Roadside Notes is a Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading — short, soulful reflections written and read by Christopher Tuttle, The Route 66 Chaplain.Each episode is a five-minute stop along the highway: a story, a thought, a quiet moment for the soul.No sermons, no spotlight — just roadside faith, diner-table wisdom, and the sound of grace still traveling well.🛣️ New readings every week.🎧 Read more stories or join the Roadside Club at <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com" rel="nofollow">faithandgoodcourage.com</a>

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The Empty Stool was the last seat in the house. Every other spot at the counter was taken and the booths were full and the lunch crowd was moving fast and not paying much attention to the young man who slid onto that last stool like he was trying to take up as little space as possible.He didn&#39;t want to be there. Not in the diner, not in the conversation, not in whatever day he was having. He ordered coffee. Didn&#39;t look at the menu. Didn&#39;t look at me. Stared at the counter the way people stare at things when they&#39;re not actually seeing them. I didn&#39;t push. I never push. But I did what I&#39;ve learned to do in those moments. I paid attention and I stayed present and before I left I wrote something down on a piece of paper and left it where he&#39;d find it after I was gone.I didn&#39;t know if it would land. You never do. You just leave the note and trust the road. A few weeks later I came back to that diner and a waitress came around the counter and said she needed to tell me something. The young man on the empty stool was her nephew. She had watched the whole thing. She said something shifted in him after that day. Then she went behind the counter and came back with a slice of pie and said she owed me pie for a lifetime and she intended to make good on it.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/09/24/the-empty-stool/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/09/24/the-empty-stool/</a> 🎙️ 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. #FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

You leave the note and trust the road.

In this week&#39;s Roadside Notes, Christopher Tuttle, the Route 66 Chaplain, sits next to a young man at a diner counter who is carrying something heavy with no idea where to set it down. He leaves a note and walks out. Weeks later he comes back to the same diner and a waitress brings him pie and tells him what happened after he left. One of the most quietly powerful entries in the journal.

The Empty Stool | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep55

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Mile Zero doesn&#39;t look like much. It&#39;s just a driveway. A cup of coffee going cold in the cupholder. A map you&#39;ve already looked at three times even though you don&#39;t really need it. The engine running. The garage door still open behind you like it&#39;s giving you one last chance to change your mind.That&#39;s Mile Zero. And it&#39;s the most honest moment of any journey.I met a woman at a gas station just outside of Kingman who was standing next to her car with both hands wrapped around a paper coffee cup staring at the highway like it owed her an answer. She wasn&#39;t lost. She wasn&#39;t broken down. She was just at Mile Zero and taking her time about leaving it. I asked her where she was headed. She smiled and said she wasn&#39;t completely sure yet. Said she figured the road would sort out the specifics once she got moving. I told her that was about the smartest thing I&#39;d heard all week.This week&#39;s Roadside Notes is about the moment before the first turn. The wide open unwritten nature of a morning that hasn&#39;t made up its mind. You don&#39;t need the whole map. You don&#39;t need every answer. You just need enough courage to back out of the driveway and point it forward. The road takes care of the rest. It always has.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/09/17/mile-zero/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/09/17/mile-zero/</a>🎙️ 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.#FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

You don't need the whole map. Just enough courage to back out of the driveway.

In this week&#39;s Roadside Notes, Christopher Tuttle, the Route 66 Chaplain, reflects on Mile Zero. The driveway moment. The cup of coffee going cold in the cupholder. The morning that hasn&#39;t decided what it&#39;s going to be yet. Drawing from a chance encounter at a gas station outside of Kingman, he explores what the road gives you before it gives you anything else. Possibility. And a direction called forward.

Mile Zero | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep54

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The Regular doesn&#39;t always have a name on the sign out front. But everybody inside knows who he is. He&#39;s the one who comes in at the same time, sits in the same spot, orders the same thing, and tips the same way every single time. Not because he&#39;s a creature of habit. Because he&#39;s a creature of commitment. There&#39;s a difference and the people behind the counter know it even if they&#39;ve never put words to it.Every diner on Route 66 has one. The man in the corner booth every Tuesday morning at seven. The woman who always gets the soup and always stays for a second cup. The truck driver who hits the same stop every westbound run and always asks about the cook&#39;s grandkids by name. They&#39;re not famous. They&#39;re not trying to be. They just keep coming back and that turns out to be everything.This is episode fifty three. One year of showing up every Thursday without a paywall, without a pitch, without asking anything except a few minutes of your time and whatever the road put in front of both of us that week. This week&#39;s Roadside Notes is about what it means to be The Regular. For a diner. For a person. For anything worth returning to. And why reliable turns out to be one of the most remarkable things a person can be.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/09/10/the-regular/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/09/10/the-regular/</a> 🎙️ 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. #FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

Reliable turns out to be one of the most remarkable things a person can be.

In this week&#39;s Roadside Notes, episode fifty three and one full year of showing up every Thursday, Christopher Tuttle, the Route 66 Chaplain, reflects on The Regular. The one who comes back. The one whose presence becomes part of the rhythm of a place and whose absence leaves a gap before you can even name it. A quiet thank you to everyone who has pulled up a stool at this counter week after week and made room for the stories.

The Regular | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep53

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The Man Who Was the Building didn&#39;t introduce himself. He didn&#39;t need to. You understood who he was the moment you walked through the door at Hackberry General Store and saw him moving behind the counter with the quiet ease of someone who had been doing this long enough that the place and the person had become the same thing.Mary and I had stopped in on one of those Route 66 afternoons where the plan is loose and the road is doing the deciding. While we were there a group came in from somewhere far enough away that English wasn&#39;t the first thing they reached for. He didn&#39;t hesitate. Didn&#39;t look for someone else to handle it. He just moved toward them the way he moved toward everyone else and started doing what he did. Pointing. Nodding. Smiling the specific smile of a man who has learned that kindness doesn&#39;t actually require words to travel. They understood him perfectly. Because genuine welcome doesn&#39;t have an accent.The towns that refused to die didn&#39;t survive on their own. They survived because somebody inside them refused to leave. Refused to stop caring. Refused to let the bypass have the last word. He was that somebody for Hackberry. This week&#39;s Roadside Notes is about what it looks like when a person and a place become the same thing. And what the counter looks like from both sides.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/09/03/the-man-who-was-the-building/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/09/03/the-man-who-was-the-building/</a>🎙️ 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.#FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives #Route66Centennial

Genuine welcome doesn't have an accent.

In this week&#39;s Roadside Notes, Christopher Tuttle, the Route 66 Chaplain, stops at Hackberry General Store with Mary on a loose Route 66 afternoon and watches the man behind the counter tend to every person who walks through the door with the quiet ease of someone who has been doing this long enough that the place and the person have become the same thing. A gentle reflection on what it means to stay, to serve, and to keep the door open one more day.

The Man Who Was the Building | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep52

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The Boy Who Wanted to Watch wasn&#39;t causing trouble. He just wanted to see everything. The lifts going up. The air guns spinning lug nuts off. The machines that balanced the tires. Jacob was seven years old and the whole place was a laboratory and nobody had told him yet that he was supposed to sit still and look at a screen.I was only supposed to be there five minutes. Tire pressure check on my way through Kingman. In and out. Back on the road. That was the plan until I walked into the waiting area and saw a young woman trying to hold herself together while simultaneously trying to keep a very curious seven year old from pressing his nose against every window in the place.Her name was Terry. She had blown a tire just outside of Kingman on I-40. She was a waitress, a part time dental hygiene student, and a single mom on her way to New Mexico to bury someone she loved. Jacob needed someone to take his questions seriously and answer them straight. Terry needed someone to tell her she was in a good place and that she was going to be okay. Neither of those things took a lot. They just took showing up and paying attention and being willing to stay a little longer than planned. My five minute stop turned into an hour I never planned and wouldn&#39;t trade.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/08/27/the-boy-who-wanted-to-watch/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/08/27/the-boy-who-wanted-to-watch/</a>🎙️ 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.#FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

You never know when a five minute stop is actually an hour that matters.

In this week&#39;s Roadside Notes, Christopher Tuttle, the Route 66 Chaplain, stops for a quick tire pressure check in Kingman and ends up spending an hour with a seven year old who wanted to understand everything about how tires work and a single mom on her way to New Mexico to bury someone she loved. A quiet, honest story about showing up, paying attention, and staying a little longer than planned.

The Boy Who Wanted to Watch | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep51

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The Centennial Seeker found me before I found him. I was halfway through breakfast at a Route 66 diner when I heard him ask the waitress about the towns. The ones that had every reason to dry up and blow away and somehow didn&#39;t. She listened politely, smiled, and pointed right at me. So he pulled up a stool and we got to talking.Pete from Kentucky wasn&#39;t really asking about the towns at all. He was asking about himself. Twenty two years of sixty hour weeks and a morning where he finally looked up from the work long enough to realize he couldn&#39;t remember the last time he had done something just because he wanted to. He didn&#39;t ease into it. Didn&#39;t plan a sabbatical. He just stopped. Handed in his notice, packed what fit in the car, and pointed it west. Two flat tires before he hit the Oklahoma state line. A water pump that gave up in the middle of nowhere. A cracked windshield courtesy of a truck tire outside of Holbrook. And a breakfast on a curb in Flagstaff with a homeless woman that he called one of the best twenty minutes of the whole trip.This week&#39;s Roadside Notes is about what happens when the weight of everything you&#39;ve been carrying gets heavier than the fear of letting it go. The towns that refused to die didn&#39;t survive because everything went right. They survived because the people in them learned to sit with the hard parts long enough to find what was still worth saving. Pete from Kentucky was doing the same thing. One mile at a time.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/08/20/the-centennial-seeker/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/08/20/the-centennial-seeker/</a> 🎙️ 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. #FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives #Route66Centennial

The road breaks what needs breaking. Then it keeps going.

In this week&#39;s Roadside Notes, Christopher Tuttle, the Route 66 Chaplain, meets Pete from Kentucky at a Route 66 diner. Pete walked away from twenty two years of sixty hour weeks, a ten year relationship, and a house to drive Route 66 in its centennial year. Two flat tires, a broken water pump, a cracked windshield, and a breakfast on a curb in Flagstaff later, he was starting to figure out what he was actually made of. This one is for anyone whose weight of where they&#39;ve been is starting to outweigh the fear of somewhere new.

The Centennial Seeker | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep50

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If It&#39;s Your Calling, It Will Keep Calling. You&#39;ve probably seen that on a coffee mug or a piece of wall art somewhere. Maybe you smiled at it. Maybe it stopped you for just a second longer than you expected and you weren&#39;t quite sure why.I met a man outside of Flagstaff who knew exactly why. He just hadn&#39;t said it out loud yet. He was in sales. Good at it too. Comfortable salary, company car, a territory he knew cold. But within ten minutes of sitting down he was talking about the classroom. Not his classroom. Not anymore. The one he left fourteen years ago when the numbers stopped making sense and a recruiter called at exactly the right moment with exactly the wrong opportunity.He wasn&#39;t complaining. He was just talking. The way people talk when they&#39;ve been carrying something long enough that it starts coming out sideways in conversations with strangers over bad coffee. But the classroom kept showing up. In the way his eyes changed when he mentioned a nephew he had been helping with math. In the way he said the word teacher like it still belonged to him even though he hadn&#39;t used it in over a decade.Callings don&#39;t leave. They just wait. With a patience that is honestly a little unsettling when you think about it too long. This week&#39;s Roadside Notes is for anyone who has been running from something that keeps finding them. Stop running long enough to ask why it keeps showing up. It&#39;s been calling a long time. It&#39;s not going to stop.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/08/13/if-its-your-calling/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/08/13/if-its-your-calling/</a> 🎙️ 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. #FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

Callings don't leave. They just wait.

In this week&#39;s Roadside Notes, Christopher Tuttle, the Route 66 Chaplain, meets a man outside of Flagstaff who walked away from teaching fourteen years ago and has been carrying it ever since. What follows is a quiet conversation about callings, the doors we think we&#39;ve closed, and why the thing you&#39;re meant for has a way of threading itself through everything you do whether you invite it or not.

If It's Your Calling, It Will Keep Calling | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep 49

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The Detour Called Self-Doubt doesn&#39;t announce itself. It doesn&#39;t put up a sign or flash a warning light. It just quietly redirects you and before you know it you&#39;re sitting on the hood of your car at a gas station just off the highway staring at your phone like the answer is in there somewhere.I pulled off for fuel on a stretch of road that doesn&#39;t offer a lot of options. There was one other car at the pumps. A man, maybe mid-forties, sitting on his hood with his phone in both hands and the look of someone who had been there a while. Not lost. Not broken down. Just stopped. He was on his way to the job interview he had been working toward for two years. He had driven three hours that morning to get there. And now he was sitting in the Mojave Desert talking himself out of it.That&#39;s the thing about self-doubt that nobody warns you about. It doesn&#39;t show up when you&#39;re unprepared. It shows up when you&#39;re ready. The ones who make it three hours down the road and then stop are the ones who wanted it badly enough to get there. Self-doubt is not the enemy of readiness. It&#39;s the proof of it. This week&#39;s Roadside Notes is for anyone sitting on the hood of their life right now waiting for permission. Get back in the car. Finish the drive. The road already knew you were ready.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/08/06/the-detour-called-self-doubt/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/08/06/the-detour-called-self-doubt/</a>🎙️ 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.#FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

Self-doubt is not the enemy of readiness. It's the proof of it.

In this week&#39;s Roadside Notes, Christopher Tuttle, the Route 66 Chaplain, pulls off for fuel in the Mojave Desert and finds a man sitting on the hood of his car talking himself out of the job interview he spent two years working toward. What follows is a quiet conversation about self-doubt, readiness, and the habit of getting back in the car anyway. This one is for anyone who has ever gotten close to something that mattered and then found a reason to pull over.

The Detour Called Self-Doubt | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep48

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Someday Finally Showed Up and it looked exactly like a corner booth at Mr. D&#39;s 66 Diner in Kingman, Arizona. Both had the burger and the root beer float. Both had the pie. They had been married forty-nine years and eleven months and they were somewhere in the middle of the greatest road trip of their lives.No phones on the table. No awkward silences to fill. Just two people who had long since run out of things to prove and were simply enjoying where they were. Route 66 had been on their list since before they were married. They had talked about it the way couples talk about the things they&#39;re going to do when the time is right. And then one morning the time was right and they got in the car. Route 66&#39;s centennial year as the backdrop. Hawaii at the end. Two things they had always meant to do together. Not one for him and one for her. Both for both of them.This week&#39;s Roadside Notes is for anyone who has been treating the life they want like something they&#39;ll get to eventually. Someday doesn&#39;t wait. You have to go get it. The road is a hundred years old this year and it&#39;s still out there. Still the same two lanes it always was. Go get your someday. It&#39;s closer than you think.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/07/30/someday-finally-showed-up/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/07/30/someday-finally-showed-up/</a> 🎙️ 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. #FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

Someday doesn't wait. You have to go get it.

In this week&#39;s Roadside Notes, Christopher Tuttle, the Route 66 Chaplain, meets a couple at Mr. D&#39;s 66 Diner in Kingman who have been married forty-nine years and eleven months and are living out the road trip they always meant to take. Route 66 centennial year as the backdrop. Hawaii at the end. A folder full of highlighted maps. And a quiet reminder that someday doesn&#39;t live out ahead of you waiting patiently. It lives in the decision you make today.

Someday Finally Showed Up | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep47

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She Drove It Anyway and nobody in her life tried to talk her out of it. That part surprised her. She had braced for the pushback, the raised eyebrows, the quiet chorus of are you sure about this. Instead her teenage kids helped her pack. Her sister put a tracker on her car. Her best friend called every evening at seven. And on a Tuesday morning in early fall she flew to St. Louis to drive Route 66.She wasn&#39;t running away. She had been through a divorce, lost a job she was good at, and spent the better part of two years making sure everyone around her was okay. Somewhere in the doing of all that she had misplaced herself. Not dramatically. Just quietly. The way you set something down for a minute and then can&#39;t quite remember where you left it. Her dad had driven Route 66 when he needed to think. Told her the miles had a way of sorting things out that nothing else could. She had carried that story for thirty years. This was finally the right time to find out if he was right.I met her in Needles on one of her last days on the road. She slid onto the stool next to mine with the easy comfort of a woman who had been doing this long enough to feel at home anywhere along the road. This week&#39;s Roadside Notes is her story. And it belongs to every person who has been so busy taking care of everyone else that they&#39;ve lost track of where they set themselves down.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/07/23/she-drove-it-anyway/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/07/23/she-drove-it-anyway/</a> 🎙️ 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. #FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

The road doesn't ask for your reasons. It just asks if you're coming.

In this week&#39;s Roadside Notes, Christopher Tuttle, the Route 66 Chaplain, meets Rebecca in Needles on one of her last days driving Route 66. She&#39;d flown to St. Louis, stood under the Arch her father told her about for thirty years, and spent fourteen days finding out if the miles could sort things out the way he always said they could. This one is for anyone who&#39;s been so busy making sure everyone else is okay that they&#39;ve lost track of where they set themselves down.

She Drove It Anyway | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep46

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The Note You Leave Behind doesn&#39;t require a conversation. It doesn&#39;t require an introduction or an explanation or even eye contact. It just requires paying attention long enough to notice that the person next to you at the counter is carrying something heavy today.The counter stool is the best seat in the house. Always has been. You get the front row view of everything. And sometimes what you hear from the booth just behind your left shoulder is a voice that&#39;s been holding it together for too long and just ran out of road. You know that voice. Most of us do. We&#39;ve used it ourselves at some point, hunched over a phone in a public place trying to keep it together while the world kept moving around us like nothing was happening.You don&#39;t go over. That&#39;s not what they need. What they need is simpler than that. A receipt. A napkin. The back of whatever&#39;s in your pocket. Seven words. Find happiness in the fact that the world needs you. You fold it once, set it where they&#39;ll find it after you&#39;re gone, and then you walk out to the parking lot and let it do whatever it&#39;s going to do. You&#39;ll never know. That&#39;s the whole deal.This week&#39;s Roadside Notes is about the kind of attention that changes how you move through every room you walk into. It doesn&#39;t cost anything. But what it produces can mean everything to somebody on a day when everything felt like nothing.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/07/09/what-the-road-taught-me/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/07/09/what-the-road-taught-me/</a>🎙️ 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.#FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

Seven words on a napkin. Sometimes that's everything.

In this week&#39;s Roadside Notes, Christopher Tuttle, the Route 66 Chaplain, sits at a diner counter and hears a voice in the booth behind him that&#39;s been holding it together for too long. What follows isn&#39;t a conversation or a grand gesture. Just seven words on a napkin, left where someone will find them after he&#39;s gone. A quiet, honest reflection on what it means to pay attention and leave something behind.

The Note You Leave Behind | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep45

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/7/7/15/51746940-dc5f-4f77-bcc2-c8cb49383b0e_7-9_what_the_road_taught_me.mp3

What the Road Taught Me didn&#39;t come from a book or a classroom or a motivational weekend. It came from a diner stool, a long stretch of highway, and enough miles to finally stop arguing with the quiet.Everybody&#39;s carrying something. The man eating alone at the end of the counter isn&#39;t necessarily lonely. The woman who doesn&#39;t make eye contact isn&#39;t necessarily rude. Most of the time people are just tired in a way that doesn&#39;t show up on the outside. The road taught me to give people the benefit of the quiet. Don&#39;t fill it. Don&#39;t explain it. Just let them have it. Sometimes that&#39;s the kindest thing you can offer a stranger.This week&#39;s Roadside Notes is about what happens when you log enough miles to stop passing through and start paying attention. The road doesn&#39;t reward the people who have it all figured out. It rewards the ones who keep going anyway. There&#39;s a point on a long drive where the noise in your head runs out of things to say. That&#39;s where the real lessons live. And if you&#39;re willing to sit still long enough to receive them, they have a way of showing up right where you are.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/07/09/what-the-road-taught-me/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/07/09/what-the-road-taught-me/</a> 🎙️ 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. #FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

The lessons you need most show up right where you are.

In this week&#39;s Roadside Notes, Christopher Tuttle, the Route 66 Chaplain, reflects on what a life spent on the road has actually taught him. About people, about showing up, and about the quiet that settles in somewhere between Barstow and Flagstaff when you finally stop arguing with the miles. Grounded, honest, and worth pulling over for.

What The Road Taught Me | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep44

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He sat down next to me at the counter like he&#39;d done it a thousand times, because he had. Different counter, different state, same stool. He drove cars for dealerships. Picked them up in one place, delivered them somewhere else, and filled the miles in between with diners just like this one. He&#39;d seen enough of this country to stop being surprised by it.He told me the world had gotten loud. That most people he sat next to anymore were either angry about something or worn down from pretending they weren&#39;t. He wasn&#39;t complaining. Just reporting. The way a man who has driven every road learns to report. Then he said something I didn&#39;t expect. He said he liked my laugh. Said it plain, the way people say things when they actually mean them.This week&#39;s Roadside Notes is about what happens when a stranger pulls off the highway not for the coffee but because something in him needed to see that it was still possible. That a person could move through all of it and still have a light in them. You don&#39;t always know what you&#39;re giving people when you show up with something genuine in you. Sometimes you&#39;re just having coffee. Sometimes you&#39;re the answer to a question somebody carried in from the highway and didn&#39;t know how to ask. Both can happen on the same Tuesday.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/07/02/the-man-who-drove-every-road/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/07/02/the-man-who-drove-every-road/</a> 🎙️ 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. #FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

Somebody pulled off the road needing to see the light was still on.

In this week&#39;s Roadside Notes, Christopher Tuttle, the Route 66 Chaplain, meets a man at a diner counter who has driven every road in this country and sat next to every kind of person doing it. What he stopped for that morning wasn&#39;t the coffee. It was something quieter than that. A gentle, honest reflection on what we give people simply by showing up with something genuine in us.

The Man Who Drove Every Road | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep43

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/6/22/16/ccabe9ef-9986-4c07-bcd4-83fbd7090b8a_6-25_kindness_costs_nothing.mp3

It wasn&#39;t a remarkable morning. Coffee. A window seat. The kind of quiet that settles in before the day gets loud. I wasn&#39;t looking for anything. I was just there. That&#39;s when they pulled in. An older car moving carefully into the handicap space. And then everything slowed down.He was old. Fragile in the way that men who were once very strong sometimes become. Getting out of that car took everything he had. When he finally stood, he straightened up and adjusted his sweater the way a marine adjusts his dress uniform. Like it mattered. Like he still had somewhere worth showing up to. He retrieved the walker, opened her door, positioned it at just the right angle, and walked her inside. I don&#39;t think he saw a single person watching. I don&#39;t think it would have changed anything if he had.This week&#39;s Roadside Notes is about what happens when kindness moves before you do. Nobody planned it. Nothing dramatic happened. An old man loved his wife well in a parking lot. A stranger held a door. Two menus got grabbed without thinking. That&#39;s all it was. And somehow it was everything. Kindness costs nothing. But what it gives back is something you carry for a long time.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/06/25/kindness-costs-nothing/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/06/25/kindness-costs-nothing/</a> 🎙️ 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. #FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

Kindness doesn't always wait for a plan.

In this week&#39;s Roadside Notes, Christopher Tuttle, the Route 66 Chaplain, is sitting in a diner booth watching a parking lot when an old man helps his wife out of their car with quiet, unhurried devotion. What follows is a gentle reflection on what kindness looks like when nobody planned it, nobody performed it, and nobody needed an audience. Simple, human, and worth every minute.

Kindness Costs Nothing | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep42

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/6/15/16/047a394a-a15c-4c64-82a1-47fce4783fa5_6-18_grace_takes_the_detour.mp3

I wanted the straight shot. Efficient. The kind of drive that gets you somewhere without asking much of you along the way. But I missed the ramp on I-40 just out of Kingman. No signal, no GPS worth trusting, just heat waves and a frontage road that hadn&#39;t seen a map update since the Eisenhower administration. That&#39;s when I saw him. A kid sitting on the hood of a busted car, flipping a coin like he was in quiet conversation with the universe.He wasn&#39;t flagging anyone down. He wasn&#39;t panicking. He was just waiting. And when I pulled over and asked if he needed a ride, he said something I didn&#39;t expect. &#34;I don&#39;t need a map. I just need a reason.&#34; He&#39;d left a bad place and didn&#39;t know exactly where he was headed. Only that staying behind was no longer an option.This week&#39;s Roadside Notes is about what happens when you miss the exit and end up exactly where you were supposed to be. Grace doesn&#39;t always announce itself with flashing arrows or clear outcomes. Sometimes it shows up as a detour, a kid on the hood of a car, and a coin with no wrong side. This one is for anyone who&#39;s ever wondered whether the unplanned turns in life are leading somewhere worth going. They are.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/06/18/grace-takes-the-detour/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/06/18/grace-takes-the-detour/</a>🎙️ 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. #FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

Sometimes the detour is the whole point.

In this week&#39;s Roadside Notes, Christopher Tuttle, the Route 66 Chaplain, misses a ramp on I-40 out of Kingman and ends up on a frontage road where a young man is sitting on the hood of a busted car, flipping a coin and waiting on the right moment. What follows is a quiet conversation about grace, courage, and the turns in life that don&#39;t come with guarantees. This one is unhurried, honest, and worth the stop.

Grace Takes the Detour | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep41

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/6/7/22/d9427065-87a3-482a-ae2f-25232b64eb58_6-11_kindness_is_not_always_reactive.mp3

It wasn&#39;t a remarkable day. Just the road and a reason to stop. A handwritten sign in a diner pie case. Buy one, get one. Nothing spiritual about it. Just a bakery that made a little too much and a diner trying to move it before closing. But somewhere between the first cup of coffee and the second, something shifted quietly. And a few miles down the road, a man standing on a corner with a handwritten sign that said Hungry got a piece of pie he wasn&#39;t expecting.Kindness is not always reactive. Sometimes the decision comes first. Before the moment. Before the need is even visible. This week&#39;s Roadside Notes is about what happens when you start living a little more ready than you used to. Hands a little more open. A quiet yes made in a diner before you even know where it&#39;s going.It doesn&#39;t take much. A second cup of coffee. An extra slice of pie. A few dollars set aside just in case the road puts something in front of you that you didn&#39;t plan for. This one is for anyone who&#39;s ever wondered whether staying ready makes a difference. It does. More than you think.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/06/11/kindness-is-not-always-reactive/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/06/11/kindness-is-not-always-reactive/</a> 🎙️ 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. #FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

Stay ready. Keep your hands open.

In this week&#39;s Roadside Notes, Christopher Tuttle, the Route 66 Chaplain, reflects on a quiet decision made at a diner pie case that led to an unexpected moment of kindness a few miles down the road. Drawing from a real stop along Route 66, he explores what it means to live generously before the moment arrives and why keeping your hands a little more open changes the way ordinary days unfold. This one is warm, grounded, and worth carrying with you.


Kindness Is Not Always Reactive | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep40

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/6/1/23/23989da5-7388-4e0c-a15f-ebf55d974d2a_6-4_coffee_came_back.mp3

I was sitting at a Route 66 diner not long ago, hands wrapped around a cup of coffee, watching the quiet rhythm of the morning unfold. The kind of place where the plates clink softly, the coffee keeps coming, and nobody&#39;s in too much of a hurry. Then something small broke the pattern in the best possible way.The waitress poured a little more coffee, paused, and said she wanted to cover mine. Not because of anything big. Just because she&#39;d noticed. And in that one quiet moment at a diner counter, something came back around that I hadn&#39;t thought twice about giving. That&#39;s the whole story. And it&#39;s bigger than it sounds.This week&#39;s Roadside Notes is for anyone who&#39;s ever wondered whether the small things count. The quiet kindness nobody saw. The breakfast you picked up for someone without making a thing of it. The moment you chose to notice someone who might otherwise go unnoticed. They count. More than you think. Maybe more than you&#39;ll ever know.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/06/04/coffee-came-back/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/06/04/coffee-came-back/</a>🎙️ 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.#FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

The small things come back around.

In this week&#39;s Roadside Notes, Christopher Tuttle, the Route 66 Chaplain, shares a quiet moment at a diner counter where a small act of kindness came back around in a way he didn&#39;t expect. Drawing from a real morning on Route 66, he reflects on why the small things count more than we give them credit for and why living generously without keeping score has a way of showing up when you least expect it. This one is warm, simple, and worth sitting with.


Coffee Came Back | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep39

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/5/27/18/a786d766-66ee-4ddd-b881-6d824894b727_5-28_one_more_day_one_less_day.mp3

There&#39;s a quiet truth that lives on both sides of the same coin. Every morning is one more day. And every morning is one less day. Most of us live on one side of that and never think much about the other. This week&#39;s Roadside Notes sits with both at the same time.One More Day isn&#39;t meant to frighten you. It&#39;s meant to wake you up. When you understand both sides of that truth, the ordinary moments of life begin to shine a little brighter. Today is one more chance to show kindness, repair something broken, or tell someone they matter. And it&#39;s one less reason to put love, grace, or courage off until tomorrow.This entry is short, honest, and worth sitting with over your morning coffee. It won&#39;t take long to read. It might stay with you longer than you expect.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/05/28/one-more-day/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/05/28/one-more-day/</a> 🎙️ 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. #FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

One more chance. One less reason to wait.

n this week&#39;s Roadside Notes, Christopher Tuttle, the Route 66 Chaplain, reflects on the quiet truth that every morning is both one more day and one less day. Drawing from a simple but honest observation about time and the way we spend it, he invites listeners to let the ordinary moments of life shine a little brighter. This one is for anyone who&#39;s been putting love, grace, or courage off until tomorrow.

One More Day | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep38

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/5/21/18/ac7eccfa-f11e-4814-a3fa-ad05b5c134a4_5-21_grief_is_the_echo_of_love.mp3

Most of us have sat across from someone who was carrying grief and didn&#39;t know what to say. This episode begins at a diner counter with a man who&#39;d lost his wife the previous winter and said something that stopped the morning cold. &#34;Everyone keeps telling me the grief will pass. I&#39;m not sure I want it to.&#34; That one sentence opens a quiet conversation about what grief actually is and why we&#39;ve been thinking about it wrong.Grief isn&#39;t a problem to be solved or a phase to push through. It&#39;s the echo of a love that had nowhere left to go. The pain we carry after losing someone isn&#39;t a sign that something is broken. It&#39;s proof that something real and irreplaceable once lived. This episode sits with that truth gently, without rushing past it.You&#39;ll hear stories about the little things that stay with us after someone is gone, the humming in the kitchen, the hand reached for crossing a street, the habits that outlast the person. And somewhere in those small details, a different way of understanding grief begins to take shape.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/05/21/grief-is-the-echo-of-love/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/05/21/grief-is-the-echo-of-love/</a> 🎙️ 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. #FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

Love that outlasts the loss

In this episode, Christopher Tuttle sits with a man at a diner counter who lost his wife and isn&#39;t sure he wants his grief to pass. Drawing from that quiet conversation, Christopher explores the idea that grief is not a wound to heal but the echo of a love that once changed everything. A gentle, honest reflection for anyone who has ever wondered why the missing doesn&#39;t stop.


Grief Is the Echo of Love | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep37

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/5/11/17/27ad1a69-5762-4c18-92bf-cccb30c545b6_5-14_don_t_be_the_first_to_let_go.mp3

There is a quiet idea behind the way some character performers at Disney parks approach a child&#39;s hug. They don&#39;t end it. The child decides when it&#39;s over. Whether it&#39;s official policy or simply something passed along doesn&#39;t matter much. What matters is the heart behind it. You never know how much that child might need that hug.This week&#39;s Roadside Notes entry explores what happens when we stop rushing kindness. The world moves fast, and most of us have learned to keep pace with it. Conversations get shortened. Encouragement turns into quick advice. Presence gets replaced by schedule. But real kindness sometimes asks for something different. It asks us to stay a little longer, listen a little deeper, and let the moment last as long as it needs to.Don&#39;t Be The First To Let Go is a reflection on the kind of grace that rarely makes headlines but is often the thing people remember years later. The person who stayed. The moment that wasn&#39;t rushed. The kindness that didn&#39;t need a reason to keep going.📖 Read the full Journal entry: <a href="https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/05/14/dont-be-the-first/" rel="nofollow">https://faithandgoodcourage.com/2026/05/14/dont-be-the-first/</a> 🎙️ 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. #FaithAndGoodCourage #faithgoodcourage #Route66Chaplain #ChristopherTuttle #RoadsideWisdom #Rule66 #HealingHighway #KindnessForTheRoad #QuietStrength #TheCompassionDeficit #WitWisdomAndDinerMoments #GraceOnTheGo #route66 #matthew25lives

Stay a little longer.

In this episode, Christopher Tuttle reflects on a simple idea behind how some Disney performers approach a child&#39;s hug — they don&#39;t end it first. Drawing from years of quiet moments after weddings, conversations, and ordinary days that turned out to matter more than expected, this episode explores what it looks like to stop rushing kindness. A warm, grounded reflection for anyone who has ever been the person who stayed.

Don't Be The First To Let Go | Roadside Notes — A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading | Ep36

A Faith and Good Courage Journal Reading

Short, soulful reflections from the Faith and Good Courage Journal — read by Route 66 Chaplain Christopher Tuttle. Roadside Notes offers quiet stories from the road, told with warmth, humor, and a touch of grace.