Mark Lepper

I know who you won’t find on the Epstein List : Trans Folks or Drag Queens

A grid of nine photos in 3 rows of three. All of them are selfies of a bald white man with a black eye in varying stages of progression. The top row is from when it was fresh and not very big or dark. The middle row is when it spread out and got a nice dark purple. The bottom row is when it started to turn sort of greenish and yellow. In the picture in the bottom right corner you can't really see it but the blood had started to move from the black eye and was settling along my chin/jaw. That was a weird thing I didn't expect to happen. In the bottom left photo I'm with my cat Meatloaf. He doesn't seem bothered by the black eye unlike my housemate at the time, Alex, who told me I needed to put makeup on it so he didn't have to look at it anymore. Alex has Down Syndrome and has always been honest with me in our friendship. The black eye was given to me by our other housemate George. I don't hold it against him. He is still one of my favorite people. I think Alex, on the other hand, might still be holding a bit of a grudge against George because of it.

Here is a photo collage my phone made for me of selfies from the time I had a black eye. I feel like that's kind of a weird thing for a phone to do.

Was just remembering back in the day (pre smart phones) when I'd take youth on church trips, I had it set up so I could send a text to twitter & thru Selective Tweets it would crosspost it as a status on facebook for the parents to read. The lengths we had to go to back then to stay connected...

I was feeling like I was missing out by not being at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly, but then I remembered how at the last National Youth Gathering a bunch of people got COVID so I'm kind of actually ok with missing out now.

Hello, I'm a coffee drinker in a film. I'm holding the cup and gesturing in ways that would normally send scalding hot coffee all over myself and the people around me yet it somehow magically stays in the cup.

I was going to argue for the left because that's the giraffe's neck so to have arms at the top of the neck would be weird, but then I realized that it's the giraffe's neck, so it wouldn't look like either because the human half of the centaur is fully human and then I knew I was thinking too hard.

I can pick out all the squares with motorcycles in them. So I am not a bot.

I am putting them on my grocery list right now!

I went to the ELCA Churchwide Assembly as a voting member in 2009, and even though waking up each morning it felt like I had been hit by progressively more cars the evening before, after a few cups of coffee I was ready to tackle the work set before us. Kinda jealous of the people there this year.

Oh yeah. We voted on the ordination of LGBTQ+ people then. Believe me there were a lot of red cards and faces.

I did not know these were even a thing as I tend to avoid green beans (that's the only vegetable most people could agree on so I ate way too many of them for 12 years in my last job). But these I would eat!

I was a voting member at CWA in 2009. It was actually a very exciting time to be there.

Ok that makes more sense now. Although it would raise a red flag to me if my priest asked for my SSN. But it's a different time these days.

Now they are posting ads for an online certification in "divine child healing." Which makes a little more sense to me than the other one, but also makes me ask what is it about me that makes my algorithm think I need all of this inner healing...

Wait... He thought you were a scammer so he rushed through it so someone couldn't object? Was he trying to help you with the scam? Or just trying to avoid conflict? You think he would want to help keep the bride from being scammed... 🤔

It's one of those days where I've only been at work for two hours but it feels more like 5. It's only 10:15 and I feel like it should be lunch time already. Only 6 more hours to go....

A white and gray stray cat watching me. She is one stop down from the deck so you can see the top of her back and her face from the nose up. She is staring at me warily. There's a MacDonald's drive though behind her but that isn't really important to this story.

I went outside to sit on my deck and enjoy the cooler evening temperature & was greeted by this little furball watching me from the top of my stairs. I went to get them some food but they were gone when I came back out. I left a little bowl of food at the top of the stairs for them if they return.

The retreat center where I work is having a 4 day silent directed retreat next week. As a newly certified spiritual director, they've asked if I want to meet with a retreatant once a day all four days. I think it'll be a good experience but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't intimidated by the thought.

A line of people walking two by two by two down the center aisle of a Catholic church.

Here I am sharing my own personal definition of spiritual direction with the assembled peoples. I'm a bald white guy with glasses wearing a gray and white gingham checkered shirt. There's a large fern in front of the lectern where I am speaking. There's a candle to my left and you can kind of see my friend Heather sitting behind the candle.

Here I am sharing some good things about Nick, one of the instructors in the program. My class took turns at the reception thanking the staff and sharing what we appreciated about them. Nick is looking up at me from the table and you can see the back of his head. My classmate Glenda's brother in law is at the table in the foreground and I think he's watching something on his iPad.

Here's a few more pics from my spiritual director formation program graduation. I know you were all dying to see them. I'm so much holier and wiser now.

A line of people walking two by two by two down the center aisle of a Catholic church.

Here I am sharing my own personal definition of spiritual direction with the assembled peoples. I'm a bald white guy with glasses wearing a gray and white gingham checkered shirt. There's a large fern in front of the lectern where I am speaking. There's a candle to my left and you can kind of see my friend Heather sitting behind the candle.

Here I am sharing some good things about Nick, one of the instructors in the program. My class took turns at the reception thanking the staff and sharing what we appreciated about them. Nick is looking up at me from the table and you can see the back of his head. My classmate Glenda's brother in law is at the table in the foreground and I think he's watching something on his iPad.

Here's a few more pics from my spiritual director formation program graduation. I know you were all dying to see them. I'm so much holier and wiser now.

Facebook keeps putting ads in my feed telling me to get "certified in divine masculine healing." What even is that?

I don't know if people are aware of it, or not, but I can hear EVERYTHING when they use the bathroom that's near my desk. EVERYTHING.

Anybody on here have experience with any of the programs from Shalem Institute?

Yes.

Whenever I'm on Zoom my cat either thinks it's time for me to pay all the attention to him, or to throw up under the dining room table.

Across the alley from my apartment is a McDonald's. In the two years that I have lived here I have been good about not going there. But I caved and went yesterday and so now here I am sitting on my back deck staring at the building trying to convince myself I don't need chicken nuggets.

I went for a long walk/hike today, and started out listening to a book, but after a while I stopped and took my ear buds out to listen to the birds instead. Now I can't find one of my earbuds. Guess I'll just have to keep listening to birds like the Northern Parula and the Red Eyed Vireo.

A bald man in a long sleeved white and gray gingham button up shirt and gray pants facing another man in a short sleeved blue shirt. The bald man is being anointed with oil by the other man. Behind them are several women sitting in chairs and directly behind and do the left of the main doing the anointing is a woman with long brown hair in a light blue shirt holding the dish of oil. On the wall in the background is a beige and red marble crucifix.

Well, I went ahead and graduated from my spiritual director formation program and so now I'm an officially certified spiritual director. Some people think I'm good enough at listening to people's story and accompanying them on their journey to deserve a piece of paper that says so. Yay! 😇

Thank you! It's one I approach with humility and gratefulness!

A bald man in a long sleeved white and gray gingham button up shirt and gray pants facing another man in a short sleeved blue shirt. The bald man is being anointed with oil by the other man. Behind them are several women sitting in chairs and directly behind and do the left of the main doing the anointing is a woman with long brown hair in a light blue shirt holding the dish of oil. On the wall in the background is a beige and red marble crucifix.

Well, I went ahead and graduated from my spiritual director formation program and so now I'm an officially certified spiritual director. Some people think I'm good enough at listening to people's story and accompanying them on their journey to deserve a piece of paper that says so. Yay! 😇