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Part of the Same Radiance – a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 16 June 2025 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Scott Mills on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

This spring I watched the London Marathon, which courses through my neighborhood and brings a thrill to the air. First the wheelchair racers like a shock of lightning, then the elite runners like gazelles, then 55,000 other folks, covering 26.2 miles at different paces, with different gaits, and it’s a beautiful sight.

My friend Ali ran this year, and I’d promised him a water bottle as he came down my street. I was following his progress on an app, but suddenly my phone died and would not be resurrected. And so instead of focusing on my screen as I had for the first hour, I looked up. I scanned the shimmering crowds for Ali’s face, and I got lost in a trance at all those beautiful human beings.

Some joyous, some grimacing, some stopping to rest, some just to pet my dog. Some running in memory of a loved-one, some running just because, some as a rite of passage to mark a life-event.

I ran my first marathon in Chicago in 2010 to celebrate one year sober. The course took us past a bar where I’d routinely gotten bladdered – and as we ran by, I felt so different from the years before. No longer hungover, isolated, or numbed-out – but instead grateful, connected, and so-much-more free.

Thomas Merton, a Christian monk, found himself one day unexpectedly in the swell of city-centre crowds. He wrote: “I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realisation I loved all these people: they were mine and I was theirs … such a relief and joy, I almost laughed out loud. It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race. If only everybody could realize this! But it can’t be explained. There’s no way of telling people they’re all walking around shining like the sun”.

I love that. I felt that enchantment, too, watching the race. Someone held up a sign that read: “Hey, random stranger – you’ve got this!”

We are random strangers, yes. And – as a Christian, I believe – somehow, deep-down, we’re all connected; we’re true kin; we’re part of the same radiance.

I forget that sometimes: I get stuck on myself. But then I look up, and all those gorgeous human beings. And suddenly there’s Ali, appearing out of nowhere, a huge smile on his face, a drink of water, a high-five, and off he goes. Off we all go, into the human race: every single one of us shining like the sun.

A Time for Every Purpose – a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 9 June 2025 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Scott Mills on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

I was at a baseball game one summer evening in 2006 when I got the call that my sister had given birth. My then-boyfriend and I were watching the Chicago Cubs play at Wrigley Field, alongside his parents, who were visiting from England.

I answered my mobile, and my dad yelled down the phone-line: Trey, you’ve got a niece and her name is Kenley!

I then yelled to my boyfriend, his parents, and all the folks around us we didn’t even know: I’ve got a niece! Her name is Kenley!

My boyfriend’s mom cried out: You’re an uncle!

And everybody cheered. The Cubs lost that night, but there was joy in the stands for a new life.

That baby niece is now 18-years-old. Kenley graduated high-school in May, she’s off to uni this autumn, and this week, she’s visiting me and my then-boyfriend-and-now-husband in London, before we travel to Rome for her graduation present. Kenley’s life is at the beginning, full of promise.

My then-boyfriend’s-mom who declared me an uncle at the Cubs game: she became my mother-in-law, Joy. And sadly, on Easter Sunday this year she received the unexpected diagnosis of advanced cancer. And last Bank Holiday, she died.

Kenley’s life is on the brink of opening into adulthood; Joy’s mortal life has ended, and opened, I believe, into the mystery of eternity.

There’s a line from the Bible, which was made into a famous song by the Byrds:

To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven:

a time to be born, a time to die,

a time to weep, a time to laugh,

a time to mourn, a time to dance.

What’s weird about this season for our family is that so many of those times and purposes are jumbled together in this moment: we’re packing holiday suitcases at same time as we’re ordering flowers for a funeral. We’re launching Kenley’s young adult life into the world now, at the same time as we’re offering Joy’s life to the world to come.

It’s really hard, and really bewildering. But also there’s so much beauty in this rise and fall of living and dying. Because I trust, as a Christian, that God somehow holds it all together – our young selves and old selves, our births and deaths, and everything in between.

I believe God knows us and loves us forever – and none of my seasons, or Joy’s or Kenley’s,  or yours, Scott – none of our seasons will ever be forgotten by God,

Spiritual Mudlarkers – a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 7 April 2025 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Scott Mills on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

I’m lucky to live just a few steps from the Thames Path – which for me, as a runner, is absolute heaven. Most days I unwind by covering some mileage between Tower Bridge and Greenwich.  

My favourite runs are when the tide’s out: when the edges of the riverbed are uncovered. I love watching people search the shore for treasure.  

It reminds me of childhood beach holidays, when I’d watch ordinary-explorers scanning their metal-detectors over the sand. I’d wonder what they expected to find – old pirate’s gold finally washed ashore? I’d only ever dug up bottle-tops and beer-cans. 

But on the shore of the Thames, a stone-turned-over could reveal actual treasure: a Victorian fork, a medieval ring, a rooftile from the Great Fire, maybe even a Roman jewel. Scavenging remnants from this river even has a special name. Mudlarking: scouring the debris and dirt for a glint of glory. 

I believe human-beings are spiritual mudlarkers. Religious or not, we’re on an elemental search: for hope in the midst of despair, rest in weariness, guidance in uncertainty. Maybe we still haven’t found what we’re looking for; maybe we’re not even sure what we’re looking for.  

Jesus says the kingdom of God is like a treasure hidden in a field, which someone finds – and then sells everything to buy that field. 

I get that, because I’m a mudlarker: scanning my spiritual-metal-detector over the ground of life, in search of that invaluable Something More. I feel like St Augustine, who prayed “God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless ‘til they find their rest in you.” His prayer’s been a treasure for me since I found it in dusty book, 1600 years old.

My husband and I just finished a wonderful BBC series called Detectorists. Written and directed by MacKenzie Crook, who stars alongside Toby Jones, it’s television gold. Each episode opens with a lyric sung by Johnny Flynn: “Will you search the loamy earth for me, climb through the briar and bramble? I will be your treasure: I’m waiting for you”. 

Sometimes, I think, we’re in spiritual-search-mode: we’re actively looking for wisdom, for God, for treasure, and that’s important. But when I hear Jesus and Johnny Flynn – I remember that we’re not only searchers; in my opinion we’re also the treasure being searched for.

And I believe God, the Great Mudlarker, has already found us. And has sold everything God has so we can feel the earthly, heavenly joy of being found. 

Conversations About a Dog Collar – a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 31 March 2025 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Scott Mills on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

St. Patrick’s Day was a fortnight ago, but I still have memories of childhood warnings: “if you don’t wear green, leprechauns will sneak up and pinch you!”

I’ve not had any leprechaun-issues lately, but I sometimes wear a piece-of-clothing that does attract attention. My clergy dog-collar – the white-strip-of-plastic around my neck that announces: “I’m a minister; come talk to me!”

And people do. I can’t tell you the number of women and men who’ve sidled up to me, with suggestive grins, and whispered: “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

I guess we all have our types.

What I don’t love about wearing my collar is how people tidy themselves up around me, in false ways. Someone will cuss, for example, then apologise. I’m like, “Please. It doesn’t bother me. Jesus cusses in the Bible, so just talk like you talk”.

What I do love about wearing my collar is how strangers sometimes trust me with what-they’re-going-through. Their big questions about love, tragedy, life’s purpose. On the train recently someone asked me: does everything happen for a reason? I said: I think so, but the reason’s not always God: sometimes it’s a war-mongering dictator or the simple-fact that we humans can occasionally be muppets.

In addition to being a Christian minister, I love being a member of the 12-step-addiction-recovery-community. Together we wrestle with life’s challenges. As people of many faiths and none, we search for a sober spirituality. In Alcoholics-Anonymous, I don’t wear my dog-collar. I’m there as an addict-among-addicts, in need of help as much as I offer it.

The wisdom of 12-step-community says that our problem isn’t merely the stuff we’re addicted to – be it alcohol, edibles, porn, sex, shopping, our social-media-feed. Our problem is actually much deeper: it’s a spiritual problem, we believe, and to be healed, we need a spiritual solution: God, a Higher-Power.

But the genius of 12-step-community is that no specific-higher-power is mandated. We’re invited to discover the God-of-our-own-understanding, who might be found in Church or Sea-Swimming or Science or Solitude – or all of the above.

The only strong suggestion I’d offer for that divine treasure hunt, whether we’re addicts or not, is to choose a higher-power who isn’t an Old-Jackass, or a Violent-Tyrant, or a Sneaky-Leprechaun – because Lord knows those kinds of false-gods never helped anybody get free.

And if you’re searching for a loving, freeing God – but haven’t found them yet – don’t worry, you’re very welcome to borrow mine, for as long as you need.

A Web of Connection & Light – a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 24 March 2025 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Scott Mills on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

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My husband and I moved to South London last summer. As we unpacked boxes, a spider crawled in through the window to welcome us. Everyone’s pretty-friendly in South London, but this spider was so friendly, she spun her web in the corner of our bathroom and stuck around.

Every day, she was there. We gazed at each other. I did some research and identified her species: Amaurobius Fenestralis in Latin. In English: a lace-weaver-spider.

I told a friend, who said: “if it were my house, that spider would be dead.” But even my husband, who’s not exactly pro-spider, acknowledged she’d already moved into our hearts.

Autumn came and she wove an egg sac, which she guarded until Christmas, when her babies were born. Ten little infants hatched and played on our ceiling for a few weeks, practising their lace-weaving-skills. And then one-by-one they disappeared, leaving our spider alone again.

A few weeks later, while I was shaving one day, I noticed she’d moved down the wall, to my eye-level.

We took each other in; we saw each other. And I sensed that her mortal life was ebbing. And sure enough, the next morning we found her dead, poor thing, lying on the window-sill.

I laid her fragile body onto a cotton pad, so she could lie-in-state, so we could pay our respects. And also because I heard a trustworthy preacher once swear that a dead spider on her window-sill had suddenly come back to life.

So as I mourned, I also commanded our spider: in the name of God, rise up. But there was no resurrection, not one I could see anyway.

Finally, we carried her into the garden and buried her underneath the hydrangeas. We gave thanks for the way she praised God in her particular-spidery-nature. I said a Christian graveside prayer: We commend you, sister spider, to Almighty God. We commit your body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

In the Bible, Jesus teaches about a lot of big things – forgiveness, justice, eternity. But as the old Gospel song goes: his eye is on the sparrow, too. Even the little things like our spider are precious in God’s sight. In fact, Jesus says: Whoever can be trusted with small things can also be trusted with big things.

So thank you, sister spider. And thank you, Jesus – for teaching me how woven-together we are in this life ­– and how in the next life, I believe, absolutely all of Nature will rise up again into a heavenly web of light and goodness like no eye has ever seen.

New Every Morning – a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 17 March 2025 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Scott Mills on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

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Last Christmas I visited my family in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. My sister Brooke said: “Trey, my Christmas present for you this year is: we’re going on a pilgrimage together ­­– to the tattoo parlor.”

Brooke is a tattoo veteran: it was her fifth time getting inked. I, however, was a virgin: under-the-needle for my very first time – though I hear once you start, you can’t stop.

I almost got tattoed at uni. Over the course of one term, I came out as gay, had a beautifully-weird God-encounter, and ­– despite my parents’ protests­ – I swerved from reading medicine to reading theology. I wanted to celebrate all that ­– but I couldn’t figure out a tattoo that’d do the trick. I thought maybe a cross, and a man-breaking-free-from-chains, and a rainbow flag, and a bible verse.

But that all felt a bit much, so I didn’t go through with it. Not then nor during any of the other rites of passage over the next three decades: kissing a boy for the first time, getting ordained, getting married (not to the first boy I kissed), getting sober, moving to Britain, and on and on.

I turn fifty this year. And Brooke said, “it’s time for your tattoo, and we’re going together”.

She celebrated 12 years cancer-free by getting a lyric inked on her arm ­– “measure in love” ­ from the musical RENT.

I decided on three different words, now permanent on my wrist:

new every morning

It’s a mantra I started praying when I got sober. A clue that the best life is in the present moment. “One day at a time” we say in 12-step-recovery. New every morning, new every minute, new every single breath.

It’s also part of a Bible verse that reads: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. God’s mercies never come to an end: they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness, O God.”

That is a statement of trust … and especially radical because it’s in the biblical book of Lamentations, this long-list of personal suffering, global injustice, the break-down of integrity. Lamentations was inked 2600 years ago but still rings true today. Basically: Things are royally messed up, God, but new every morning is your love.

Given my personal tendency to mess up, I need that assurance. I wake up, I clean my teeth, I see my tattoo and I remember – not only that I am new every morning, but, more importantly, I believe, God’s love is. Permanent, eternal, tattooed onto my skin, into my heart. Inscribed forever into the life of every single thing.

Gratitude Lists – a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 2 December 2024 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Zoe Ball on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

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Last Thursday in America was Thanksgiving Day, when families and friends travel great distances simply to eat together. I love Thanksgiving because it’s not super-commercialized. It’s like Christmas, but without the price of entry. You don’t have to buy anybody anything. The only gift expected is sitting down for a common meal.

Which doesn’t always feel like a gift ­­– family dynamics can play out, especially this year when families, like mine, are divided by their votes in the recent election.

But Americans have developed a remedy for that, at least a temporary one: the practice of counting our blessings. It’s Thanksgiving tradition to go around the table, naming something we’re thankful for. Everybody participates, from your cantankerous-great-uncle to your fringy-cringy-cousin.        And also you.      It’s a beautiful thing.

The first year we lived in the UK, me and my English husband hosted Thanksgiving for our British friends. Jonathan cooked a turkey, prepared my grandma’s homemade-stuffing, baked a pumpkin-pie.

My contribution was inviting guests to express their thankfulness. The Brits didn’t see it coming. I said: As we tuck in, can everybody share a gratitude?

Immediately there were eye-rolls, a silent-but-visceral resistance. My friend Ash, a brilliant theologian but also a-bit-of-a-clown, said: How very American.

I said: Ash, it’s my party, let’s start with you: what are you thankful for? He responded in a Jack-Whitehall-kind-of-way: I’m thankful for these mashed potatoes.

Hannah, Ash’s wife, said: Ash, come on! And then she shared a sincere gratitude. And to my astonishment, everyone followed suit, offering thanksgiving for unexpected love, a clear diagnosis, a second chance. By the time we made it round the table, there were even a few tears for all the gratitude. Ash even made a second-attempt.

Of course, giving-thanks transcends national boundaries. And it’s the heart of many spiritual communities.

Christian writer Frederick Buechner says gratitude is about acknowledging the things we “can only be given” – things “we can’t bring about ourselves any more than we can bring about our own birth.”

In Alcoholics Anonymous, some folks write a gratitude list in the mornings. We find naming concrete things to be helpful: thanks for the breath in my lungs, for sobriety, for the coffee in my cup. Gratitude doesn’t fix our problems, but it does increase our freedom to take each day as it comes.

So whatever your country-of-origin, your spirituality or none: Happy Thanksgiving. May we count our blessings and be truly grateful.

What’s your spirituality cocktail? – a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 25 November 2024 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Zoe Ball on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

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I’m a great bartender. Which may be surprising to hear from a recovering alcoholic like me. It’s definitely not a suggestion for anybody else, especially anyone in the early days of dealing with an addiction.

But one of the gifts of long-term sobriety for me is not only that I don’t drink anymore, it’s that I don’t even want to drink anymore. The desire has been removed, the compulsion has been relieved – for about 15 years now, which is a true miracle, given the relationship I used to have with alcohol and drugs. Thank you, God.

In sobriety, I once bartended at a friend’s Christmas party, and I was wearing my clergy dog-collar that night, which set the scene for all kinds of jokes. But also for a few honest confessions – and a load of amazing conversations.

People ordered drinks and while I poured them, if it felt right, I’d say: “So you’re drinking a Manhattan tonight, or a Martini or an Old Speckled Hen, but tell me about your favourite spirituality cocktail.”

“What do you mean?” they’d say.

“Well, for example, my spirituality cocktail is one part trail-running, one part Alcoholics-Anonymous, two parts Jesus, with a heavy splash of drum-and-bass music. What about you? How do you connect spiritually, however you understand or don’t understand God?”

And throughout the evening, people of different faiths and none gathered around the bar and astonished me with their answers – full of joy, hope, humour. So much fun.

On my spirituality podcast, I recently asked an agnostic guest what her spirituality cocktail was. She paused and said: “Gin and tonic”. Gin for the mystery and belonging and wonder in life. Tonic for the doubts and searching and bleakness. “But it’s all spiritual,” she said.

God, I love that. It’s all spiritual.

The festive season is here, y’all. Radio2 switches on the Christmas music this morning and I say: bring it on.

But alongside the parties and pantos, mince-pies and carol-sings, let’s consider our spirituality cocktails this season. Whether we’re lifting a glass or trying to put down the bottle, I believe God is nearer to every-single-one-of-us than we can imagine, closer even than our own breathing. God, the Sharer of our longing, and Source of our wonder. So pull up a chair to the bar, to the table, and let’s lean in together.

Spiritual six-pack? – a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 18 November 2024 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Zoe Ball on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

I went to a physiotherapist recently. The week after my 49th-birthday. Somehow, on a 5K-run, I’d hurt my back. Hello, middle-age!

The physio said: You wanna keep running? You gotta build core strength. And the best way to do that, apparently, is lifting these ridiculous things called weights.

So, for the first time in my life, I have joined a gym. Y’all, it hasn’t been pretty. I didn’t know how to use the machines. My limbs buckled like noodles under the tiniest weights. And I had no idea about gym culture.

The very first exercise I tried was on a bench that, unknown to me, was marked as someone else’s bench, even though he was across the gym. He yelled out, Oy! I said: Sorry, first time.

A friend said I should have responded: Step-off, queen, I don’t know your routine. But I didn’t have that much confidence.

After a month of feeling clueless at the gym, I asked my physio for help. She introduced me to a personal trainer, Ricky, who asked what I wanted to achieve. I said: I’m not looking for bulging-biceps or a six-pack, I just wanna build stability, prevent injury, and keep running.

I am a control-freak. In recovery, yes – but I still like figuring things out by myself. My default stance is: leave me alone, I’ll sort it. At the gym, though, I couldn’t sort it. I had no idea what to do. So Ricky, in his kind-and-gentle way, is teaching me the basics. The right posture, how to hold the bar, how to safely add weight. I try his suggestions, I don’t get it perfect, but step-by-step I get a-little-better. My back feels good, I’m running again, and I have more body-confidence.

The good things in life require training. The Bible says: Physical training has some value, but spiritual training is useful for everything. It has promise for life now and – as Jesus says ­– for life to the fullest.

Whether we’re learning weights, or meditation and prayer – which part of my spiritual training ­– it’s awkward at first. Most of us need help. Welcome to being human.

I co-host the podcast Spill the Spirituality. Each episode I talk with diverse folks about what helps their spiritual training – from Bake-Off-winner Peter Sawkins to stand-up-comedian Helen Lederer to Radio2-presenter Owain Wyn Evans.

Whoever we are, we need each other. No six-packs promised, physical or spiritual. But step-by-step, life to the fullest.

“You have an amazing aura!” – a BBC Pause for Thought

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Here’s the text for the 23 September 2024 “Pause for Thought” I offered on the Breakfast Show with Zoe Ball on BBC Radio 2. Listen here.

A woman I didn’t know took my hand and said: “You have an amazing aura”.

It wasn’t a pick-up line at the pub or a mind-body-festival. It happened after a worship-service at the door of the church where I was the minister. The woman said she’d seen a purply-golden river flowing around me.

I said: “Was this during my sermon?” No,” she said. “No. Definitely not then”.

“It was when you prayed at the altar for the Spirit to pour out on us ­– and on the bread and wine – I saw currents of light flowing through everything.”   That prayer is from a ritual when Christians eat and drink together to experience, we believe, the real-life presence of Jesus.

Let’s just say I was skeptical of the woman’s vision. It seemed a bit woo-woo, but I sensed she wasn’t making it up. And to be honest, I was also jealous. I wanted to be able see unseen energy-fields, too.

I’ve always been a spiritually-curious kid. Enchanted by the idea of an invisible realm of infinite goodness overlapping our reality – with accessible portals into a grander life. As a child I would squint and try to see it. And through the fuzzy-filter of my eyelashes I could transform falling leaves into angels, stars-into-swirling-spiritual-kaleidoscopes. Everything connected by trace-lines-of-light.

I became a Christian as a teenager. When I opened the Bible, I read of people describing what I’d imagined. They called it different things: the unseen-Eternal, the Kingdom of Heaven, the glorious riches of the fullness of God. Not a haunted-realm, but an atmosphere of peace available to us now.

Something like this past summer, when the Northern Lights turned the skies into a miracle, something we can glimpse but those glimpses are just doorways into Something-Else so unimaginably radiant and good we can’t comprehend it.

But I believe we can spot it – not only at altars, but in the world as well. In the mornings, walking through the wood with my dog Iris, I feel it. A raven or a fox sees us, they hold our gaze, and I know there are hidden-trace-lines of light connecting us.

Or crowded onto the train in rush-hour, I sense it flowing through us. I wake up to the Hidden Beauty, the Real-Life-Truth that – whether we call it an aura or Nature or the Kingdom-of-Heaven, whether we feel it everyday or not – as one writer says: we are all walking around shining like sun.