most importantly in avoiding becoming the worst of what I want not to be, I try to believe each day that the Love of God is present and more abundant than the day before and that life this day is worth the living to reveal that love in someone’s life. That the hopelessness which seems to weigh each day is not the ultimate victor, but that instead love has won, does win, and will win for all of eternity. **Q: What details about your every-day routine are most important to you?** A: I am habitually bound to routines, I love them as a person. I enjoy making breakfast every morning as I listen to podcasts (usually the Shutdown Fullcast or Split Zone Duo or lately podcasts about Magic the Gathering). I find in the mornings I prefer to do chores as I’m waking up so as to feel like I’ve done something as I begin my day, often being laundry or dishes. And then each day I find time to workout either through set times going to the gym or through adult rec league sports, of which I play 3-5 times a week. These rec leagues have become integral to me meeting the other residents of my community and are a joy to be part of. I struggle to feel fully myself if I have not accomplished a task or two and not spent some amount of time moving my body in a gym or on a field or running through the trails of a greenway. **Q: What pattern/coat/breed of cat do you most see yourself as?** A: I’m such a generic tabby. Probably gray or brown, just standard solid pet that doesn’t really stand out but is a great companion. I’m biased because my two cats are both tabbys, one gray and one brown, and they are just good cats that are delightful, normal, chill babies. **Q: What are the things (be they skills, topics, historical sub-genres, disciplines, or anything else) you'd be most completely and genuinely excited to learn?** A: Part of learning, at least to me, is the willingness to put in the effort to arrive at the new knowledge. So, I’d love to lie and say I’d be excited to learn another language or to actually become more skilled in a trade (of which I am useless) but I know I would never do the work. So in answering this question I feel bound to the contextual situations of my life when it comes to what I would want to learn, therefore I wish I could genuinely grow/learn in how we bring people together to authentically listen to one another. No one listens to one another, changes their opinion, or seemingly leaves the echo chambers with which they are entrenched. I wish that could change. I think about this SNL Thanksgiving skit:( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2zyjbH9zzA) from 9 years ago and marvel at how little has changed. The angry talking points are the same, the harm done to the least of these by those in power is still ever present, and we are having just as little real conversation about this as we did then. In fact we just empower the loudest and angriest voices over and over and over again. So I’d be really interested in learning how we just fix this, how do we ever get to a place of diversity and listening to one another instead of shouting at one another? **Q: What does community mean to you?** A: Community for me is summarized in a tag of: “First we gather by proximity, then we gather by affinity”. Community is the chosen people we surround ourselves with that begin to bleed into every part of our existence. My hope for everyone I know is that they have the most complex Venn diagrams of community in which certain members of their life overlap in tons of areas, so that those around them fully know them, and they fully know others. I tell people, as a minister, my job is forming community (in the church) and keeping people in the larger community (through benevolence assistance and aiding with other non-profits or creating spaces of friendship where people want to live in one place longer). But the thing I always want to create most in community, other than a sense of belonging, is a space of intergenerational community. The basketball “league” (consistent game) I most often play with ranges in age from 24-83 in full-court 5v5 basketball. We all get together three times a week to play, sometimes as many as 30 people show up, and it is incredible. However, it wasn’t enough for us to just play basketball; I was worried when people were injured, away because of work, or traveling, that we weren’t invested in each other tangibly enough. So for the last year+ we have been doing once a month socials at a local brewery/restaurant designed to bring whole family groups together. Our last one in September had almost 50 people ranging from newborn to 83, having food together, laughing, meeting one another’s families, and kids running all around. It was a beautiful community, people from all different walks of life, all different ages and backgrounds, coming together because of a stupid game that gives us the ability to heckle and cheer one another on.