The Little Red Toolbox

A photograph taken through a Greyhound bus window. A small red toolbox left behind by a father who didn't survive his own drinking. And a son who did.

The Little Red Toolbox is the memoir of Fr. Matthew Christopher--gay, autistic, ordained, recovery—and the unlikely road that took him from a church that tried to convert him, through a blackout that nearly cost him everything, into the life of a parish priest and Abbot who still performs in drag and still calls both a sacred practice.

This is not a redemption story with the hard parts smoothed over. It's an honest account of what it actually takes to survive addiction, exile from faith, and the slow work of being loved without conditions — and of building, tool by tool, a life worth the toolbox he inherited.



For anyone who has been told their story disqualifies them from belonging — to a church, a family, or themselves — this book is proof that disqualification was never God's idea.