Perkins chapel at smu prints

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There are places we intend to go, and there are places that quietly shape us along the way.

I painted Perkins Chapel at Southern Methodist University at a crossroads in my life. I had just completed my Master of Divinity at Asbury Seminary, where a painting I gifted to the school unexpectedly became part of my story—it helped provide the means to finish what I had started. As I began considering the next step, I wondered if that same gesture might open a door at SMU.

So I painted this chapel.

Before I ever applied, though, another door opened. I was accepted into the Doctor of Ministry program at Duke University, and that became the path I followed. SMU was never where I studied, never where I served—but it remained, in a quiet way, part of the journey that led me forward.

For a time, this painting hung in our home. Eventually, it found its way into the office of a United Methodist bishop—another reminder that our paths in ministry are rarely linear, but always connected.

Years later, the place took on new meaning. My son, playing college football for the Rice Owls, competed in his first bowl game just across from this chapel. What once represented a road not taken became part of a different kind of memory—one rooted not in calling, but in family.

Sacred ground is not always where we end up.

Sometimes it is found in the places that redirect us, prepare us, and quietly become part of the story we carry forward. Even the paths we don’t take leave their mark.

Once all 100 prints are sold in each edition, the edition will be retired, making each print a collectible keepsake.