matt tullos: writer
Being a parent is the perfect metaphor of “two steps forward, one step back.” It’s just the way things work in parenting. I thought about that as my youngest son wheeled out of the drive in his ’99 Subaru, loaded to the gills with his belongings to venture from the nest and into the great […]
Don’t you love the process of putting all your earthly possessions in boxes and moving across the country? I didn’t think so. Who would? I’d much prefer staying in one place but for some reason God has other plans. When we move ourselves without the assistance of professionals we look like the Beverly Hillbillies. If you’re […]
In marriage, there’s a rule you must follow. Eliminate the words “always” and “never.” In other words, don’t say to your wife, “You’re never are ready when I’m ready to leave.” That’s a buzz-kill right off the bat. Plus, it’s just not true. “Never” is a very difficult word when it comes to speaking truth. […]
My grandma always figured a pandemic would happen. I can just see her now, putting down her needle work next to Martha, Ruth and Eunice in the great sewing circle of Heaven and shouting down to me, “I told you that you needed to keep 5000 potatoes in the crawl space under your house!” I always […]
A couple of years ago, I had some equipment for sale and this guy messaged me and asked if I would want to sell it for some Bitcoin. He started explaining it. The words he used were English but my brain could no more process the sentences than it could process Mandarin Chinese. Back then, […]
Last Thursday, I was behind a lady at the grocery store. It’s a national chain, but not one of those fancy all organic places where they offer free samples of tofu ice cream and sushi. It’s the “bag your own stuff” kind of place where you can buy enough beans to feed the French resistance […]
It happened at the start of my first year of junior high school. My dad got a new job in another state and so the week before school started, we were moving. The great thing about this move was that in the middle of the chaos, I was shuffled off to my grandparents so far […]
Perhaps the most surprising thing about our journey as a family is that it is so surprising. The most predicable thing about life is its singular unpredictability. Think about all the things that you’ve experienced in your family that caused you to shake your head and say, “Well, I didn’t see that coming.” I’d venture […]
As a child, I grew up as a concrete thinker. Honestly, most of us were. That’s just a fact about kids. They think concretely and are unable to process the subtle imagery adults use. I remember I had a deep fear of my aunt who told me that I was so cute she could just […]
In bed the alarm rings, I feel as if my body is 180 lbs. of cement. God whispers, What did you expect? You haven’t taken a day off in 12 days. Ouch! That morning I asked: Do I have to run quickly to and fro? Do I have to get up today and go? […]