This morning, when I woke up, I smiled. Not because life is going great externally or that I had a fun day planned but because I was breathing. How many mornings do we wake jumping right into the stress or anxiety of the day? Maybe you pick up your phone heading straight to social media to catch up or maybe you had trouble sleeping because of that upcoming meeting you’re worried may not go well.

You assume too much.

16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

Luke 12:16-21 (ESV)

Fool! This night your soul is required of you.

Tomorrow is promised to no one – neither is today. Your body was sustained while you slept through no feat of your own. The first breath of the day upon waking is a gift. You did nothing to deserve it. The life you live, the joys and sorrows, the pleasures and pains, all of it is an undeserved gift.

Begin the day with a smile of gratitude. Someone other than you loves you enough to create you, give you life, and allow you to wake today. At times it will be hard, even tragic, but it is better than never having had the opportunity.

Upon waking, before you open your phone, stress about the meeting, or ruminate about a problem that just won’t go away, stop, smile, and say “Thank you” that you get to live another day.

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I’ve recently felt a drawn toward liturgy and the Anglican Church. It’s not completely foreign. I grew up attending an Episcopal grade school with chapel and liturgy. I didn’t understand why we did what we did but it became muscle memory over time.

Now, coming full circle, it’s like riding a bike. It feels natural. Since then I’ve been a part of Baptist, Presbyterian, and Non-denominational churches.

I’ve been attending non-denominational community-style church for the better part of my adult life. One consistent thing from church to church is that there are no consistent things. Theology may be consistent but the practice of the church is unique in each church we’ve attended.

In 2022, we left Grace Church after 22 years. I have many great memories of my time there. Most of my life-long friends were forged in those years. There are a number of reasons we finally made the decision to leave. I’ll leave that for another time.

Here, I want to briefly answer the question that I continue getting from well-meaning friends: “Why Anglicanism?”

Here are 10 reasons I’m moving in this direction.

1. Connecting to History

I want to be a part of the history of the church. What have Christians done together for thousands of years? I want connection over space and time rather than latest technology or church growth techniques.

Reading a prayer that other Christians are reading around the world draws me into a larger story. This is not just about my our personal relationship with God. I am a part of his people around the world now and throughout history. These prayers have been read for centuries upon centuries. They are proven, true, and tested by time.

The liturgical calendar, the colors of the season in the robes, and cloth hangings on the table tell a story. They reach beyond the here and now to a connect us to a larger perspective.

2. Reading scripture aloud

So little of a modern church service is actually the reading of Scripture out loud. There may (or may not) be a reading before a sermon as to what the next 45 minutes of teaching are supposed to refer.

In an Anglican service, similar to a Catholic Mass, there is an Old Testament, New Testament, and Gospel reading. It is nourishing to the soul.

3. Engaging all of your senses

I love walking into the parish smelling the incense. It immediately arrests my thoughts and engages my body. I begin to experience worship and surrender long before there is music or preaching.

An Anglican service engages all 5 of your senses every time. It is not just singing and teaching. Your sense of smell and taste are just as much present as your sight and hearing.

4. Participating, not consuming

Unknowingly, I put myself in a position to judge each time I walked into a modern Non-denominational worship service. I know this because I would say things like, “That sermon was pretty good” or “I didn’t like that song” or “he really dropped the ball at this point in the message.” I didn’t know it but I was a consumer. Did the service measure up to my expectations?

Contrast a consumer mindset with participation. You are experiencing the means of Grace by being part of the body. You are being fed and nourished. You are doing. Liturgy means “the work of the people”. It’s God’s people together kneeling, confessing, praying, worshiping, and feasting on the body and blood of Christ.

5. Doing what Jesus said

From Matthew 6:9-15 (ESV):

Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
  on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
  as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
  but deliver us from evil.

Jesus tells us how to pray. I can’t remember the last time I said the Lord’s Prayer in a non-denominational service. It is so refreshing to say this at least weekly as a body. I say “at least” because I’m also discovering the Daily Office in The Book of Common Prayer which guides you in morning and evening prayer. Each time you say these words they become more a part of you.

6. Coming as you are

This is interesting. I find myself looking forward to church recently since starting to attend an Anglican Church. It’s a weird feeling. I’m not used to it. At first, I wasn’t sure why. I spent some time thinking about it. I realized that historically, I had to get myself up for the challenge to attend church.

Am I ready to worship and learn? Will I feel pressure to experience emotional worship that feels forced at best and emotionally manipulated at worst.

In an Anglican service, I can come as I am and meet God. I know what it will be. I’ll confess my sin, assent to the the Nicene Creed, hear the Word read over me, hear some teaching, and celebrate the Eucharist.

I leave feeling nourished and full entering into the week ahead.

7. When you have no words

I don’t like being called on to pray. There is certainly a place for spontaneous prayer but, for me, it creates anxiety and awkwardness. Rather than humbly seeking God, I’m just trying to figure out the words to not sound dumb and get through it.

I often find that I’m without words. So I love reading prayers. Especially prayers that have been crafted beautifully and are time-tested as I mentioned in #1.

As I read, I can spend my energy offering to God beautiful words or praise and adoration. My mind is captured by beauty. I can rest in the words I am offering. Then, in quiet moments, I can commune quietly with God in my specific petitions and praises. This is so life-giving.

8. Teaching is the smaller part

The sermon or message is the centerpiece in a non-denominational service. Everything else is framing around it. You may have a few worship songs before and/or after it, but the sermon is the focus. 45 minutes to an hour. Ouch. Don’t get me wrong. I love the teaching but sometimes it’s an effort in endurance.

In an Anglican service, the sermon is generally 25 minutes and is just a small part of what you do together. Even if the message is leaves something to be desired, I leave feeling connected and filled from all the other parts of the service.

9. A rich experience at the table

Something else Jesus told his disciples to do. Take eat. Take drink. This is my body and blood given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. I love that there is bread and wine. I love the common cup. I love the reverence and ceremony around the table. The table is the center of the service. It’s something you do to partake in the Lord. It’s another action to move yourself toward the one who gave his life for you.

While I understand the convenience of providing a little prefilled communion cup with grape juice on one side and cracker nugget on the other, it just feels wrong, unholy. The richness of the experience moves me closer to one we commune with.

10. A small connected congregation

As we leave the service, I get to greet and connect with the priest. It has been decades since a pastor has been that available to me. If I wanted to talk to the teaching pastor, I would have to call the office and schedule a coffee 3 weeks from now. I forgot how nice it is to simply connect at church.

And the space is small in comparison. Instead of an auditorium with a thousand people, there are 150. It’s much more intimate. After being united in prayer and celebrating the Eucharist, we are connected. It is a different experience.

In summary, none of these points is specifically uniques to Anglicanism. They can exist in many different church contexts. I mention them here because that is where they are all colliding for me at this point in time. I’m thankful for that. 

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In my recent experience of contraction, I’ve grown into a different understanding of time. It was partly out of a need to remain sane and partly a lesson from God as I strive to walk with Him in my daily life.

I’m an INTJ on the Myers-Briggs personality test. My mind is hyperactive, always on, always considering possibilities and outcomes. It is seeking the most efficient way to do something or analyzing a past choice to determine a better way. Neither of those scenes exists in reality. The future and past exist only in the mind.

Ruminating on the future will lead to worry and anxiety. Imagining all the possible outcomes of a future scenario is exhausting. Then, optimizing our actions to get the best result is too. You will never exhaust what's possible. We cannot know the future – until it becomes the past.

What’s the adage? Most of what you worry about never happens.

Once an experience has passed, especially if it doesn’t go well, it creates an onslaught of emotions. We may experience sadness, anger, frustration, or regret. The past, or our conception of it, is yet another mental construct in our minds. Our memory, which is our perspective of what happened, can lead us to a dark place.

What did I do wrong? What different actions could I have taken? Why did I choose to respond the way I did?

The Greeks had two words for time: Chronos and Kairos.

Chronos is a sequential, quantitative perspective of time. Think about the clock. Time is ticking. It is something that we are all losing moment after moment. It’s an evaporating resource.

Kairos is a more fluctuating and qualitative view of time. If someone asks you, "How did you spend your day?” and you respond with, "I took a long walk in the woods and noticed a deer watching me through the trees. It’s as if time stood still.” You are considering your time from the kairos perspective. This uses quality and experience rather than the clock to describe time.

God asks us to walk with Him in the eternal present. He desires us to be a tree rooted in the river of life. God asks us to abide in Him.

That can’t happen in the past or in the future. It can only happen in the present moment. In the now. In kairos.

Dallas Willard said:

God has yet to bless anyone except where they actually are, and if we faithlessly discard situation after situation, moment after moment, as not being "right",we will simply have no place to receive his kingdom into our life.

God wants to walk with me, with you, now, here, today. I am working to live in the present moment. As I do, both my anxiety about the future and regret about the past fade. I experience the Kingdom of God while walking with my Father. It has become my joy.

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Choose to do hard things. I don’t mean the big things like climbing a mountain or running a marathon. I mean little things, consistent things daily or even hourly.

We have become soft. I have become soft. It’s just too easy to take the easy road.

I was listening to a father tell a story about a group of 20-somethings that were at his house one evening. It was late but one of them said, “I’m hungry. Anyone up for some In-N-Out burgers?” The group was in. The instigator pulled out his phone to start a DoorDash order.

The father responded with, "In-N-out is only 5 minutes away.” He suggested driving and picking up the order. They would be back much sooner than ordering it.

Their collective response was, "we don’t want burgers THAT much.”

They would rather skip the burger than make the effort.

A few weeks ago, I was at a New Year’s Eve party talking with a friend about resolutions. I mentioned that I was going to start getting disciplined the following day. She said that she was on the “fat shot”. I said I was going to try the old fashioned way. She noted that she had tried that but it “didn’t work” for her.

Do you remember the movie WALL-E released in 2008? I was struck by the depiction of ease, where convenience was the highest virtue. It led to everyone using floating chairs rather than walking to get around. They ended up so fat that they could no longer even walk if they wanted to.

That reality doesn’t seem so far away anymore. Have you walked through a Walmart lately?

Convenience always comes at a cost. Something is lost whether we realize it or not. Everything has a trade-off.

Historically, people have had to work really hard to simply survive. There were no grocery stores. You had to build your home and work to keep it warm felling trees, chopping wood, and building a fire. A meal took an immense amount of energy to prepare. You needed to find the food by hunting and killing or foraging. Even preparing a meal from a kill to the table was very time consuming. We have lost the awareness today of what was required to simply exist.

So what have we lost?

Among the many things are mental fortitude and an ability to discipline ourselves to the task at hand.

I can’t point the finger only at others. I’m guilty too. I gravitate toward convenience if left unchecked.

In recent years I no longer carry a wallet preferring ApplePay (or a card attached to my phone) to avoid the “hassle” of cash. I’m realizing this precludes me from being generous when paying by card is not available.

I only shopping at Amazon or REI because I get it fast, can return items easily, and don’t have to deal with people. Actually, it’s bigger than that. I want to avoid the complexities that dealing with people introduces.

So in 2025, I decided to start the year doing 75 Hard. Billed as a mental toughness challenge, I’m submitting myself to the rules in an effort to learn how to do hard things. I’m not sure if I'll crash and burn or see it through to the end but I’m hoping that it begins to shape my mental fortitude and become a more disciplined person.

What hard thing will you choose?

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TLDR

• Enable YJIT and upgrade to the latest Ruby (3.4.1 as of today).

• If memory errors persist, reduce YJIT memory allocation from the Ruby 3.4 default of 128MB to 64MB or even 32MB.

• If none of that works, disable YJIT in the Rails config.

This all started as we attempted to upgrade MoonClerk to Rails 7.2.

According to the Rails 7.2 docs, if you are running Ruby 3.3+, which we were, YJIT will be enabled by default. This claims to provide “15-25% latency improvements.”

Who doesn’t want a faster server? 👋 The question becomes “at what cost?” There is always a cost. In this case, it’s increased memory usage. That can be a problem for those on Heroku in a memory-constrained environment.

The Upgrade to Rails 7.2

Let’s start with the current Heroku configuration that we are using. MoonClerk runs on ~4 2x Heroku Dynos. Each dyno runs 2 Puma workers and each of those runs 5 threads.

We could just disable YJIT in the Rails config using:

Rails.application.config.yjit = false

Since it appears to be the new default, we wanted to try to keep it enabled. Unfortunately, a few hours after the Rails 7.2 deploy, we start getting the dreaded R14 - Memory Quota Exceeded.

Debugging R14 Memory Errors

The first thing we did was to change the Puma thread count from 5 to 3. In 7.2 they changed the default Puma thread count from 5 to 3 so we figured that was a good first step. In didn’t change much in terms of memory consumption.

This is what the first few attempts looked like over the week. All resulted in R14 errors.

Upgrading to Ruby 3.4

We were on the latest Ruby 3.3 (3.3.6), so maybe upgrading to Ruby 3.4.1 could improve it. They claim that it has “reduced memory usage”. So we gave that a try. It lasted for a while but still ran out of memory.

Configuring the Memory Consumption of YJIT

The next step was to configure YJIT to use less memory. We saw that they increase the default memory usage of YJIT. It was interesting to note that when we first looked into this the default was 48MB on Ruby 3.3.1+ but was changed to 128MB on Ruby 3.4. So looks like we needed to limit it down from 128MB since we’re now running on Ruby 3.4. 

They also changed the flag name from –-yjit-exec-mem-size to –-yjit-mem-size so we’ll need to keep that in mind.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any docs on how to set this variable so that Ruby picks it up on Heroku. After some fiddling, we tried this:

heroku config:set RUBYOPT="--yjit-mem-size=64" -r production

Yeah! It worked (kinda). We can’t promise that it worked fully yet, but the chart is pretty promising. After changing that setting the initial memory after the restart started around 650MB. The previous 3 restarts were all closer to 850MB.

The graph seems to be holding steady but I’ll need to wait until tomorrow to know if we’re out of the woods.

Hopefully this helps someone.

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Throughout our lives, we experience both expansions and contractions. Expansions are characterized by growth, new experiences, and relationships. Starting a new job, getting married, or having a child are all examples of life’s expansion. Then there are the contractions. Contractions are most notably characterized by loss like the experience of losing a job, a friend, or a loved one.

Your 20s and 30s are a natural time of expansion. You are finding your way in a career and possibly building a family. You are meeting new people through your neighborhood, school, and church. It feels like life is bordering on overwhelm as more and more is added.

I experienced my first contraction of life in my mid-30s. I had a good job as a software developer and was on a beach vacation with my family when I got the call that the office would be locked when I got back and I no longer had a job. The company had relocated operations from Greenville, SC to Houston, TX.

It felt like a gut punch. Thankfully, I had been doing some side work and had multiple inquiries. I thought I’d be ok and maybe even thrive as I had a nice severance package. Within two weeks I had gone through all of my leads and had no work to show for it. I was unemployed for nearly 6 months.

I remember waking up with nothing to do and no place to go. My anxiety was through the roof. I decided to keep pushing with my consulting and, just before my severance pay ended, I got my first paying client.

As hard as that was, there were other areas of life that were expanding while my work life was contracting. I started a men’s group in that season from which I have found some life-long brothers. My family and church involvement helped balance the equation. It was only when I was alone that the anxiety would creep back in. How are you going to provide? What if this consulting route doesn’t work? Will you be a failure? Again?

In my early 20s, I struggled financially. We were below the poverty line for years. Even though I had earned a Master’s degree, I could barely make ends meet. I thought I had left that season for good. Will I have to return to it?

Thankfully, the answer was no. Though it took some time, God opened some amazing doors. My consulting business grew and I eventually cofounded a software company with a former client turned business partner.

After a few more years of hustle, I was entering into a new season of expansion. What I didn’t know was that simultaneously, as the business was growing, I would be pulled into another concurrent season of contraction. My oldest daughter, then in middle school, got sick.

She was originally diagnosed with Mono but never got better. As time went on her condition worsened and the traditional medical community had no answers. They effectively said she was fine and was making it up though she lost nearly half her body weight, dealt with constant fatigue, headaches, and chronic pain. Her circadian rhythm changed and she eventually became nocturnal. This lasted through all of high school. She was home-bound, doing school online in the middle of the night. We would see her only as she would wake in the evening before we went to bed. She would work in the night and fall asleep in the morning as we were waking.

Over the next 4 years, as I’m building the business, we are spending obscene amounts of money on alternative health practitioners. Nothing was covered by our very expensive health insurance premiums so it was all out-of-pocket.

I can’t fully explain the pressure I felt in that season. To come through for my partner and employees in building a successful business. To watch my daughter fade away in pain to the point she no longer wanted to live. And to spend so much money on treatments that didn’t even seem to be working. I was failing to care for my wife and our other 2 kids. I was a shell of a person becoming so angry about what my life had become.

There is far more to this story but God, in His boundless grace, healed my daughter with the cooperation of a handful of unusual suspects. I’m very thankful for the alternative practitioners who helped save her life. She graduated from high school (online) with a 4.0 and healed to the point of being able to go to college. It was truly a miracle.

Over the next few years, we begin experiencing a slow expansion again. The business grows and our family recovers. There were normal issues that life throws at you but nothing compared to previous season. It was a time to catch our breath and recover some much needed sanity. Then, without much warning, another season of contraction snuck up on me when I wasn’t looking.

During my daughter’s health challenges, my dad was dealing with alcoholism. He passed away in 2014 from liver failure. Then my mom was diagnosed with early onset dementia in 2017. While she’s still alive today, she can no longer communicate with or recognize family. Effectively losing both of my parents in their late 60s promoted me, unready as I was, to become the patriarch of the family.

The joy I found when at work also started fading. In the previous season, I thrived on leading the technical vision and project management of our small team at work. One of my greatest joys was to come into the office, grab a cup of Methodical coffee, and dig into how to optimally build a feature with such an amazing team of people.

Then, one by one, each of the development team left for other opportunities. I was very happy for them as they were growing in their career but was sad that I would no longer be able to work with them or see them daily.

Eventually, I was the only technical resource remaining. We also decided to give up our office as we just didn’t need it anymore. So my days changed from working with a team and having camaraderie to working alone in my home office.

As my work life was shrinking, my family and friends moved away.

My sister and her family, who had moved to be closer to us, decided to move to another state so we rarely get to see them.

The last of my 3 children left for college in the Fall of 2022. Empty nesting is great in so many ways but it was another loss of daily connection when all your kids are gone.

My best friend of 20 years moved away and the group of guys I had been meeting with weekly for the past decade started losing steam and disintegrating.

As my external world was shrinking, my wife found a renewed purpose in becoming involved in local politics and is very active outside the home with various organizations.

In 2024, my business partner and I decided to stop deploying new features for a season. So even my identity as a software developer, and what I have spent my days for the past 20 years doing, was no longer.

As I was coming to terms with all of this loss and trying to find a new daily routine, my home was hit by Hurricane Helene. On September 27, 2024, a 70-year-old oak tree fell through our roof allowing rain to pour into the house. A few minutes later our neighbor’s chimney crashed through the side of our house sending bricks into our living room.

My wife, Kelly, was home with the dog when this happened. I was in Toronto at a conference on the phone with her when all this was happening helpless to do anything about it but pray. Our house sustained major damage. Estimates are that we’ll be out of it for a year or so to complete the repairs.

Dealing with displacement from our home, an insurance company – unhelpful at best and negligent at worst, my wife’s PTSD, logistics for disaster relief, and a host of other losses has been difficult. However, it pales compared to those in North Carolina who lost everything and had no insurance. Comparison just doesn’t compute.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’ve experienced loneliness,  sadness, and, at times, even depression. Thankfully grief comes in cycles. It hurts so badly for a time that you don’t think you’ll make it through. But you do.

I certainly didn’t expect I would be where I am now. I expected the contractions to be balanced out with more expansions. That may be what happens. In a few years, we could be grandparents and we would enter a new season of expansion.

But for now, I’m in a season of multiple compounding relational contractions. Where this goes, only God knows.

What am I learning in this season?

I came to realize that I saw my value through what I create or produce. I often asked myself, “What did you accomplish today?” Now that I’m not needed by really anyone on a daily basis, I wonder why I’m still here. What’s my purpose?

Could it be that I’m simply here to glorify God and enjoy Him forever? Maybe my production isn’t the most valuable thing I can offer.

By stripping away the things that got most of my focus daily, I’ve become more and more grateful for how richly blessed I am. Being grateful doesn’t dismiss loss. The loss shines a light on the very things that God gave me for a time that I neither deserved nor could  have imagined for myself.

I may not be done producing but I don’t want that production to define me or to equate to my value. I’m hoping that I can walk with God through the rebuild of the house, and the upcoming years, with an expectancy for the lavish gifts so undeserved that He, in his goodness, provides.

And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21)

Acknowledge and feel your losses. They will lead you somewhere. I’m sure there will be more contraction in my life before it’s over. I accept that and will offer that pain to God. I’m also hopeful if I’m fortunate enough, to see more expansion in this life. But regardless, I look forward to the ultimate expansion as Jesus makes all things new.

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