Category Archives: Reflective Essay

During college, I spent four years living with a guy who loved The Legend of Zelda. Not only did he own the classic Zelda video games, but he enjoyed playing through them all in release order. He would start with Ocarina of Time, follow that up with Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess, andContinue reading ““The Guy in the Green Hat”: Life Lessons from The Legend of Zelda”

Welcome! It’s that time of year again – the time when we get to look back on the past year and reflect on which parts of it were most meaningful to us. One of my favorite ways to do this is by listing the five music albums, five books, and five movies that were mostContinue reading “Jesse’s Favorites of 2021”

If you asked any of my family members to describe my grandfather, it wouldn’t take long for them to mention his laugh.  As an author and former preacher, Grandpa Hayden had lots of opportunities to practice the art of storytelling. As an instigator of shenanigans in his younger years, he also had lots of fuelContinue reading “The Greatest Joke Ever Told”

There’s a great moment near the end of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers that I’ve been pondering recently. The scene is set in Osgiliath, a military outpost on the edge of the noble kingdom of Gondor. Osgiliath is under siege, targeted by dragons that are dive-bombing it from the sky and ripping its rampartsContinue reading “Brokenness, Beauty, and the Ballad of Samwise Gamgee”

About a month ago, my little brother and I were driving through the hills of western Pennsylvania, watching the fiery colors of autumn flash by the windows. We had just left the home of one of my college roommates and were on our way to visit another roommate in Maryland. To pass the time, myContinue reading “The Bittersweet Burden of Leaving and Letting Go”

One of my earliest memories is of my dad reading to my brothers and me before bedtime. I remember laying propped up on my elbows, listening as Dad worked his way through old paperback copies of Watership Down and The Fellowship of the Ring. As he read, my head swirled with images of dark forests where strange beastsContinue reading “Finding Fellowship”

If you want to know what I was like as a kid, picture Hiccup from the movie How to Train Your Dragon, and that about sums it up. I was a shy, quiet daydreamer with the physicality of a string bean. Instead of listening to class lectures, I doodled pictures in the margins of my notebooks. MyContinue reading “The Knucklehead, the Drunkard, and the Warrior Heart”

How do you feel about change? Do new experiences fill you with fear or with excitement? Are you a Luke Skywalker, gazing out across the desert behind your uncle’s moisture farm and wishing you were someplace else (maybe pulverizing the forces of evil, or just going to Toshi station to pick up some power converters)?Continue reading “Dancing at the Depot”

What makes a story resonate with us? Why do certain books, movies, and pieces of music have the power to fill us with longing, to make us cry, or to overwhelm us with joy? In my experience, the tales that have moved me the most have been stories that artfully depicted things that were deeplyContinue reading “WANTED: Just as We Are”

On an overcast day, I sat on a step by my family’s deck, looking out at the tree line past the roofs of nearby houses. I’d been sitting there for a while when I looked down to my right and saw a bird sitting on the step next to me. It looked like a sparrow,Continue reading “Sucker-Punched by Beauty Ninjas”