Roadside Notes

Finding common ground used to feel simple. A handshake. A neighborly wave. A shared laugh over burnt toast in a diner booth. Lately, it feels harder. Conversations carry tension. Quiet places aren’t quiet anymore. Screens shout from every corner, pulling us left and right while most of us sit somewhere in between, just trying to finish our coffee. This reflection looks at what it means to seek com...

The strength to endure a difficult life is not usually what we ask for at the beginning. Most of us pray for relief, for answers, for the hard parts to be taken away. I know I have. I have asked God to smooth the road, to fix what hurts, to rewind the clock to before everything cracked open and spilled into places I was not ready to face. Over time, I have learned that endurance is a different kin...

Rule 66 never began as a campaign or a slogan. It began at a kitchen table that smelled like percolated coffee, ground by hand in a bright red grinder, where my mother quietly taught me how to live. That table became my first classroom, where I learned how to treat people, when to hold my tongue, and how to lead with grace even when life was messy. This reflection looks back at the woman who shape...

Love came quietly that night, without fanfare or bright lights. Not through a throne or a trumpet, but through a manger that smelled of hay and hope. This Christmas reflection returns to the humility of God’s arrival, reminding us that heaven chose the ordinary, the lowly, and the quiet as its doorway into the world. Two thousand years later, love still arrives the same way. Not in headlines or sp...

Sharing your story of faith changes you too. When you speak what God has done, you hear it again with your own ears. Memory turns into gratitude, gratitude into courage, and courage into another mile you are willing to walk. This week’s reflection explores why faith stories are not about impressing, explaining, or forcing conclusions. They are about witnessing what is real and trusting that God wa...

Healing rarely arrives all at once. Most days it moves slow, mile by mile, while you live your ordinary life. This week’s reflection is Part Two of the three part series “Living the Mission Statement,” a look at what it means to live the words God handed me: drive, heal, and tell others what He has done. Grace on the move is quiet and steady. It shows up while you drive, while you work, while you...

Faith in motion begins in the quiet before dawn when the world feels half asleep and the road waits without answers. This reflection is part one of a three-part Thanksgiving series called “Living the Mission Statement,” three stories exploring what it means to live the message God handed me: “Drive, heal, and tell others what I’ve done for you.” In Part One: Drive, I talk about what faith actually...

This Roadside Notes episode tells the story of a Thanksgiving spent on Route 66, in a small Flagstaff café running on the last scoops of stuffing and the final crumbs of pie. What began as a simple dinner on the road became a moment of unexpected grace when four strangers shared dessert and found themselves connected by more than a holiday. In a room full of travelers — truck drivers, young couple...

This week’s Roadside Notes steps back from the noise, slows the pace, and puts both hands on the heart of the Faith and Good Courage project. In this Journal reading, Christopher Tuttle shares the Mission Statement that guides every story, every episode, and every moment of grace found along the road. It is a promise rooted in kindness, courage, spiritual honesty, and the simple belief that even i...

📖 Read the full Journal entry: https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2025/09/24/healing-old-wounds/ 🎙️ Roadside Notes is a reading series from the Faith and Good Courage Journal — stories of grace, grit, and second chances written and read by Christopher Tuttle, The Route 66 Chaplain. In this episode, Christopher revisits a journal entry about the kind of pain that doesn’t stay neatly in the past. You...

Faith and Good Courage – Roadside Notes Journal Reading Episode Title: Staying True At The Bottom – Quiet Strength Author/Narrator: Christopher Tuttle Sometimes the lowest places become the clearest ones. This story is about the kind of strength that does not shout, does not show off, and does not need applause. It’s about learning to stay steady when you hit the bottom — not because you failed, b...

Faith and Good Courage – Roadside Notes Journal Reading Episode Title: I Don’t Care (And That’s the Point) Date: September 18, 2025 Author/Narrator: Christopher Tuttle On the road to healing, there comes a day when you finally stop apologizing for being real. This story isn’t about indifference; it’s about release — about learning the difference between what deserves your energy and what just drai...

Facing the Storm | The Buffalo Lesson — a Roadside Notes reading from the Faith and Good Courage Journal. The sky darkened. The road narrowed. Somewhere in the heart of western Arizona’s prairie, a herd of buffalo stood their ground while the winds rose around them. When life sends storms, it’s not always about outrunning the weather — sometimes it’s about planting your feet and facing it together...

Staying Neutral in Politics — a Roadside Notes story from the Faith and Good Courage Journal. Somewhere between headlines and highways, there’s a middle lane that rarely makes the news — where people choose listening over shouting, compassion over certainty, and grace over being right. In this reflection, Christopher Tuttle, The Route 66 Chaplain , shares a story from the road about staying ground...

“Upright Mobile and Blessed” — a new Roadside Notes story from the Faith and Good Courage Journal. This one’s about what happens when your plans stall out and you’re reminded that being upright, mobile, and breathing might just be enough blessing for one day. It’s a story about surrender and small mercies found in the pauses, told from the road where the dust never quite settles and hope still cat...

Somewhere on Route 66, the horizon kept running away from me — until I found a young family stranded with a flat. What started as a quick roadside fix turned into something much deeper: shared stories, a shy little girl, and one unexpected word that hit home — “Papa.” In this episode of Roadside Notes , a Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading, The Route 66 Chaplain reflects on how the smallest ge...

In “Being Seen and Heard,” Christopher shares a quiet moment in a lab chair that turns into a lesson about calling, humility, and the sacred work of listening. A traveling phlebotomist—“a floater”—meets a floating chaplain, and together they remind us most people aren’t hunting for fixes; they’re longing to be seen and truly heard. Sometimes the gospel fits on a Post-it, and sometimes grace just n...

Welcome to the premiere episode of Roadside Notes , a Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading by Christopher Tuttle, The Route 66 Chaplain. In this first episode, “Faith and Money,” Christopher shares the story behind why Roadside Notes exists — an honest reflection on calling, purpose, and learning to serve where you are. Recorded along Route 66 in Western Arizona, this episode combines storytelli...

Welcome to Roadside Notes, a Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading. You’ve read the Journal — now you can listen on the road. Each episode of Roadside Notes brings the written stories of the Faith and Good Courage Journal to life, recorded by Christopher Tuttle, The Route 66 Chaplain, and filmed along Route 66 in Western Arizona — from Topock and Oatman through Sitgreaves Pass and Kingman. These...