and the memes, like Christmas ornaments,  

have been put away  

after the occasion of their use.  

Until next year.  

The photos, like wrapping paper,  

have served their purpose. 

The inspirational quotes,  

like Hallmark cards,  

find their way to their resting places. 

Too meaningful to discard  

yet somehow not practical enough  

for daily display.  

It’s the week after MLK Day.  

But it seems like 53 years.  

Words that could have been spoken 

53 weeks ago. A lifetime ago. Yesterday.  

Will be spoken again next year. 

It’s the week after MLK Day  

And the cause,  

like the cross,  

celebrated with a holiday.  

But not taken up  

and carried. 

READ: The Ministers of Insurrection

Every January, many of us brace ourselves for all of the memes that  are to come on MLK Day. Memes that not only misuse the words of  King but use them against King in the name of King. This is nothing. new. The path for this misuse of teachings has been well rehearsed in the form of using the words of Jesus against Jesus in the name of  Jesus. This is the world in humanity’s image.  

These memes that center around “choosing love not hate” are largely  calls for peacekeeping, not peacemaking. They are largely calls for a convenient silence over true justice and equity. 

Some are even posted by those living under the fantasy that the vision of King and the vision of Trump are compatible. Let us not  forget that two days before leaving office, literally on MLK Day,  the former President released the 1776 report justifying slavery and  the 3/5ths Compromise. This is what evil looks, feels, and sounds like. Although anything can be twisted to fit into a cultural Christianity, the words and intent of the 1776 report are nothing short of anti Christ, because the slaveholder religion that it is rooted in is anti Christ. If King were here, he would be naming that.  

It is important to note that, in his time, King was not supported by the majority of Christians, white or black. If he were here now, we wouldn’t have a holiday in his name, because he wouldn’t allow us to  subject him to the Santa Claus-ification that has been thrust upon him since his death. He would not allow us to relegate him to “Benevolent Uncle” status and act as if all he wanted was for us to “all get along.” That was Rodney King, not Dr. King.  

The misuse of his words imply that King was primarily teaching a minority people how to suffer well rather than pushing for personal change within the hearts of, and systemic change within the structures of, majority peoples. Black people in the United States already knew how to suffer well. King was operating in a way that was aimed at keeping them, and him, alive. Non-oppressed and pseudo-oppressed peoples have no idea how the dynamics of resistance-from-the-bottom-up work. Speaking from this lack of understanding in a way that preserves one’s own sense of stability  and security fits squarely in the category of behavior that King referred to as the behavior of the White Moderate.  

A self-serving hyper-focus on the romanticized peaceful aspects of MLK’s vision essentially asks Black people, 60 years later, to continually be as lambs lying alongside the lions of white supremacy.  

It is only possible to twist the words of King because he is dead. After all, it was violence that silenced the nonviolent leader. Some people are less of a threat after their death. Some people are more quotable after their death. Some people’s words are more easily taken out of context and weaponized against the very people they stood by, with, and for after they are gone. Jesus and King, in that order, are our two most glaring examples.  

Jesus modeled for humanity what true nonviolence looks, feels, and sounds like. It’s not cute, warm, or fuzzy. And it is surely not avoidant, self-serving, or codependent. In fact, this aspect of the life of Jesus was evident at each encounter with the religious and political leaders in his time and place.  

When King studied the nonviolent methods of Mahatma Gandhi, he visited Gandhi’s family in India. This was 11 years after the assassination of Gandhi. Again, violence silenced the nonviolent leader—the nonviolent leader who was killed for calling for true justice and equity, not just a convenient silence. The nonviolent leader who was not cute, warm, fuzzy, avoidant, self-serving, or codependent in  his approach to nonviolence. Another leader that nonviolently spoke truth so hard that others felt compelled to kill him.  

During this visit with Gandhi’s family, King was informed that Gandhi based his nonviolent methods on the words of Jesus. This is the same Gandhi famously stated, “I like your Christ, but not your  Christianity. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” In fact, it was learned that Gandhi read the Sermon on the Mount every morning for 27 years. Imagine if we Christinas did that!  

Gandhi, though a Hindu, let the words of Jesus, the Spirit of Christ, order his steps. Inspired buy this encounter, so did King. It is no surprise that the degree to which these two men followed the Christ into the world in embodied and particular ways, they were, like Jesus, executed. It’s no coincidence that, like Jesus, these two men were seen as enemies of the state. It’s no coincidence that, like Jesus, these men were followed and harassed by the authorities, faced multiple death threats and attempts on their life, and were denounced by many of the religious and political leaders of their time. In fact, you could say that it was the spiritual collusion between the darkest aspects of the lowest level of consciousness in the collectives around these men that ultimately killed them once these dark aspects were dialed in on, and found release into, a scapegoat.  

If the Christ came to break up the status quo, then surely that which is Anti-Christ (the opposite of Christ) would seek to uphold the status quo of a world in humanity’s image.  

Using the words of King to silence Black voices is no different than  using the words of Paul to tell slaves to be good slaves. Christians have and will find ways to justify this, but followers of Christ cannot.  

“If they hated me, they will hate you.”  

It is no coincidence that Jesus, Gandhi, and King were all murdered.  It is no coincidence that these three men were killed at the intersection of religion and politics in collusion with the darkest aspects of the consciousness of the collective.

Using the words of Jesus against Jesus in the name of Jesus  sometimes looks like choosing one’s group over “the least of these.”  And the “least of these” are always those held in the least regard by a given collective. These collectives create systems and structures rooted in self-interest. This is the world in man’s image. This is anti-, the opposite of, Christ. We majority peoples are all contributing to and benefitting from such a system, such a structure, and are bound  to some degree by attachments and allegiances to people, places, and things within this unholy social matrix.  

We must not just worship and espouse, but truly follow, Jesus in our time and place—which means to follow him into Jerusalem, into the place where the darkest forces of the collective religiopolitical groupthink work through particular individuals in places of power to kill Christ, and that which is pro-Christ, in the name of God and Country. To carry your cross is to carry it to Jerusalem, the place  of suffering and death. If not death of the body, then at least of ego, self-interest, our relational idols, our attachment to whiteness, and our place in the social matrix.  

Do we truly want real peace, unity, and justice instead of a convenient silence?  

Then we must address the white supremacy in and around us.  

This year, instead of a meme, let’s honor Dr. King with inner work, family work, community work, and congregation work.  

Do we truly want real peace, unity, and justice instead of a  convenient silence? 

Then let us pick up our cross and follow Jesus.  

It may cost us our lives. It will definitely cost us our idols.  But it will lead to a Life that really is Life.  

#justicebeforeunity

Identifying as a liberal, progressive, or Democrat doesn’t mean you’re not part of the problem. We have to walk the walk and remember that it’s not about us. When we center ourselves over the cause, we’re building an ego project. When we’re using the cause as a way to feel superior, we are engaging in the same dark energies that are inherent in racism itself.

Color blindness means one is “blinded by the white.” When a white person tells you they don’t see color, ask them what else they choose not to see. Being “colorblind” is a self-serving attempt to wear a psychological prophylactic. If you don’t see color, you don’t have to see the particular pains and sufferings of people of color. If we are going to take a sober look at the reality of racism and our role in it, we must be dedicated to seeing, honoring, and believing the full spectrum of human experience.

We have all been exposed to racist ideologies, structures, and dynamics since birth. We white people have also heard the spoken messages and felt the unspoken implications related to our supposed superiority and have internalized them. We experience cognitive and spiritual dissonance, because at our core we know it’s untrue. The socialized white psyche is traumatized in that it was taught how to split at an early age. We were also taught not to rock the boat by reintegrating our psyche so we often remain split. This is why Bryan Stevenson says, “The primary way trauma around racism shows up in white people is in the form of indifference.” We must do our inner work. As Richard Rohr says, “What we fail to transform, we transmit.” Our consciousness has been molested. We need a renewing of our minds.

A while back, I stopped using the word “ally” to describe myself. After sitting at the feet of many wise elders of color, I have come to learn that one is not an “ally,” or living in a way that is worthy of such a title, unless one is 100% committed to being anti-racist.

There are no white allies. There are only white anti-racists.

Early in life I realized that, were I a person of color, I would be horrified by, disappointed in, and distrustful of white folks that are not clearly anti-racist. Then I realized that, although I was white, I still felt horrified by, disappointed in, and distrustful of white folks that were not clearly anti-racist. All these years later, I still feel the exact same way.

It’s amazing what humans will tolerate when self-interest isn’t a motivating factor. That lack of concern for “the other” is at the heart of racism. But concern for “the other” is at the heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

In Christ, the well-being of self and other are one and the same.

Jesus is anti-racist.

To follow Jesus is to be anti-racist.

Any person that says “let’s all come together” while also being unwilling to acknowledge the experience of black Americans is unsafe and untrustworthy.

Anyone that speaks of “loving everyone” but is unwilling to denounce the policies and actions of a president and an administration that doesn’t love everyone, but rather is continually hostile, hateful, and abusive towards marginalized peoples, is unsafe and untrustworthy.

Anyone that says there are “sides” to issues of human flourishing and rampant abuses is unsafe and untrustworthy.

Make no mistake: The white moderate is always more white than moderate.

The current state of disruption is necessary.

The disorientation of those addicted to the idol of whiteness is necessary.

It’s not time for a treaty. It’s time for a victory.

This series originally appeared on Tony Caldwell’s Instagram.

At a certain point I had looked around and realized, “Many of these people that seemingly center their lives around Jesus and lift their hands on Sunday, and with whom I had felt at one in so many ways for so long, would vote to leave a collective that might one day affirm me if I were gay, would be silent about my abuse and murder if I were Black, and would question my ability and authority to lead if I were female.”

And now I know that many would also be silent about, or even excuse, my encagement were I a 5-year-old immigrant.

I had wanted to belong so badly. I had even sold myself out to a degree in order to gain acceptance. And I had won it: conditional acceptance not based on my authentic self. But I could no longer deny the fact that there was a gay, Black, 5-year-old female immigrant living inside of me, and she didn’t belong here. In fact, it was she that I had sold out in order to gain acceptance.

The more I followed Jesus in the ways he was calling me, the truer I was to what God was putting in my heart and on my lips, the broader my circles of concern became, the more openly affirming I became, the more prophetic and justice-oriented my sermons became, the more of a “special consideration” I became, the more “shaping and molding” I needed. In other words, I had failed to assimilate, to conform.

I no longer belonged.

During our time in the wilderness, my family and I went to the Wild Goose Festival where we listened to Jen Hatmaker tell her story and share her pain. We found that there were many similarities between her experience and ours, her family and ours, although what they went through was on a much larger scale.

I can’t speak for Jen, but this experience for me has been an Exodus. My family and I were in the desert for a long time. But I took heart in the words of Bob Marley:

Men and people will fight you down when you see God’s light. Let me tell you, if you’re not wrong everything is alright. So we’re gonna walk through the roads of Creation. We are the generation who trods through great tribulation. Exodus, movement of God’s people….We’re leaving Babylon, Going to our Father’s Land…God come to break downpression, rule equality, wipe away transgressions, and set the captives free.

Our walking away was an exodus. It was God initiated, God ordained, and a movement toward health, healing, and wholeness. But it was excruciatingly painful.

Hatmaker added to our healing by giving us language for our experience. She named it when she said, “The price is belonging.” This was powerful, because the first step in healing is naming what needs to be named. And, naming what needs to be named can be very empowering.

It was time to shake the dust off and move on.

Carl Jung used the term neurosis to describe a person’s emotional and mental state when there is a mismatch between one’s inner and outer worlds. For some of us, that is all we have ever known. To leave the people and places that have formed our identity is traumatic. But it is sometimes a necessary trauma. We had been neurotic the way animals at the zoo are neurotic. We needed to leave the zoo and go into the wild. But like the early Israelites, we longed for the known all the way to the Promised Land where our identities changed in ways we could have only imagined.

Jen Hatmaker had nailed it. “The price is belonging.” When we differentiate, the price is usually belonging to one’s family, community, and the known. We suffer the loss of the structures that had provided meaning, purpose, and identity. Not to mention the attachment disruptions we experience. It very much mirrors the experience of those that “come out of the closet,” as it is absolutely a form of coming out.

It is brutal. Parts of you die. Everything feels different. But as Jung says, “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” We left the zoo. But we also left the garden. We had new information. We had seen behind the curtain. Everything was different.

A few months ago, I was speaking about matters of race, privilege, and injustice at a college in Mississippi. During the Q&A, a young Black man asked me point blank, “Why don’t more white Christians speak the way you do?”

My answer was: “In certain religious circles, once you speak up, you no longer belong to the collective. Most white Christians in those circles that do have something on their hearts won’t dare speak it, because they know the price and find that it is too high. The price is belonging. Having said that, it’s still a cop out.”

For me, the price was belonging. But I found that the less I belonged to the collective, the more I belonged to Jesus. And I found myself humming along:

Lord, I’ve been told to be ashamed
Lord, I’ve been told I don’t measure up
Lord, I’ve been told I’m not good enough
But You’re here with me
And I reach out and You find me in the dust
You say no amount of untruths can separate us
I’m laying down all my religion
I will rejoice in the simple gospel
I will rejoice in You, Lord

See, the gospel doesn’t need a home. The gospel is at home in the universe. And the gospel is at home in us.

As Jesus says, the kingdom is inside each of us and at hand…in us and in the space between us.

But I have had to learn a hard truth the hard way. And that truth is this: “When you are called to a new somewhere, you are also called out of the old somewhere. To be called into a place is to be called out of a place. To be called to a people is to be called from a people.”

That most likely will mean some time in a liminal space, the wilderness, the desert. But that is ok. Pain is the proof of love.

I had been so angry for so long, though always knowing that the anger was just a symptom of heartbreak, devastation, grief, and loss. And being misunderstood. As Maya Angelou says: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

Not long after Wild Goose, I was on a video conference with some people from the Convergence Leadership Project, and Brian McLaren exhorted us to be loving, gentle, and patient with those that are on the fence in their own deconstruction and might reject us in order to stick with the collective.

He reminded us that they may be thinking things like, “Where will I go on Thanksgiving?” “How tense will Christmas be for me and my family?” Again, the price is belonging. A member of the group thanked him and explained how they had lived in that painful place for a long time before making a radical change. It’s important to not assume where those around us are internally. It may be our job to blaze a trail, model liberation, normalize risk, and inspire change.

I believe that this leads us to “the call of the real” that Howard Thurman spoke of. There are scars aplenty for those of us that follow the call of the real. But once the call is chosen, we are no longer victims on this trail. We are survivors. Because the price of belonging is often our authenticity. And what would it profit us to gain acceptance but lose our souls?

This was a necessary Exodus. And as Hatmaker said: “You find that the people you originally wanted to be with anyway are the ones that you find.”

For me, this has been through Red Letter Christians, The Wild Goose Festival, and The Evolving Faith Conference. There are spaces for us out there. There is community for us out there. We just have to follow Spirit.

In Christ, loneliness becomes solitude. Grief becomes wisdom. Fear becomes trust. Sometimes, the desert is where we bond the deepest with the Divine. It is in this silence that we can hear the still, small voice. Ultimately, I have not been defined by the losses I have suffered. Ultimately, I have been defined by the desert because that is where I met Jesus in a whole new way. And I wouldn’t change it for anything.

As my friend Shane Claiborne says, “There is a new world being built in the shell of the old one.” Jean-Shinoda Bolen says it like this: “Spend more time and energy building the new than fighting the old.” Richard Rohr says it this way: “The best critique of the bad is the practice of the better.”

Many of us are deconstructing. And we are not without our faults. We are often hyper critical and hyper vigilant. But that’s what trauma does to a people, right? Because not belonging to the tribe, the pride, the pack is about the most terrifying thing that can happen to a living creature. This is especially true for humans as we are wired for community. There is safety in numbers. Losing the safety of the tribe, pack, or pride makes us very vulnerable. Much terror accompanies the loss of our status as a part of the collective.

Not belonging, or specifically, making changes based on the reality that one already does not belong and is simply “passing,” is emotionally, relationally, cognitively, and spiritually devastating. If you are feeling this way, I want you to know that you are not alone. There are literally thousands of us out there. And we are finding one another. Deep calls out to deep.

When our theologies teach salvation over transformation, a fear-based individual is the result. In a collective of fear-based individuals, salvation is equated with belonging and conformity is the price of belonging. When salvation as belonging reigns, what constitutes transformation of the individual is too narrowly defined.

The necessary Exodus is a developmental victory in that we continue to bloom into who God would have us be. For many of us, deconstruction is a necessary step in reclaiming our birthright. Not everyone will understand. In fact, most want. You can’t take everyone with you. For some of us, this is the narrow way.

For many of us, this necessary Exodus was not initially chosen. But, in retrospect, we will be able to echo the sentiment of Maya Angelou, “Wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now.”

As I write this, I’m heading to the Evolving Faith Conference to offer counseling sessions to attendees that experience acute emotional pain or just need to process what comes up for them during the sessions and workshops. All the right conversations happen at Evolving Faith and, therefore, along with experiencing our shared resonance with one another, we are also forced to acknowledge our shared pain, grief, and trauma.

The continued work is, as Shane says, “to build a new world in the shell of the old one.” And I have found that, when doing this, one enters a flow in which we scattered stars become constellations. Our circles of concern overlap. We find one another.

This walk of faith might be a death of sorts. We may have left home. But we find that our definition of home expands.

We have come to know that home is not always where the heart is.
But we can also come to find that: The Heart Is Where Home Is.
We come home to our true selves. And that is a home that never leaves us.
That is a home we can always return to.

Friends, please remember this and take heart:

Though we may sometimes feel lonely, we are anything but alone. AMEN.

As I sat with these brown children in their sanctuary, which was their sanctuary in more ways than one, I was awestruck that Black Jesus presided over us. Literally, as we sat in unimaginable grief and pain and trauma, we were sitting at the feet of the Black Crucified Jesus that serves as the centerpiece of the sanctuary. As a lifelong resident of Mississippi who is aware of our troubled and brutal history and has worked for racial healing for more than 25 years, I could not miss the fact that bleeding, suffering, crucified Black Jesus was presiding over this massacre of the spirits of these brown children of God. Could any image be more appropriate, more telling, more compelling, more powerful?

I was operating in the capacity of a volunteer trauma counselor working with the children in the Mississippi communities separated from their families due to the recent ICE raids at seven food processing plants. It was important to me to listen to these children with the ears of my heart and bear witness to them with the heart of Jesus. I want to tell you some of what I heard and saw.

I saw children leaning on Jesus in a time of great need. I saw fathers crying out to Jesus to protect their vulnerable wives and children. I heard mothers weeping for their babies with no formula and their children who are afraid to leave their rooms. I heard the 14-year-old boy who told me that watching his mother and special needs sibling suffer so much, combined with his complete inability to help them, has made him lose his faith in himself, his worth as a human, and in God. He told me that he could feel the grief all over his body to the point that he could barely move. I held a breastfed infant that had been taken from her mother. And I sat on the floor and colored with a 4-year-old boy who was coloring a picture of, who else: Jesus. He colored him brown.

And this is my takeaway: All Lives Do Not Matter to many Christians. That is not a judgement, but an observation.

As I drove home past countless churches, the huge white metal crosses one can see along interstates in this area, and the Confederate flags that dot the landscape, I could only see them through the eyes of Black Jesus and brown babies.

A white Jesus — a slaveholder Jesus — negates our humanity.

A time such as this calls upon our collective need for a brown, colonized, crucified Jesus.

Since returning home, I have not been able to turn off the ears of my heart. The ears of my heart hear every “Send them back.” Every “They are criminals.” Every “They shouldn’t have broken the law.” And much, much worse.

I can’t unsee what I saw: Christians devastated by other Christians. Christians persecuted by other Christians.

I saw the will of the political party that most touts family values (among the southern geographical region of the country that most touts family values) choosing to rip apart intact families. I saw the political party that claims to be the party that is the most Christian, the most godly, the most aligned with God, and the most pro-life, traumatizing and destabilizing other Christian brothers and sisters with the disclaimer “Well, Obama did it too” or “It’s the law.” And I saw the tweets of the governor, lieutenant governor, and others running on Christian platforms bragging and celebrating this “victory.” I hear all of the approval of many conservative, white Christians. And the silence of many others.

Maybe this is a good time to choose between law and spirit. Or maybe it’s a good time for law to be written by the Spirit. Maybe it’s time that the laws written by pro-life, pro-family, pro-Christianity politicians reflect the fruits of the Spirit, the exhortations of the prophets, and the words and actions of Jesus himself.

There is no law against these. There is also no law against welcoming the stranger. But there are dozens of biblical exhortations to welcome and care for the alien, stranger, immigrant, refugee. But that seems to be a matter of interpretation. Self-preservation is a terrible exegetical tool.

I don’t say this as a Democrat, because I’m not one. I don’t say this as one influenced by “the liberal media,” because I don’t watch it. I say this as a brother in Christ bearing witness to the fact that the very people that taught me to see my individual sin are having trouble seeing our collective sin, and it’s my turn to give back.

The prophets repeatedly focused on collective sin for a reason. I alter the words of Margaret Mead to say this: “Never doubt that a small group of unloving, unconcerned citizens can wreck the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

I know I’m not the only one that feels the pull to choose between kingdom and nation on any given day. And I ‘m going to choose the kingdom.

These children have no voice in the public arena. I will speak on behalf of these children, because I have a platform that allows me to do so. But I will not speak for them. They have voices. We just need to listen.

A primary concern for me was to encourage them to use their voices. To express their thoughts and feelings. To give voice to their pain through art, writing, and other creative outlets. To honor their grief and trauma and take extremely good care of it. I was heartened to see that, a few days later, several children held a rally in the town square where they gave voice to their grief, pain, and trauma and affirmed that they are indeed children of God.

I felt the irony of being a white male in this position. But, I think it was also important for a white male to speak these words over them: “You are important. You matter. Your pain is in proportion to your injury. You are injured, because you have been violated. It is ok to be angry. It is ok to be sad. Of course you feel this way. It is completely normal and natural to feel this way. Your pain is proof of your love and proof of your worth and value as a human being. This feels wrong, because it is wrong. It feels spiritually dark, because it is spiritually dark. This feels like evil, because it is evil.”

My Father’s house has many rooms but no walls.

“In my Father’s house there are many mansions/rooms,” literally means “In the place that God dwells, there is plenty of space.” “Mansions” literally refers to “many dwelling places” or “plenty of room,” not a mansion as we think of it today. “My Father’s house” does not mean heaven, but rather the Lord’s dwelling place, the place where God’s presence is manifest. Often in the Psalms, God’s “house” or “dwelling” is the temple in Jerusalem. Other times it refers to the creation, or even the whole universe. Some Psalms describe God himself as our “dwelling place.” The point is: God’s “house” or “dwelling place” is wherever God is and wherever his presence is made evident and his will is done.

The ICE raids were not God’s will. The raids injured God’s people and, therefor,e injured the heart of God. There may not be room in the nation for these brothers and sisters, but there is room in the kingdom.

God’s dwelling place is with the suffering people of God for His presence is manifest there.

These are a people of deep faith. And, as a suffering people leaning on Christ, God dwells with them and within them. Whatever has been done to each of them, the least of these, has been done to God.

ICE has raided the temple of God.
ICE has raided The Promised Land.

Nation or Kingdom.
We made a choice.
We still have choices to make.

And we cannot serve two masters.

We are all susceptible to tragedy and loss and the grief that follows. The holidays can be a time of intensified grief for many of us. This is because the holidays highlight our loss. Thanksgiving and Christmas are about connection and celebration, two things that loss can seriously dampen our capacity to participate in. Thanksgiving is a time to celebrate abundance, but we may be also feeling a distinct absence. Christmas is a time when we celebrate a special birth, but we may also be grieving a special death.

When it comes to grief, words just simply are not adequate. Because grief is sacred. Grief is holy. And sometimes, when in the presence of sacredness and holiness, silence — not words — is the only appropriate response. A bond that is sacred to us has been lost. And that depth of love and loss demands that it be honored.

Grief is not just a process; it is also a path of transformation. We never “return to normal.” We arrive at a new normal. We never “get over it.” We get through it. We never “move on.” We move forward. Grief changes us.

Sometimes acceptance and depression are two sides of the same coin. Acceptance can be talked about in ways that sound like a warm, fuzzy future destination: the “end” of the grief cycle. But this just simply isn’t true. Yes, wounds heal. But acceptance means that we are accepting a reality less than the one we had. We want who and what was taken from us to be returned. Acceptance can be very depressing.

If you are currently grieving, I encourage you to not isolate over the next few weeks. Connection is not just important, it is non-negotiable.

See, the grief process is not just a process of healing, it is a process of recovery. A major part of this work is the recovery of parts of ourselves that are lost when we lose someone central to us. Grief is a natural response to a comprehensive wound.

Grief is an emotional, mental, and spiritual wound — and this is precisely because it is a relational wound. The point of contact, and therefore the point of loss, is the role we played: parent, child, spouse, friend. Living in the light of death can bring about a loss of meaning and purpose, and we can carry the relational phantom pains for a long time. As much as it may hurt, it is important to create new points of relational contact and to utilize the existing relationships available to us.

READ: Getting Through A Christmas of Grief

And it’s okay to ask for what you need. Sometimes we just need someone to sit with us without filling the space with too many words, advice, small talk, or pep talks. Maybe just having someone sit with us is enough. Maybe “I see you, I’m with you, and I love you” is all we need to hear. Ask to be loved in ways that feel like love to you.

When clients are feeling stuck in grief, I often encourage them to move toward the life they want in hopes that their feelings will eventually catch up with them. Because if we wait until we feel like it, we may not move. It is common to go numb. This can be a gift as long as it doesn’t become a lifestyle. Anger is also a gift as long as it doesn’t become the new normal. Whatever you may be feeling, please know that it is valid.

Grief is important.
Grief is appropriate.
Grief is holy.
Grief is sacred.

When our loved ones pass, they become our ancestors. “I carry you in my heart” becomes our mantra. The fact that we have the capacity to suffer so greatly is all the evidence I need to prove that we are spiritual beings. I truly believe that we are never closer to the heart of God than when we are suffering.

Although grief may be an unwelcome guest, may we show her great hospitality. Hosting our grief is a form of self-care that is so incredibly important. For ultimately, it is our grief — a central part of who we are — that we are hosting. And she deserves the best of care. Make space for her at your table as a guest of honor.

If you are visited by grief in the coming weeks, I wish you radical self-care, connection with others that are worthy of the privilege of being with you in your pain, a peace that surpasses heartache, and a hope that sustains you when such peace is not an option.

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. – John 13:34-35

I am a white, straight, southern, Christian male. I attend and serve within a moderate mainline congregation. I have absolutely nothing to gain from standing with the LGBTQ community.

I am an introvert that doesn’t like negative attention. I hate being typecast and misunderstood. I like to be liked. I am a professional and a small business owner in the Bible Belt. I have lots to lose by standing with the LGBTQ community.

It would be easy, and in my best interest, to remain quiet. But my faith compels me to stand and to speak.

I don’t claim to have all the answers. I don’t want my conservative friends to feel as if our differences mean that our friendships must change. But I have already lost friends and will probably lose some more. That is not my choice, but I can accept it. But this isn’t about me.

It’s about the oppression, denigration, and maltreatment of my LGBTQ brothers and sisters. As a therapist, I have borne witness to the aftermath many, many times. It is nothing short of heartbreaking, devastating, traumatizing. Dehumanizing. And it does not honor God.

Luckily, for me, the LGBTQ community have never been “the other.” My mother raised me better than that. My greatest debt to her is being taught to honor, respect, and love all people. Not in theory — but fully, relationally. As I get older, I appreciate her more and more for this. It is a great inheritance that she has gifted me with.

She loved me before I loved her. That’s why I love her.

My very first memory is of my uncle, who is gay, pulling me to a store in a wagon and buying me a stuffed animal. I also remember him riding me on the back of his bicycle to the store to buy candy. And I remember him building me houses out of cardboard boxes in the backyard.

He loved me before I loved him. That’s why I love him.

My cousin and his partner have been together since I was a child. They have been together for something like 30 years now. They have always been very giving, loving, affirming, and nurturing. In graduate school, they had me over for dinner several times a week and I’ve never eaten so well. They have always been that way.

They loved me before I loved them. That’s why I love them.

I love LGBTQ people, because I love people.
I love people, because I love God.
I love, because I was first loved.

God loved me before I loved God. That’s why I love God.

“Oh how I love Jesus, Because He first loved me.”

That same God, that very Jesus, not only commands me to love my LGBTQ siblings, but He compels me to do so. God invites me into a relationship with God and neighbor, not merely informed by grace but infused with it. And in this place there is no need and no desire for dualistic concepts of self and other. I am self to myself. And I am other to someone else. But none of these human delusions matter, because God is God — and God is here.

That is “reconciliation before offering” Jesus. That is “beam and log” Jesus. That is “writing in the sand” Jesus. It’s not a morality play or brownie points for the superior reaching down to the inferior. It is embodiment. It is a sacred duty and an honor. But, mostly, it is a blessing to my soul. It is a sacred balance. It is peace. It is life that really is life. It is a foretaste of the Kingdom of God.

So I will walk toward my LGBTQ siblings singing: “Though none go with me, still I will follow” because I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning back.

As someone who is madly in love with Jesus, I must also grieve and reject much of what the tribes that carry the name “Christian” propagate in this broken world that leads to further brokenness for those seen as “other.” But, most of all, I am simply compelled by love to love as I have been loved. And that means taking a stand. After all, the word love in scripture is an action word containing much nuance in its meanings, including concepts like fidelity, loyalty, not tripping up, or causing undue trouble, strife, or hardship. It means standing with, by, and for another. The Church has failed in this regard. And in its search for favoritism and religious privilege within Empire, it has literally stolen the birthright of our LGBTQ citizens.

But I hear the refrains of the old song: “Let there be peace on Earth, And let it begin with me.”

So as a white, straight, southern, Christian male, I stand with, by, and for the LGBTQ community. Because that’s exactly where Jesus wants me to be.

Simply softening into proper relationship. Simply dropping heavy, burdensome stones of finite culture wars and participating in the ethics of brotherhood and sisterhood. Simply healing from internal blockages that serve no one but starve my soul and sicken my thoughts, deeds, and actions. Simply returning the love that has been so freely given to me. Obeying my Father who tells me to love my siblings the way He loves me. Simply returning as a child to the arms of the one large enough to hold all the brokenness we feel and all of the harm we cause one another. Simply returning to love. The love that I will return to when I leave this world.

Amen.

29th day of school. 18th school shooting. “America’s chickens have come home to roost.”

We should have listened to Rev. Jeremiah Wright. We should still listen to him. He predicted this.

Following the attacks on 9/11, the nation became aware of a Chicago minister by the name of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. As a black preacher from his particular tradition, he was just doing what is done on any given Sunday in any given sanctuary: preaching a prophetic word. Preaching a social gospel. Telling objective and subjective truths from a particular and very important perspective. Speaking truth to power by speaking truth about power. But this unnerved much of America. Not everyone is used to that prophetic voice. So instead of God-inspired, his comments sounded un-American to many people.

When he said “Not God Bless America, but God damn America,” people couldn’t process that. But what he was saying was that God does not bless our violence. God damns — condemns — our violence. And there are spiritual consequences for generations to come.

Even then candidate and future President to-be Obama threw Rev. Wright under the bus. He had to if he were to win the election. You can’t embrace those comments AND become president. Because you have to tell people what they want to hear in order be elected. That’s a major part of why our government is so incredibly broken. America is broken. We Americans are broken.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright was right.

I urge you to listen to go back and listen to his entire sermon on YouTube. But something was lost in translation. He was basically saying that we, like all empires in all times and places, will reap what we sow. He was saying that our children and their children will pay for “the sins of the father.” He asked God “Why?” God responded, “Don’t take the inventory of the killers. Take your own inventory. How are things between you and me?”

This prophetic voice was not only unwelcome, it was demonized. He was telling some inconvenient truths (pun intended). We should have listened. The roots of violence exist in all of us.

“Violence begets violence, hatred begets hatred, terror begets terror,” he exclaimed, echoing the words of Gandhi: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” An eye for an eye is in direct contrast with the Peaceable Kingdom. But America consistently chooses Empire over Kingdom. But what about self-preservation?

I truly believe that following Jesus is a death sentence in many respects. First, we are to die to self. Second, we are to love our enemies. Even those that persecute us: “Forgive them Father for they now not what they do” (Luke 23:24). Give our lives for our friends: “There is no greater love” (John 15:13). Jesus calls us to martyrdom in many respects. And that is completely counterintuitive.

But the American ethos at any given time over the past 242 years has been bullying. And that is quite intuitive. Just take human nature and add power. Bullying is terrorism, and bullying creates terrorists. Our current president is, more than any American figure from recent history, a fitting archetype for the The Bully. Make no mistake, the rest of the world sees us as bullies and has for a very long time across presidencies.

And, no matter our individual stances on guns, the NRA and the money they distribute among our elected officials is a huge problem. Gun laws must be changed as a necessary first step of many steps.

Those in power in our country often allude to faith, to God, to Jesus. But we are not a Christian nation by any stretch of the imagination. To believe so is to live in deep, deep denial. We largely worship power, money, and status — and guns. Look around, this is what a crumbling Empire looks like. We are Ancient Rome with pharmaceuticals, plastic utensils, and iPhones.

The behavior of our country on the global scene is not, and never has been, a true reflection of Jesus. We have exported violence across the globe. We have armed and trained millions of people across the globe. We have terrorized many other populations. We have killed innocent people. We have bullied. We have tortured.

This country was built on bloodshed, violence, terrorism. Our desire to display “Thou Shall Not Kill” outside of our courthouses where we hand down death sentences is proof of our sins.

The level of sexual violence against the vulnerable is proof of our sins. Our ghettos, rural and urban, are proof of our sins. Our rampant and highly unaddressed police violence is proof of our sins. The maltreatment of women and minorities are proof of our sins.

And our school shootings are proof of our sins. America’s chickens have come home to roost.

It’s incredibly important that we acknowledge this. It should be with great humility that we address these issues from multiple angles. But one thing is clear. We are socializing ourselves and one another constantly. Socialization is not something that stops at 15 or 20. It is life-long. We are becoming psychologically, morally, and spiritually anesthetized to violence — especially gun violence. Now simply going to school has a more harmful effect on a child than playing Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto.

Maybe we need to redefine shithole country.

And if that bothers you, don’t shoot the messenger. Pun intended. Because that’s what we did to Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Shot the messenger.

READ: 4 Thoughts on Trump’s Remarks About ‘Sh*thole Countries’

And no amount of lamb’s blood rubbed across the doorways of our schools can protect from the slaughter of our innocent children. We are not under that kind of protection. Because we are not innocent. The enemy is in the house.

We are the world. Usually that is meant in a “kumbaya” kind of way. But, literally, we are the world: in the world and of the world. As Americans, and as Christians: We are not distinct. We are not separate. We are a part of what is wrong in this world. We serve at least two masters.

And we are not exceptional. We don’t like participation trophies but we are ok with taking the title of “best” despite so much evidence to the contrary? Our self-congratulatory behavior predates that of our president.

Maybe Samuel has his head in his hands saying “not again.” Samuel, whose sons he appointed to lead Israel. But they did not follow his ways. They transformed from leaders into politicians; turned aside after dishonest gain, accepted bribes, and perverted justice. Sound familiar?

Maybe, like Israel of old, we got the leader we deserve.
One that is a mirror showing us what we really worship.
One that is a mirror showing us that the problem is not him, it is us.
One that is a mirror showing us what we have become. And maybe that horrible knowledge will lead to repentance.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”
There is murderous sickness in that question.

When did exceptionalism become confused with patriotism? And when did this unholy hybrid of exceptional and patriotism become the false religion of Nationalism? When did it become treasonous or unpatriotic to point out our issues? Who is more loyal to the family, the one that says “Hey, we need to talk about dad’s alcoholism,” or the one that defends the family against such “disloyal” behavior?

The same dynamics are at play on the national level. We, as a nation, are a dysfunctional family that refuses to talk about what is real, acknowledge our issues, and commit to real change. Because, like all members of all dysfunctional families, we have become so sickened in our stances we can no longer see clearly.

READ: The Little Big Differences in Christian Nationalism

We have lost not our ability, but our willingness, to tolerate one another. Because we also persecute one another.

We are well-rehearsed in the rotten fruits of the spirit: Contempt, calamity, conflict, impatience, mean spiritedness, superiority, close-mindedness, hardheartedness, and a lack of self-control.

We have a long history of violence — interpersonally and internationally.

America’s chickens have come home to roost.

Nothing will change until we do. We must change. We must be the change. We must submit to being changed. It will not happen by accident. It will not be forced upon us. It will not be legislated. Laws will change when we change.

I hear the first words of the earthly ministry of Jesus echoing among the purple mountain majesties and fruited plains: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

And I hear the old refrain: “America! America! God mend thine every flaw,
confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.”

An idol is anything we sacrifice our children for. May the blood of our children lead us to repentance. May this unwelcome truth lead us to great healing.

Amen.