The phone rang loudly that day. Not only did the noise startle my spouse, Taylor, and me as we prepared to head out to grab lunch, but it also disrupted our lives—steering us in an unexpected direction—the way those dreaded phone calls always do. As soon as Taylor answered, we knew it was bad news. His grandfather’s words pulsed through the phone like a heartbeat: “It’s your dad. He’s gone. I’m so sorry.” I felt my heart sink deep into my body, where our daughter had been growing for seven months. Taylor’s pale skin began losing its pink hue, the room starkly silent, except for his shallow breathing. I threw my arms around his chest as if to catch him, but my pregnant belly got in the way. After he hung up the phone, we lingered for what seemed like hours before Taylor packed up the car and made the difficult drive to the small country house where his father had raised him.

My father-in-law lived alone, nestled in a few acres of rural land, unburdened by the glare of city lights or the numbing buzz of cars and construction. The first time I visited, the quiet was so loud it made my ears ring as if they were detoxing. It was uncomfortable, but I didn’t resist. I knew I needed it.

It was this quiet—and the simplicity that comes with it, I imagine—that enamored my father-in-law to life in the countryside. That kind of life felt foreign to a city girl like me, but Taylor remembers it with fondness: spending weekends with his knees in the dirt and the soil underneath his fingernails—responding to the needs of the earth like a trusted friend. These are the virtues that formed him.

It came as no surprise, then, that his father was working outdoors when his time came: tending to his land with the same love and devotion he had for years. It wasn’t until a few days later that his friends found him lying in the dirt. It was a kind of poetry, taking his final breath on the land he spent his life cultivating—a land that loved him back. It was this relationship that sustained him until his heart gave out. They say he was alone when he died, but I imagine he felt far from it in the presence of the oak tree that hovered above him like a protective guardian.

According to some Indigenous traditions, humans don’t claim the land; it is the land that claims us. This is in stark contrast to a colonizing mindset that views land as a commodity to be staked out and sold off. I imagine my father-in-law knew this truth intimately, its power embracing him as he lay to rest as one with the earth that claimed him. 

In the opening chapters of Genesis, the Bible affirms a mutual and cyclical relationship between dirt and our bodies. The Bible is far from a book of science, but both agree on this point. Science teaches us that all the elements that make up the human body are found in the soil. This is a testament to what we already know to be true: we belong to the earth, and she belongs to us too.

The “balance of nature” is one of the earliest—and most widely known—theories about the natural world proposed by philosophers and scientists. It suggests that all things are held in a delicate balance with every other entity, with each entity so finely and intricately interwoven that if one is added or taken away, things can potentially go awry. Take, for instance, the case of the decimation of wolves in Yellowstone National Park.

In the 1920s, wolves in Yellowstone were eradicated due to pressure from ranchers worried about their livestock. Before long, elk numbers increased because their predators were gone. But more elk meant that grass and saplings were overgrazed. Soon beavers disappeared and the riverbanks were left barren. The entire landscape was decimated, killing off species of birds that relied on the foliage for nesting. Because there was no longer any plant life to protect the ground, flooding washed away the soil and erosion progressed, changing the flow of rivers.

This extraordinary course of events was all due to the eradication of wolves, their place in the ecosystem so crucial that eliminating them meant rivers changed course and certain species could no longer survive there.

Everything has a place in the ecosystem; however, the balance of nature theory has also been challenged by ecologists who claim that human activity constantly disturbs the environment. These disturbances (like killing off wolves in Yellowstone) lead to chaotic and dynamic changes, yet they purport that this is the norm in nature. Because humans are an unpredictable part of the ecosystem, a new equilibrium occurs when habitats change—although not necessarily for the better. In recognition of this, humans reintroduced wolves in Yellowstone in 1995, stabilizing its ecosystem once again.

Our world is both stable and chaotic, balanced and dynamic. Both states exist together yet still affirm the truth that we are part of a web of diversity that needs every creature—from beetle to elephant to deciduous leaf—to function in its fullness. Caring about deforestation and the loss of animal species is a worthwhile endeavor because everything responds to everything else. What happens to the earth happens to us.

In Matthew’s Gospel, the story goes that when Jesus was dying, the earth went dark for three hours (27:45). At the moment he cried out and took his last breath, the land shook and the rocks split (27:51). Some interpreters might say this speaks to the supremacy of Jesus over creation, and maybe that’s true—particularly when read through a Western lens of hierarchy. But perhaps it’s more than that. In Colossians, Paul says that in Jesus all things are held together (1:17), so would it be farfetched to think that the cosmos would tumble into a kind of chaos at his death? I like to imagine that the earth was responding to her relationship to Jesus in a divine connection of sorts. 

Through Jesus, God became one with us in this intricate web of life, experiencing alongside us the fullness of what it means to be human. Perhaps the death of Jesus is also a lesson about the interdependency of all things.

Indeed, nothing happens in our world that doesn’t affect something else. When wolves were eliminated, rivers changed course and bird species died out. When Jesus took his final breath, the earth shook and the rocks split. Our world and everything in it tell a story of belonging—a belonging established at the very beginning, in accordance with God’s desire for all of creation to be in concert together.

A few days after Taylor’s dad died, we found ourselves drowning in paperwork, account numbers, phone calls, and grief. We woke up early one morning and took the long stretch of rural country road to the courthouse to continue figuring out all the things you need to figure out after a parent dies unexpectedly. During this silent drive, we saw a billboard that read, God recycles. He made you from dust.

We laughed. It felt so fitting.

From dirt we come and to dirt we will return.

It is through the dirt that we are bound together in a sacred belonging.

• Reflect on the last time you felt like you belonged to a web of life larger than yourself.
• What cultivates belonging in your life?
• What can you nurture with your own hands that connects you to our ecosystem?

Content taken from Sacred Belonging by Kat Armas, ©2023. Used by permission of Brazos Press.

Don’t worry about what you’ll eat. Don’t worry about what you’ll drink. Don’t worry about what you’ll wear. These are easy things to say—when you have enough to eat, when you have enough to drink, when you have enough to wear.

But many people in Jesus’ day—people living in poverty under the oppressive occupying force of the Roman empire—did not have enough to eat, or drink, or wear. And neither do many people—in the U.S. and around the world—today.

What do Jesus’ words mean, in light of this? Are they insensitive to the poor? Are they spoken a little too easily?

I don’t think Jesus is speaking from some high and mighty privileged place, here. He, too, was poor. He was born in a barn. He was homeless as an adult, traveling around the countryside preaching and healing and staying with those who would take him in—with people of peace (see Luke 10:5-7), kind strangers who quickly became friends. Jesus isn’t just theorizing and philosophizing and theologizing from some ivory tower, removed from the real world. 

Instead, Jesus goes around meeting people’s real material needs—their needs for food, water, clothing. He does other things too, of course—like healing people on many levels, teaching wise and true things about God, and rebuilding broken relationships and communities—but these other things aren’t in conflict with his attention to people’s basic physical needs. It all goes together. 

Take food, for example. Jesus doesn’t just tell people not to worry about what they will eat. He also miraculously feeds a crowd of five thousand men and who-knows-how-many women and children, using only five loaves of bread and two fish (Matt 14:13-21). Later, he feeds a different crowd of four thousand men, plus women and children, using just seven loaves and a few small fish (Matt 15:29-38). 

We can theorize all we want—and people definitely do—about the significance of these numbers. We can speculate as to why a very similar miracle story is told twice in the gospel texts. And some of these theories might be true. 

But could it also just be that Jesus wanted to take care of both crowds’ needs? The need arose for food, so he provided. Later, the need arose again, so he provided again. Who knows how many other times he did this, often in smaller-scale and less dramatic ways, throughout his ministry? (Not to mention the various miraculous catches of fish, as in Luke 5:1-11 and John 21:1-14.)

These are the things I think about when I hear Jesus telling people not to worry about what they might eat. He doesn’t just say “don’t worry”; he actually provides in practical ways for people’s needs.

Likewise, with drink. I think of the wedding at Cana, when the party ran out of wine, and Jesus (however reluctantly at first) changed several large water jugs into fancy-tasting wine so that the party could continue and the hosts wouldn’t be embarrassed by not having enough (John 2:1-12). 

I don’t often hear people ask this question: Why didn’t these wedding hosts have enough wine? Maybe we assume it was poor planning, or that their guests drank more than could have been reasonably expected. 

I wonder, though, if really the hosts were simply short on money. They wanted to provide enough drink for their guests but weren’t able to. Maybe they hoped people wouldn’t drink much and their secret wouldn’t be revealed. Maybe they could only afford a smaller wedding celebration, but so many friends and relatives and neighbors wanted to celebrate that it overwhelmed the reality of what they could provide. 

Regardless, they didn’t have enough. And Jesus didn’t just tell them not to worry about it. He provided what they didn’t have.

When it comes to clothing, then, I think of John the Baptist’s teaching: “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same” (Luke 3:11, NIV). Jesus’ teachings and actions continue in the same vein as John the Baptist’s throughout the gospel stories. 

I get the feeling that Jesus didn’t personally have a ton of extra clothing to give away. But he did encourage people to share their resources with one another. He didn’t just tell people not to worry about clothing; he told them to share what they have, so that everyone might be adequately clothed. 

We see all of this lived out tangibly among the first communities of Christians (Acts 2:42-47, 4:32-37). The believers had everything in common. People sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. No one claimed any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.

Because of all this sharing, empowered by God’s grace, there were no needy persons among them. No one was lacking for food, drink, or clothing, because everyone shared. This is the work of the Spirit of God. This is the community Jesus inspired—the community Jesus birthed—through his teaching, healing, leading, and unlikely-friendship-building. 

Jesus doesn’t tell people not to worry and leave it there. There’s no guilt for worrying, no shame, no judgment, no condemnation. Just grace, provision, miracles, healing, sharing, community-building, peace. Just needs being taken care of—both directly from God, and, perhaps just as miraculously, through the generosity of fellow humans.

This is what we will eat. This is what we will drink. This is why we don’t need to worry. This is the kind of community Jesus builds.

I took my indignation to the Dean. I presented my opinions, trying to mask my moral outrage. My memory of that conversation, some forty-five years ago, is that he mumbled or spoke in double talk. In retrospect, I don’t think he said much of anything except to toe the party line. He was certainly uncomfortable with me – and I couldn’t tell if he was uncomfortable with the decision the school had made. In my adrenaline-fed arrogance and indignation, I found his response unsatisfactory.

In some desperation, I took my concerns to Henri Nouwen, who lived in a basement apartment in the same dorm where my classmate resided. Henri was becoming a nationally, if not internationally known spiritual giant, but somehow he always made himself available to students. He agreed to meet with me.

READ: Radical Forgiveness and Ableism in the Church

I told him the story about my classmate’s removal. He said he didn’t know much, if anything, about the particulars of the case. When I finished my litany of complaint, I fully expected him to tell me that I had figured the place out, that Christian community was fiction if not a sham, – and that I should get out and go to law school , and be done with the whole business. Instead, he looked at me straight in the eye, and said, “what do you expect?” 

More than this, I said. Actually, I am not sure I said anything, because I was too stunned by his response. He went on: people do the best they can, and often it isn’t very good. People hurt one another, even when – and often when -, they don’t intend to. What he didn’t say, but certainly implied, was ‘– get over it.’ Not the presumed injustice of the situation, but the fact that people don’t behave very well with one another. Get over it, because when you are able to see people in their vulnerability and with their flaws, it becomes paradoxically easier to see people as being imbued with at least a modicum of God’s grace. And It also cuts down on the ego-driven moral indignation, so that you can deal with the situation with better perspective.

I have told the story about my meeting with Henri dozens of times over the years partly because, no, mainly because, I am trying to get over the fact that people do dark things to one another. And realizing that reality has, over the ensuing years, lowered my ego temperature so I can see injustice more clearly and challenge it more effectively. 

JOIN: Monthly Morning Prayer with Rev. William Barber II on April 1st at 9am

Most people, particularly those in 12- step groups, are familiar with the Serenity Prayer: “God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” What I didn’t know until recently, is that Reinhold Niebuhr’s famous prayer continues: “Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that you will make all things right if I surrender to your will; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with You forever in the next.”

Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it. That takes a lot of work – and the work is letting go in order to see what is. Letting go of the expectation that the world be free of darkness. Letting go of our indignation that the darkness exists. The darkness is there; we have to live in it, deal with it, and see the light in the midst of darkness.

Content taken from Seeing the Unseen: Beyond Prejudices, Paradigms, and Party Lines by Mark Beckwith, ©2022. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated.

The collective grief and trauma is compounded for many of us. It doesn’t feel right to normalize it, but here we are. Another Uber Eats gift card. Another prayer request. Another casserole. Another bouquet of condolence flowers. None of it feels like enough.

Today as I write this, I’m doing something else I’ve normalized. Today, my 9-year-old is getting her 11th MRI. She was born with a rare form of spina bifida and has lived with a cone-shaped tumor called a syrinx tangled in her spinal cord nerves for her whole life. She is disabled. So here I am, tuning out the ridiculously loud hum of this ominous-looking machine encapsulating my child. I’m pretending it’s totally normal that she’s lying there with weights on her legs, watching Ice Age through a mirror.

But every once in a while, a thought will cross my mind, and my eyes will notice something- and tears come out of nowhere. I swear they weren’t there just a minute ago. I swear I was fine. But am I? Ever so often, she will break eye contact with the movie and look at me, so I try to make sure I’m smiling. I mouth encouragement with my lips to stay still while the doctors get the pictures they need. I give a thumbs up and a silent clap. I pretend I’m brushing hair out of my eyes instead of wiping away tears.

This is what it’s like to live with caregiver trauma every day. This is what it’s like to have to normalize living in a way that’s not sustainable long term—fighting through a million of those invisible moments, over and over. As my tears fell, I wondered what my daughter’s future would look like, and I felt the bitterness creep back in. It’s a constant battle to reject anger and trade it for mercy. For humility. For love. Sometimes I’m more successful than others.

As I sat in that MRI room, I remembered a day a few weeks earlier. On the way home from school, my 8-year-old with asthma asked out of the blue, “I know we wear masks to protect other people because we love people, but when someone doesn’t wear a mask around me, does it mean they don’t love me?” Again, she’s 8. And those words broke my heart.

Caroline has been hospitalized in the PICU multiple times over the last two years for asthma-related complications. Part of me wants to say yes because I have wondered the same thing. But as a parent, I know I can’t say that. And as my child sat waiting for my response, I had to figure out why really fast. So we talked about how Christ on the cross suffered after doing nothing wrong. We talked about how he prayed to forgive the people that put him there because “they knew not what they did.” We wondered about the crucifixion out loud together. Those people knew they were mocking and murdering Jesus as well as the robbers flanking him, but he forgave them still.

READ: Finding Jesus in Rural America

It occurred to me that maybe Jesus wasn’t suggesting that He was the exception, as in “forgive them, Father, for murdering me.” “Forgive them for they know not what they do” is actually very different. To this day, theologians and scholars still debate what actually happened on the cross. Maybe this is because the mystery of Christ on the cross is still much more radical and powerful than any of us could ever fully wrap our brains around. What if Jesus was asking his Heavenly Father to forgive how humanity’s obsession with murder, power, and violence had led him to that moment? What if Christ’s forgiveness is much larger than we could ever possibly imagine? What if his grace is? What if ours could be too?

So as my daughter and I pulled into the driveway, I reminded my child how fully loved she is. I reminded her how spreading love, forgiveness, and grace when it is hard is exactly how Jesus chose to reveal his authority and mercy on the cross. So even when we feel unloved, we choose to forgive and extend mercy anyway, like Jesus.

Caring for medically fragile children in a pandemic is at times an invisible load. Often we’ve had to minimize it greatly for the comfort of many of our healthier and more able-bodied friends. Just like so often, the experiences of BIPOC people are systematically erased in favor of a white narrative; the experience of medically fragile families and image-bearers with disabilities has largely been forced to the margins too.

When I think about the church leaders that have regularly boasted about how they disdain mask-wearing, distrust doctors, oppose health care reform, and refuse vaccines that will keep their most vulnerable congregants safe, I think about how unwelcoming places like that have been to families like mine. If these sanctuaries refuse to prioritize belonging for the least among us, then where do the least of these among us find sanctuary? Does a consistent pro-life ethic include the vulnerable in our midst? How much does the sanctity of their lives matter?

Our family has been blessed to be a part of churches that partner with us so well. They go out of their way to show our kids love in many thoughtful and intentional ways. They listen. They join us in solidarity. They truly care. But largely, when I talk to other parents of disabled children and adults with disabilities, their experience isn’t like mine. Those families are regularly excluded, overlooked, and ignored in many evangelical circles.

WATCH: RLC Book Club Kids and Youth Edition

Church institutions will cite their insurance policies as the reason they can’t accommodate a child with a particular disability in their upscale environment. Volunteers will feel inconvenienced and scared of liability. So then who will invite that child into belonging? Who will invite that parent? Or do we find ourselves standing as gatekeepers between medically fragile families and the table of Jesus?

Thankfully this is never the case as Jesus is always on the other side with the vulnerable – but that’s a sobering reminder as well. Exactly what kind of table are the gatekeepers protecting? And who will show up to make that child feel safe and that family feel seen?

The church has had a unique opportunity in the pandemic to participate in the grand reversal as it relates to children with disabilities. One of the simplest ways to participate is to simply join disabled families in friendship, advocacy, and the everyday work of bearing one another’s burdens.

I’m not talking about inspiration porn. I’m talking about friendship, belonging, and interdependent community. As a church, throughout this pandemic, how did we measure up? If we asked our disabled, chronically ill, and caregiving neighbors, would they feel safe enough to even tell us the truth? Would they feel safe enough to admit that, at times, the obsession with freedom and individual rights fueled by Christian Nationalism has led them to feel invisible and unloved by the church? Because there are times I don’t feel safe enough to admit that many church leaders’ public positions on healthcare reform, masks, and vaccines, have directly made my family feel unloved by the church institutions they represent.

While the disability experience is not a monolith, by & large caregivers and disabled people are familiar with the feeling of being excluded from environments that seemingly welcome their presence but not their belonging. And I have to wonder if our churches are not fully FOR the least among them first, then who are they really for?

As we continue towards whatever else 2022 holds, may we allow ourselves to be angered at the way medically fragile children have silently endured a different kind of pandemic trauma than their healthy peers. May we repent for all the times our actions and inaction made someone with a disability feel invisible and alone. And may we be willing to change how we pursue the cruciform love of Jesus towards the medically vulnerable so that those image bearers truly know how loved they are.

There is a place for steel bolts and cameras. There is a place for the contemplation of danger and the assessment of harm, the strategic memorization of exits and the hermeneutic of slight suspicion masked by a welcoming smile, an outstretched hand; would that there were fewer places for these things.

But there are other ways to pursue security that do not drive us apart, set us apart, set up barriers between us and the others made in the same image. When God split the adam, flesh from flesh and bone from bone (see Genesis 2:18-23), it was not to divide them but to create companionship, desire, comfort, turning humanity into what Wilda C. Gafney in Womanist Midrash calls “a bifurcated being (1).” 

If we were to pursue that which did not separate but brought us back together, what might that look like?

LISTEN to Walk With Me by Common Hymnal 

This is not a call to those who are busy defending themselves from direct action, nursing new wounds, or shell-shocked. It is the call and responsibility of those of us who are otherwise safe, with our feet by the fire, worried by the violence of others, and saddened by the sorrow of our friends. Our solidarity is not in pretending that our risk is the same but in changing the factors that destabilize the field.

What if we were to attack instead of retreat? What if, in place of despair or even a secure defense, we were to perpetrate an all-out offensive on the things that threaten to divide us: antisemitism, racism, domestic (what a word) violence, the prevalence, and ease of acquisition of guns, America’s preferred instrument of destruction?

From red flag laws to the red hot fire of forges melting down guns for garden tools, there are ways of making ourselves more secure that do not demand our separation but our cooperation. There are ways of reconciling ourselves to a human nature full of faults and fault-lines that require the filling in of trenches, the digging out of land mines, making straight the paths and passages between us (see Isaiah 40:3-5). 

Fund a violence interruption program; find out from the local trauma center who is doing the work you want to support. Mount a letter-writing campaign; find out from local and state anti-violence chapters what kind of legislation is being considered that will make our communities more or less safe from gun violence and other types of harm. Attend anti-racist and abolitionist educational opportunities. Bring some home to roost. 

What if we were to do the work of peace instead of the work of privilege, the building of towers of ivory and arrow-slits?

There are ways of loving our neighbors that do not require us to arm ourselves against one another, but that require us to equip ourselves with subversive understanding, deep collaboration, a conspiracy that recognizes the secret image of God settled subtly into every human being.

What if we were to combat the cold by setting fire to the things that chill us instead of shivering in dismay?

1 – Wilda C. Gafney, Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne (Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 21

Rather than resisting the surrounding culture’s obsession with love and romance (thoroughly exemplified through TV shows like New Girl), the American Evangelical Church has largely bought into this and rebranded using spiritual messaging. This includes but is not limited to the notion that, while society says you need romantic love and an idyllic family to be happy, the Church frequently communicates that you need these things not only to be happy but to live the ideal Christian life and to be a valuable part of the faith community. This messaging is implicitly communicated by who the Church most values, what is preached about, and the types of ministries offered. (How many sermon series have you heard about marriage versus singleness? How many resources are allocated to family ministries like Sunday school, youth group, parenting classes, VBS?)

The irony is that in seeking to cultivate relational healing and wellbeing by bolstering marriages and families, this hyper-focus instead further alienates the many who don’t fit this nuclear family ideal. 

In a fascinating historical analysis of how family structures have changed over the course of human existence, cultural commentator David Brooks doesn’t mince words in calling out the myth of the nuclear family in the United States in an article entitled, “The Nuclear Family was a Mistake.”

Brooks writes, “When we have debates about how to strengthen the family, we are thinking of the two-parent nuclear family, with one or two kids, probably living in some detached family home on some suburban street. We take it as the norm, even though this wasn’t the way most humans lived during the tens of thousands of years before 1950, and it isn’t the way most humans have lived during the 55 years since 1965. Today, only a minority of American households are traditional two-parent nuclear families and only one-third of American individuals live in this kind of family. That 1950–65 window was not normal. It was a freakish historical moment when all of society conspired, wittingly and not, to obscure the essential fragility of the nuclear family” (Brooks, 2020). 

Additionally, the idea that a tight-knit nuclear family with a mom, dad, and 2.5 kids is the biblical ideal is misguided, given that most examples of family in the Bible look nothing like this. Most biblical households were intergenerational, included non-biological members such as servants, and some even involved polygamy. You would be hard-pressed to find a biblical example of a “nuclear family” as understood in our modern context. Yet, the Church’s emphasis on this ideal is relentless, and this influence can be felt from a young age.

Growing up in church, I was surrounded by lots of “good Christian families,” and the model of a successful Christian woman was primarily to marry a godly man and raise godly kids. I deeply internalized this, even writing letters to my “future husband” starting at the age of 11 or 12. (Why is that what I was thinking about? Why wasn’t I just being a kid?) I wonder how much less suffering I, and countless others, would have experienced if we were encouraged to have other dreams for our lives as well? I wonder what else that curious and creative 11-year-old girl might have imagined for herself? 

READ: Stewards of Our Home: A Litany for Our Interdependent Relationship with All of Creation

The suffering that results from not “achieving” what is deemed most important by your faith community is compounded by the sense of invisibility that often accompanies singleness in the Church. A good friend of mine recounts a noticeable uptick in dinner invitations once she was married, even though she had belonged to this small, tight-knit church as a single woman for several years prior. It was as if she now “registered” in the church’s collective consciousness in a different way now that she was part of a couple. In evangelical spaces, where patriarchal roots run deep, one’s status is often elevated through association with a man, primarily through being someone’s wife. 

Because of this, it often feels like the Church doesn’t know what to do with you while you are single. There may be awkward singles groups, patronizing shout-outs during the inevitable marriage series, even unsolicited advice or set-ups. For many, there are few places more painful to be single than an evangelical church. Rather than being a place of belonging, the structure and activities of the church often serve to magnify one’s loneliness. How many programs, activities, special events, and sermon series are centered around couples, families, and children? Even in these environments, I have certainly felt enveloped in loving church relationships. But other times, I have left feeling lonelier than when I arrived. It can be less lonely simply not going to church than going and trying to be a part of something that largely was not designed for you.

There are countless statistics about the health dangers of loneliness as well as the health benefits of marriage. But it makes me wonder: is it really because being partnered is intrinsically better for us or because being single in this society (the church being no exception) is so alienating? It should be just as possible to lead a healthy, thriving life, so long as one is in a supportive and non-stigmatizing environment. 

David Brooks proposes a possible solution in the form of chosen or “forged” families, which include non-biological individuals who are nonetheless deeply committed to one another. Sounds a bit like what the Church was intended to be, yes? But because many of our churches have been so intoxicated by a sociological fantasy from the 1950s, we all miss out on the deeper, wider, richer community God has envisioned for us. The roots of our ancient faith, which has a long history of bringing together people who would normally never even associate, provide us a path forward. 

The Church can and should be a refuge from the onslaught of unrealistic ideals about love and family, a safe place where all people, regardless of societal status, can feel seen, included, and loved. What would happen if the Church loosened its grip on the nuclear family ideal and was willing to reimagine the concept of family? Nuclear families would be invited out of their insular units, which can be isolating and overwhelming in their own right, and the church family encouraged to engage as a whole, across socially-constructed stratifications. Single people would be empowered in positions of influence and leadership. There would be support for and resources encouraging intergenerational and other nontraditional forms of communal living. Maybe even a sermon series about singleness that married people could learn something from? At its foundation, a healthy church must cultivate a culture that values people as people and sees them for who they are as individuals made in the image of God, rather than ascribing value based on who they are attached to or in relationship with. The Church must resist the myriad ways society tries to assign us more or less status and insist on radical inclusivity and equality in Christ. As Galatians 3:28 says, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, [neither single nor married], for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

And let us remember what Jesus said about true family: it is not flesh-and-blood but those who do God’s will. The family that will transcend biological heredity is the spiritual family of God. Therefore, true belonging is found in one’s identity as a child of God, a beloved member of the wider human family. From Jesus, we will always hear, “Yes, there’s a place for you in this family, you are needed and wanted here, you belong.” May the Church be known for its radical embodiment of this message to all. 

We, like every nation perhaps, define ourselves by our faith and our national history. These two strands interweave in our identity, and when we look to them—or even better, live up to those ideals—we are a beacon to the world, a place of liberty and justice, and refuge and opportunity for all.

Then, of course, when we neglect those lofty and, yes, mostly aspirational ideals, we become cynical, suspicious, and in far too many cases driven by rage and resentment. It would be difficult to imagine a less Gospel-driven ethic than what we have seen far too many “Christians” present in public spaces across America.

Humility, compassion, generosity, and a welcoming (even restorative) heart should be the public face of faith (of all types) across history. Such is, of course, rarely the case. But it is the life we all, especially American Christians, are called to.

We affirm, as a nation, and certainly as believers, that no one is beyond redemption and all are called and invited into community, connection, and belonging. In faith, as well as citizenship, sacrifice and individual contribution are central themes. In other words, full citizenship in either God’s kingdom or a human kingdom draws us to a life and a vision beyond ourselves.

The Gospel calls us to kindness and forgiveness beyond measure and even beyond accounting. God’s love, if we believe it, is unlimited and crosses every human-made boundary. Faith and citizenship at their best inspire us to compassion and community – and a peace that truly and fully is beyond understanding and explanation.

Does our faith (and citizenship) elevate and inspire us? Or does it implode and seek only to protect itself?

Does it welcome others? Or does it threaten those who dare to join us? Especially those who consider themselves equal in rights and privileges to all of us?

READ: We Must See No Stranger

It is all too obvious which life the Gospel calls us to. Hope, like bitterness, is contagious. Revenge and resentment are nurtured and cast out but take root most deeply in their source. Those who cultivate hostility and even violence are the host and find themselves home to ever greater and more intense negative feelings. And like any seeds, they take root and bear fruit in unexpected places. The same is true for those who cultivate hope and healing.

We become what we believe. In a way, we have no choice but to live out what we value. Awe and wonder at who God is and what God has called us all to is the way for all of us. Any good news, political or religious, should equip us to transcend our natural – even national – boundaries and set us, as well as those who we encounter, free in ways we never could have imagined on our own. A truism of freedom is that no one is free if everyone isn’t free.

The same applies to other areas; no one is welcome if everyone isn’t, no one will experience justice if everyone doesn’t, and possibly even, no one is loved if everyone isn’t.

If we lived what most of us say we believe, it would be the best of the “good news” of all.

You’d think most of us would be proud of (may even proclaim) our welcome to the weary, oppressed, and those inspired by freedom and opportunity. But somehow many of us have forgotten who we are. Too many of us want to lock our borders, limit our rights and even quantify and restrict our “American dream” to those who meet some ideal (and usually imaginary) criteria.

History will tell whether we lived up to our calling at this crucial time. Will we become more open, or more closed? More eager and willing or more resistant? Will we welcome those who do not resemble us, or will we fear, categorize and negate their God-given humanity?

Who among us, after all, does not believe that faith, and yes, even the base-level of citizenship, is framed by discernment and decency? Faith, if it means anything, presumes an inspiration of “new” air, even a “new” being, freed from perhaps long cultivated fears and biases.

Faith, real faith, is the delivery of the promise to see the world through the eyes of the Creator. It is through that faith that we become citizens of a much larger, much more enduring world. 

In the vintage Denver neighborhood of Capitol Hill we wedged the van into the only empty space for blocks—a zone clearly marked “no parking.” Fortunately, their twenty-something friends hustled all the heavy boxes out of the building and loaded us up in short order. We were ready for the road. In the midst of this somewhat controlled chaos, I asked my son for directions since we would be leaving before they did.

I wish I had listened better. It wasn’t his fault. He and his wife had driven this route countless times. All we had to do was stay on the same road for 208 miles before making our first turn.

And it could have been simple. After breaking free of the city, we climbed through the almost total wilderness for about two hours, finally reaching the tiny town of Fairplay. At around 10,000 feet in elevation, Fairplay lies atop a grassland basin in a windswept no-man’s land.  Once you leave town, there’s nothing for miles. No people. No cell service. No internet. No buildings. There aren’t even any trees. And unlike civilized areas, very few signs. We came upon what looked like a fork in the road. And for probably the first time in my hyper-vigilant life, I had missed the only sign.

“Bear left,” I said confidently.

Since I’ve been navigating our travels for forty years, Kevin just went ahead and turned left. Compulsively over-prepared and occasionally accused of ‘overthinking’ things, rarely have I pointed us in the wrong direction.

So we continued to cruise through the middle of nowhere for about twenty minutes, seeing only the occasional car.

Finally, we saw a tiny blue sign that said, “9.” Just “9.” If only it had said, “Eventually you are going to end up in Colorado Springs, you nitwit”- that would have been helpful.

“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Kevin asked.

“I don’t know what 9 means. Let me look.”

I reached into the glove box for a map.

“Where are your maps?’”

“This is my work truck. I don’t need any maps.”

They were all in our car, tucked safely away in our garage back home. I fired up my phone and tried to pull up directions. No signal. I tried to call my son. No service. Meanwhile, the occasional tumbleweed somersaulted across the road ahead of us as the miles rolled by.

“Should we turn around?”

READ: Money and Activism: Faith-Fueled Investing to Fight Climate Change

“I don’t know. What if we’re going in the right direction? It’s quite a ways back to Fairplay. Let’s keep going for a while. We’re bound to run into someone eventually. A gas station. Something.”

So we kept our eyes open for signs of civilization, possibly hidden in the tall grass that sways perpetually in the endless wind.

Do you know what maps do? They take the guesswork out of travel. One of the things I loved about the Evangelical life was the structure; it seemed like a map to wholeness. I was raised in chaos. My father was an abusive, bipolar alcoholic and my mother worked two jobs to support us all. There was no reliable structure to our lives. Each morning brought a fresh dread that kept us ever-vigilant. Over time, my brothers and I fell into patterns of self-destruction. Finding marijuana at fifteen actually saved my sanity for a few years.  Predictably though, better living through anesthesia leads to addled living through addiction. And no one hates addiction more than the addict herself.

Addiction eventually dead-ends in hopelessness, no matter which map you follow.

By the grace of God and a miracle of God’s power, Jesus reached out to me through a friend. For seven years, she prayed. Occasionally, she told me about her savior. Not often, not overbearingly, not threateningly, not shaming me. Just loving me. And one day, thirty-five years ago, I said yes.

I fell into Jesus’ arms through the folks at an Evangelical Church. They taught me how to love the Bible. They taught me that I could trust God. And they did this by inviting me to join them in the living structure that is the church: getting involved. Participating in Bible studies. Volunteering to serve others. Showing up on Sunday mornings. And on one of those Sundays, I heard the voice of God thunder through my chest telling me that this day, January 15, 1989, was the day God wanted me to get sober. God said that on this day, the Spirit would help me. And if I didn’t, God would have to get my attention.

I may not have been sure of much, but I was dead-on certain that I did not want to force God to get my attention.

So I found an additional community of kind souls, and their road map for recovery was even clearer than the church’s opportunities for spiritual growth. Between the two of them, I started to get well. Life got better. And I learned how to live without the dread of abuse, without the need for hyper-vigilance, and without the soul-deadening anesthesia of drugs and alcohol.

I found freedom within the healthy boundaries of a community; I found a roadmap for life. And it worked so very well until November 8, 2016.

I’ve written quite a lot about that day. My own people, Evangelical Christians, voted Donald Trump into office. It’s been five years, and I think I’ve finally grasped the depth of my loss from that event. Rather than rehash the pain, I’ve begun to think about the path ahead. I’ve just been reacting to the loss. Now it’s time to proactively start charting a course for the future.

There’s only one problem. No map.

For someone who thrives on order and stability, drawing my own map is more than navigating uncharted territory. It’s calling me to trust myself, trust God, and believe that the journey towards my own healing is worth the effort.

That I am worth the effort.

That I will eventually find my way.

Long into the afternoon of moving day,  Kevin and I came upon a log cabin/gas station/hunting supply store, all by itself in the middle of nowhere. With a smile (possibly a smirk), the proprietor pointed us toward Podunk Cutoff, saving us further embarrassment and even more miles headed in the wrong direction. When we finally arrived in Creede, our kids were relieved to see us, and even more relieved that we hadn’t absconded with their belongings.

As I search for a new direction in this post-evangelical world, I don’t have to be afraid of making mistakes. I do have to rely on the lessons I’ve already learned. I do have to continue to read the Gospels, pray, and trust God.

But I’ve got a big sketch pad, my tattered old Bible, an abundance of resources, a collection of colored markers,a handful of like-minded Ex-vangelical friends online, a database of organizations devoted to following the teachings of Jesus, a terrific family, an amazing Savior, a lot of faith, a soft heart, and the ability to write. I’m going to draw my own map.

The new sensations of color and light were dazzling for these people, but at the same time, for many of them, also oppressive—it was the realization of “the tremendous size of the world,” Dillard suggests, “something they had previously conceived of as touchingly manageable.” 

My friend Tonia just moved into a supportive housing unit for unhoused folks after 30 years of living on the streets. It is in this apartment that she finds herself feeling more alone and depressed than ever. 

She tells me she just doesn’t know what to do now. She keeps finding herself back out on the street and says she prays every day that God would take the “like” out of the crack, heroin, and the hustle. I ask her to say more, and, together, we begin unearthing the role of crack and street-based sex work in Tonia’s life. 

When you live on the streets, you experience a social death, a dehumanization that excludes you from engaging the world in almost all the ways that you must witness the general population being a part of. So, a new world must be created and your fellow citizens become the ones among you whom the outside world calls un-human, too. In this world, there is a street economy, a class system, and an ethic or street code that the people in this particular place are sworn to live by, fight by, and die by. For better and worse, everyone is needed and everyone has a part to play. 

Because Tonia has long been exiled from the world, this new world is the only world she knows, it is where she has known citizenship. And because life on the streets is so cruel and unpredictable, the only thing that has offered Tonia a sense of orientation is the purposed nature of transactions—buying drugs, exchanging sex—that she must engage in to survive. 

READ: Hope, Homelessness, and COVID-19

Now that Tonia is off the streets, in a different neighborhood with no sense of orientation, no sense of place or purpose, she feels lost. 

As we embrace, Tonia tells me that she has not been home for days. 

Two days later my phone rings and a loud voice asks me if I know her Client, Tonia? We exchange pleasantries until she abruptly asks me if I know why Tonia has not been home for 5 days. I begin to share what I know of the bumpy road ahead for folks like Tonia: the unlearning and relearning of almost all of life, how non-linear this can all be, and how I believe we can best support Tonia in this transition… 

But, her response feels as if it’s scripted, read directly from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs but with a fill-in-the-blank client’s-name-here:

“Tonia has been given a roof over her head.

Tonia has been given a case manager.

Tonia has three meals.

Tonia can go see our in-house doctor if she makes an appointment”

The next day the Seattle Times was delivered to my door. The main headline reads, “When a homeless encampment was cleared, no one went to a shelter. The reasons are complicated”

There is an aspect of health and wholeness that cannot be defined by Maslow or medicine or psychology during transitions like Tonia’s. During these particularly thin moments, the ego-centric definitions of healing/becoming/success knock loudly at her apartment door but at the soul level, they are not alluring. The measurability of our ego-centric healing is but another non-possibility that taunts and teases, haunts, and heightens the divide from the world that she was exiled from in the first place. 

 It’s kind of like we make her take her boot off, throw it across her apartment, walk to get it, and then watch her miss it altogether. It just doesn’t work anymore.

Tears roll down Tonia’s face. . . new sensations of color and light were dazzling . . .but the possibility embodied in her apartment, she says, is almost more cruel and oppressive than the streets.