do you want to be made well?

While knowledge and truth can be found anywhere, the kind of wisdom that leads to shalom is indigenous to the margins, among "the least," forgotten, and last. Those who know the way to peace and healing are the ones whose bodies, like Christ's, bear scars of others' war-making. Any who sit at empires' thrones feasting on its spoils cannot lead us into justice. The powerful offer up all sorts of expertise, but paths to peace they do not know.

Peacemaking is not a top-down operation, nor does its wisdom flow from center to margin. Peace is forged through conflict (not around), and the way to communal well-being and wholeness is paved with all sorts of interpersonal discomfort, tension, and sweat. Justice cannot roll until subtle and glaring hierarchies and broken systems are identified and ripped out. 

And that much-lauded (and alarmingly misunderstood) rebuilding work of crafting something just and new? It, too, is rooted firmly in Wisdom from the margins! The top and center are architects and upholders of injustice, well practiced in the status quo affirming appearance of peace, but rarely the presence of Kingdom-of-God shalom. Despisers of the critical work of dismantling oppressive systems are incapable of building anything truly new; they lack the empathy, will, and imagination to envision and create alternate paths. Resurrection wisdom lives at the margins, where Jesus anchored his own life and ministry alongside fishermen, lepers, women, peasants, the colonized, unqualified, Samaritans, sinners, and sick.

Peacemaking is the sort of messy work from which many would rather run, particularly those of us benefiting from How Things Are [Unjust]. Privileged voices are quick to paint protesters, critics, and marginalized bodies as disturbers of a peace which does not yet exist. It's a tricky game, with clear winners and losers, actual shalom being the latter.

But we can't hope to take part in fixing what's broken if we refuse to recognize the depths of what's wrong, and that requires going to the margins and sitting at the feet of people the majority are most accustomed to demonizing and writing off.

Until Christians hear and heed Wisdom from the margins, we actively stand in the way of peace, no matter how "gracious" and gentle our words or noble our intentions. Civility is a tool of empire, defined by power and expertly wielded against those who step out of line or refuse the terms of their faux-peace. The Kingdom of God springs up out of far deeper, more fertile soil--and on the backs of none.

So many Christian voices claim--and honestly desire--to be on the side of Jesus, justice, and peace, but shalom wholeness requires a radical de-centering of power, the active subversion of hierarchical systems, and a good bit more staying in our own lanes.

White people can't know the first thing about dismantling racism unless we are sitting at the feet of Black people and other people of color. Men who refuse to learn from and defer to women are incapable of leading anywhere just, no matter how impressive their CVs. Straight and cisgender opinions on homosexuality, marriage equality, transgender identity, and intersex bodies aren't nearly as helpful (or faithful) as many imagine. Edgy tattoos and good book reviews are clanging cymbals accompanied by discrediting survivors and sheltering powerful friends. People who are depressed, in recovery, marginalized, and hurting have a great deal to teach the rest of us about a God who is near to the brokenhearted, but we can't receive their wisdom if we're so busy blaming them for harshing our happy vibe.

It's not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick.

Many Christians are so accustomed to seeing ourselves as the healthy bringers of a gospel of wellness to a sin-sick world, but we're just as sick as anyone. (And we're not the doctor in this metaphor, either, particularly when our actions and neglect contribute to making our neighbors sick!) We trust a pallid gospel of go-to-heaven-when-you-die, but the "personal" Savior Christians claim inaugurates systemic, all-things-made-new, salvific work among and within our communities here and now. We are saved together for greater works than these.

Do you want to be made well? 

Well, do we? We've got to acknowledge the depth of sickness in our systems as much as our hearts, and we can't expect the same voices who taught us hierarchy and complacence to lead us out into wholeness. De-throne the experts: shalom-deep wisdom resides at the margins, with the suffering and bruised.

There, among the despised and rejected, we'll finally and fully encounter the Man of Sorrows we've long claimed to follow. And only there, together, will we be healed.

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and this world has everything

Back in college I loved the band Caedmon's Call. I had all their albums, saw a few shows, and was enamored with boys who could play their songs by heart. They were the only Christian band I didn't backtrack on there for a while, but when I got out of youth ministry, I sorta let them go, too. The over-dose was probably inevitable. One does not live by [Christian culture] alone.

I hadn't listened to or thought of them in years when the chorus of "This World" got stuck in my head:

This world has nothing for me
And this world has everything
All that I could want
And nothing that I need

But this time, these once-familiar lines caught me off guard. I don't believe anything close to that anymore. Did I even back then? (This is why I bang the media literacy drum!)

What about the Genesis creation narrative in which everything God makes is unequivocally deemed to be good? Are Christians somehow exempt from basic human needs: food, shelter, security, love? Is the kingdom of God not inaugurated here among us, "on earth as it is in heaven," as Jesus proclaimed? What the hell kind of world is this song even talking about?**

This world is making me drunk
On the spirits of fear

Despite believing "perfect love casts out fear," Christians can be among the bigger manufacturers of it. Isn't fear partly what drives the desire for safe alternatives to "worldly" bands, movies, gyms, and schools, so Christians can be "in the world" (ish...) "but not of it"?

I don't believe retreat from the world is what Jesus prayed for in John 17. I realize "the world" (and "the flesh") function as metaphors, but words shape our thinking, and overemphasizing these can lead Christians into devastating and idolatrous territory.

A world vacant of value is disposable, and so are its inhabitants. Dualistic theology prizing the spiritual and heavenly over the material and embodied cannot functionally practice neighbor-love or the sort of ministry Jesus models. In that worldview, people of other faiths and no faith at all are easily seen and treated as projects--which is objectifying and dehumanizing--rather than kindred, beloved co-bearers of the image of God.

I get that the Bible talks of Christians having heavenly citizenship, being strangers on earth, and following Jesus above all else. Christians believe in more than whatever we see and experience now, but ours is not a pie-in-the-sky gospel of go-to-heaven-when-you-die. It's the gospel of "Today salvation has come to this house,""the kingdom of God is at hand," and "all things new," even now. Even here.

Creation, incarnation, and resurrection reveal deep, abiding goodness in our world and bodies. In beauty and pleasure. Learning and work. Art and play. Friendship and hospitality. Birth. Growth. Sex. Justice. Community. Love. We worship, serve, and practice our faith in this world, with our bodies, like Jesus did. This side of heaven, there is no apart: falsely elevating the spiritual divorces our bodies from our very selves, diminishing wholeness and shalom among and within us. We are physical, emotional, rational, sexual, spiritual beings all at the same time, and it's good.

The gospel of Jesus is good news for people-with-bodies and a world which God created, loves, and redeems.

And now I'm waking up
And now I'm breaking up
But now I'm making up
For lost time

**Edited to add:
YOU GUYS. Amy Peterson told me she read "This World" as a rejection of the insular church subculture the group grew up in, [There's tarnish on the golden rule/ And I want to jump from this ship of fools/ Show me a place where hope is young/ And people who are not afraid to love] and my mind is blown. Please weigh in, nerds.

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but what are you FOR?

When you've got an analytical eye, folks may chastise your negativity. Why waste energies tearing down? Upright citizens less easily offended are actually contributing something worthwhile, so quit complaining and do something already!

Here's the thing, though: that binary is false. We can critique and create. We can do and do better still, and analysis is one of many tools that can move us forward. Gardens must be weeded if they are to flourish, and weeding is as much work as planting, watering, or harvesting the fruits of our labors. Each of us is uniquely gifted, and there is value in all sorts of service.

But a lack of concern for systemic injustice (especially that which hurts others and benefits me and mine) exhibits neither moral authority or Christ-like leadership. Despite the common refrain (often from those with most at stake in the status quo), critics and activists are not the reason Why We Can't Have Nice Things. Hierarchy and protected power, secrecy, greed, and oppression inhibit shalom far more than "the surfacing of tensions already present." A peace that does not yet exist cannot possibly be kept by silencing dissent, discouraging critical thought, or demonizing the hurting and those with eyes to see.

But what are the rabble-rousers, troublesome "mobs," and angry "social justice warriors" actually FOR, anyway?

The Fruits and Fire of the Spirit

We are for wholeness, hard truth, and a preferential option for the margins. We are for hospitality, boundaries, and diverse gifts. We are for accountable leadership, transparency, and learning. We are for knowing better and doing justice.

We are for indicting and exposing systems and patterns antithetical to the Kingdom of God. We're for assigning positive intent and showing our work. We are for taking responsibility for our own feelings and actions. We are for peacemaking, conflict, repentance, and seeing it through.

We are for the fruits and the fire of the Spirit. We are for testing everything and holding it up to the light. We are for one holy catholic and apostolic Church, the least, last, and lost.

We are for embodied faith, common prayer, and all things made new. We are for subverting power, dismantling empire, and love with roots, feet, and wings. We are for liberation and not losing heart or giving up. We are for belonging to one another and the good, hard, messy work of practicing resurrection and working out our salvation together.

"Our Struggle Is Not Against Flesh and Blood"

The sin in our systems cannot be addressed solely on an interpersonal level, and our best intentions do not exonerate us from participating in or benefiting from patterns favoring the powerful over the marginalized. When criticism and a desire for accountability and consistency are pathologized as ungracious and even satanic, it baptizes, protects, and reinforces power, which is, more often than not: white, monied, influential, male, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, neurotypical, educated, etc. "Mob" voices deemed malignant, irrational, and un-Christlike overwhelmingly belong (not coincidentally) to women, people of color, survivors, LGBTQ people, and those experienced in mental illness. Widely parroted ideas about civility and grace sound pleasing but may not resemble the way of Jesus.

Healthy leadership is accountable, humble, and willing to learn, and criticism is integral to public discourse. Pretending that criticism and social media are the exclusive domain of trolls is disingenuous, silencing, and frankly, ridiculous coming from the mouths of those who have built sizable platforms on both.

Criticism is a discipline that does not exist in opposition to Christian discipleship. Neither people nor criticism is the enemy. Our systems are sick, and it'll take surgeons' scalpels; healing hands; faithful prayer; and good, hard, all-hands-on-deck work to make us whole.

also: 

what it means to take abuse seriously (R.L. Stollar)

detox: on conflict, criticism, & who writes the history
violence in the snowy fields

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those without a horse

Label, lie, vilify
simplify, Other. Brother,
"Can't we all just get along?"

Those without a horse
dismiss the race with record speed.
Whose stories have we snuffed with severed
cries to settle down?

Prophetic voices rise 

above the fray from muted margins;

shalom whispers the heat of conflict, too.

We practice resurrection: calm, storm, 

work and wonder. Rooted and built up,
rebuilding in love, we'll blaze a most excellent way.

re-worked from the archives

rockets and waterfalls

It was the last song of the night, and the house was on its feet, abuzz. We flung long tresses wildly, and bespectacled hipsters imperceptibly bobbed their heads. The band requested attendees dress in costume or finery, and the earnest crowd complied. Skeletons whirled like dervishes beside masked, feathered birds and adults clad in footie pajamas. Daniel Tiger drank pale ale, and girls in bright sequins nestled under the arms of lanky boys in pinstripes, rapt and content.

The entire affair could have been a case study in whiteness or youth culture, but something transcendent was palpable, too: that strange, larger-than-life connection when the music soars and thousands of perfect strangers share one enchanted moment.

I've felt it at concerts and experienced it in worship, and sometimes I've sworn the two were one and the same: the keen awareness of being united and alive and the near-audible whisper that something exists beyond all we see, something like home.

Years ago, in his book Sex God, Rob Bell argued that such moments were sexual in their essence because sexuality is broadly about connection, not just climax. Many thought he was reaching, but his thesis always struck a chord with me. I do believe that our sexuality encompasses more than desire (or desirability) and what we do with our genitals (although it's those, too, of course).

Whenever a teen starlet comes of age, it's almost inevitable that she'll announce her entree into adulthood with a racy photo shoot, music video, or movie role. While embracing sexual agency is a hallmark of adulthood, I do wonder how performing that particular cultural cliché demonstrates sexual autonomy as a rule. Teen queens are sexual people, of course, no matter how provocative or chaste their stage persona is.

We're sexual whether or not we're partnered or perceived as sexy by the crowd. Sexual agency may be expressed in the act of sex or abstention from it, in projected sex appeal, a passionate kiss, or the practice of personal boundaries.

What might it look like to express our sexuality in ways that honor God, self, and neighbor? Consent and respect play critical roles (with one's partner and in community), but a believer's sexual ethic can't start and end there. What honors God must factor centrally, too, even if Christians disagree on all that entails.

It's no secret that as Christians, we often lack a compelling and holistic vision for healthy sexuality and do perhaps the worst disservice to those who are single and/or celibate. "Purity culture" teachings inherently link sexuality with dirt and defilement, requiring something akin to asexuality from unmarried adherents (and inviting residual shame into a significant number of Christian marriages). While the absence of sexual desire is completely normal for those who identify as asexual (and others), expecting single Christians who do not ID that way to repress their sexuality is another thing entirely, and it’s as unrealistic as it is harmful and dishonoring. Our bodies and sexuality are at the core of our humanity regardless of marital status, drive, or experience.

So what then? How can we express desire in ways that honor the image of God in one another? What might it look to fully inhabit our bodies in faithfulness and without shame, whether we’re partnered or single? Is Bell right that sexuality is linked to points of connection in the bedroom and beyond?

For Christians, can sexuality be understood as the pursuit and expression of wholeness, encompassing acts of physical love as well as other manners of platonic union or spiritual transcendence? Is it possible to express our sexuality whenever we serve or create? When we love our friends and community well? Could our sexuality be tied to other ways we inhabit our bodies, perform masculinity or femininity, or glimpse the sublime in nature, worship, or art?

If we accept Jesus' incarnate humanity, then he was a sexual person, too. Could Jesus have expressed his sexuality when he fed the five thousand, upending expectations and satisfying needs? When he healed broken hearts and bodies? When he esteemed the woman who anointed his feet with perfume and tears, drying them with her hair?

What does it mean to be sexual when we aren't having sex? Ecstatic moments when breath catches or feet tread holy ground, are these touchpoints to shalom and sexuality, both? Am I a weirdo for thinking this might be true (even if spiritually more than literally)?

Maybe I am. But I can't help being drawn to the idea that sexuality is something greater, simpler, and more inclusive than either the Church or Hollywood currently projects.

It's reaching for each other in the dark and dancing with friends, at home in our skin. It's a longing, an embrace, and a killer pair of heels, and it's liturgy and Eucharist on a Sunday morning. It's an arena rock show and a climbing trip in the mountains, with a verdant view four states wide. It's that flicker of recognition or belonging,the feeling of being seen and known. It's two hands clasped in passion or support or prayer, not unlike the rest of this everyday, ordinary, sleeping, eating, going-to-work, walking-around life that we live together and offer unto God.

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in defense of evangelicalism

Labels are a strange beast. As a word-lover, I appreciate their precision, but plenty of people eschew them altogether, perhaps not wanting to be categorized, pinned down, or boxed in.

There is power in naming, which I suspect relates on both counts. Label lovers use them to demonstrate certain understandings of the world or to proclaim integral components of personal identity. Label haters, on the other hand, refuse to allow themselves to be controlled by something so limiting and inadequate.

"Evangelical" is something of a contentious badge these days. The media made it synonymous with the Religious Right of the 1980s onward, and plenty of Christian culture warriors were (and remain) happy to play along, but Evangelicalism's hallmarks are not conservative politics but belief in the authority of Scripture, the Lordship of Christ, his saving work on the cross, and a commitment to conversion and evangelism.

I grew up evangelical, asking Jesus into my heart when I was five. I am well-acquainted with flannel board Bible lessons and Psalty praise tapes. Every summer at camp, I re-dedicated my life to Jesus with my back against pine and tears in my eyes. I signed a True Love Waits pledge and fasted for the 30-Hour Famine with my Baptist youth group. I kept quiet times, prayer journals, and well-marked Bibles. I skanked to the beat with the Supertones and camped the Creation Music Festival. I dragged my longsuffering Jewish friend to a volleyball tournament that included a gospel presentation. To this day, I can't hear "Total Eclipse of the Heart" without flashbacks of mimes falling prey to addiction and gossip. I know my way around Young Life, InterVarsity, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and non-denominational worship. I crushed on Mac Powell of Third Day and sat through dozens of iterations of a that "I Am a Thief" skit where Jesus is crucified, and you're supposed to feel sad, but it's also confusing because camp's cutest counselor is playing Jesus, and he's not wearing a shirt.

I also technically grew up in the Mainline, but my twenty-odd years in the Presbyterian PC(USA) church were thoroughly evangelical. (I didn't actually meet a bona fide Mainline liberal until I got involved in anti-poverty and peace organizing as an adult.) I didn't feel stifled there as a woman. My gifts for ministry were nurtured and largely affirmed, and I worked as a youth minister my first job out of college.

I still believe in the authority of Scripture and the Lordship of Jesus, but I believe that Jesus is the Word of God to a greater degree than the Bible is, and I have a few more questions than I used to. I seek to understand the Bible in community through the witness of Jesus, historical context, and the arc of the biblical narrative as a whole. My esteem for Scripture is just as strong, but when Truth is understood as a Person, the Bible becomes something more than a textbook. There's more room for mystery, tension, and beauty.

I still believe in Christ's saving work on the cross, but I believe his birth, ministry, and resurrection were significant, too. Jesus wasn't "born to die"--he lived to reveal God's shalom and set right the ill sin wrought. Put to death by religious and political authorities, Christ's resurrection disarmed their violent power, revealing a better kind that makes all things new in humility and love, without coercion.

I still believe in conversion, but less as a once-and-done event. Repentance is an ongoing work, and salvation is not merely for individual hearts or heaven: it's also the liberating, reconciling inauguration of God's reign here, "on earth as it is in heaven."

I still believe in evangelism, but not like I used to when I alienated more than one friend trying to get them to come to Christian events. The gospel of come-to-church-stuff (or go-to-heaven-when-you-die for that matter) isn't the most compelling good news we've got, and honestly, it betrays a certain heresy about where God works and dwells. These days, evangelism looks more like attempting to reveal what Jesus is like and acknowledging the ordinary sorts of places where I see God at work. It's a lot more like regular life.

When we moved here nine years ago (for Jim to work at the evangelical camp where we met and I grew up), we found ourselves most at home at the little country Episcopal church full of elderly folks and empty-nesters. I suppose that means I'm not properly an evangelical anymore, but not because I outgrew it or was pushed away. Evangelicalism was good to me. It showed me Jesus. It still does.

I know a lot of people's stories are different. Many stories involve great pain and loss, feeling chased out or condemned, and those stories need our hearing. They are valid, 100%.

Mine is, too.

***

Some fundamentalists are evangelical, but all evangelicals are not fundamentalist by any stretch of the imagination. Fundamentalism has a unique history and identity, and its emphases on separatism, authority and control, literalism, doctrinal purity, and rigidly enforced boundaries delineating In from Out set it apart from its far less inhibited cousin.

Having grown up and ministered in bigger tents with a considerably more generous orthodoxy, that's not the Evangelicalism--or honestly, the Jesus--I recognize. Since their faith doesn't particularly read like Good News, I'm not sure why the fundamentalists should be allowed to renegotiate the bounds of Evangelicalism.

"Fundamentalist" was originally a self-chosen label, but as it's taken on a pejorative connotation culturally, there is a vested interest in re-branding fundamentalism as evangelical, but any dogged policing of the gates betrays the tell-tale mark of fundamentalism. Fundamentalists are free to assume the evangelical label, but when self-appointed emperors aren't wearing any clothes, we don't have to pretend otherwise or acquiesce to their determination of who's Out.

I don't presume to know if God would have you stay or go. Since denominations, local congregations, personal experiences, and tipping points vary tremendously, there will be few universal answers for the faithful navigating the minefield that is Evangelical Christianity in this post-modern age. The Spirit may make it clear to you, or She may feel a million miles away, but I trust you'll know your next steps better than any random blogger on the interwebs. But if the gatekeepers can't kick us out, the leavers can't drag us out either. Go or stay; there are a million ways to be faithful.

Here's what I do know: Christ has but one Church, and for better or worse, we're family. Fundamentalist, Evangelical, liberal, Catholic, missional, Mainline, conservative, charismatic, Anabaptist, Orthodox, Reformed: we're sisters and brothers. We can disagree, drop, and pick up new labels and traditions, but as long as we're following Jesus, there's no escaping the fact that we're keeper and kindred, meant to live and bear the Good News together. We belong to one another.

At the end of the day, these labels matter little. It is by love we're called to be known, and we've got a world of work to do.

Post-script: After the 2016 election, I no longer believe the evangelical label to be worth salvaging. Christ exists outside that bedded-to-empire mess, beloved.

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detox {on conflict, criticism, & who writes the history}

Innumerable blog posts, tweets, and think pieces churned out over the past few months offer blazing indictments of "toxicity" in progressive Christian and secular feminist online spaces. As someone who follows conversations in both niches and writes on faith and feminism, I'm particularly interested in how this trend plays out in parallel.

No one would argue the fact that the climate online can and does become hostile sometimes, but in fairness, so can the climate of the local bar, the church down the road, and my own home, if I'm honest. Sin is hardly native to the internet; humans behave badly everywhere.

I have no interest in the defense of personal attack, which has no fruitful place online or anywhere else. But I do tire of how easily and often honest disagreement and even the most careful criticism are conflated with bullying and among Christians, with sin, particularly when those pointing fingers have a stake in propping up the status quo and less-than clean hands.

The Power of Language & Discipline of Criticism

Receiving criticism is never fun, and it can take a personal toll. But it also comes with the territory of offering one's work and words for public consumption. Everyone love accolades, but critique is the other side of the coin. Public ideas invite public responses. It's is the nature of the medium.

We seem to understand this as a community when we're the ones talking back to corporations, politicians, megapastors, and gatekeepers. We laud the democratizing power of social media when our little words are heard, shared, and go viral, but how quick we are to cry foul when the tables turn and our own ideas inevitably come under scrutiny. I'm just the Little Guy, the Good Guy! Critique ought to be reserved for the Big and the Bad, right?

But media is media, no matter the scope, and each of us is accountable for the words we share, Joe Politician as well as Jane Blogger. If we want the platforms and re-tweets (and paychecks and book deals), we've got to accept that criticism is par for the course. Critique can't just be acceptable when we engage and hateful when she does, prophetic when it's our side holding the mic and the spotlight but nasty if it's them, (particularly if they are women of color). It's neither fair nor honest to assign malicious motives to anyone else's critique or to hold my own critics to different standards than I keep for my team, my friends, and myself.

Words shape reality, and Christians who worship Jesus the Word who spoke creation into being ought to understand this better than anyone. Feminists who recognize that "mankind" isn't inclusive language or can deconstruct modesty debates in their sleep, should not recoil if it's pointed out that our own language is transphobic, ableist, or otherwise harmful.

The Enemy Within

Our fight is not against people. Feminists don't fight men; we fight the patterns of patriarchy entrenched in our culture's discourse, institutions, and practices. Similarly, Christians affirm that "our struggle is not against flesh and blood" and that sin is as present in power and systems as human hearts (Eph 6:12).

Oppression. Injustice. Selfishness. Sin. Patriarchy. Racism. Violence. These are The Enemy, and they are in all of us to varying degrees. Contrary to popular belief (and privileged distress), critique is not synonymous with nitpicking, infighting, backbiting, or catfighting. We who've read movie reviews, written blue books, studied the liberal arts, or learned a bit about media literacy should recognize this. Criticism is a discipline about analysis and even reform, illuminating patterns that we might acknowledge and dismantle the systems that keep us in chains and inhibit shalom in our communities.

White supremacy doesn't crumble if people stop using slurs or because white people adopt black babies, just like sexism didn't end when women got the vote. The work of intersectional feminist or liberationist criticism is to connects the dots, identifying the persistent and systemic patterns that elevate some voices while punishing others, and illuminating another way.

I critique to make the invisible visible. There is power is naming, not to demonize but to demonstrate that words matter and that with them we can speak life or death. I don't believe in heroes or monsters; the potential for both is in all of us, and criticism of my work or behavior is not an indictment of me as a person, even if it hurts.

All The Feels 

Feelings are important, and feelings make us human, but feelings are an insufficient gauge of the whole truth of any given situation. When I am criticized, I might feel embarrassed, frustrated, or angry. I might believe I am being criticized unfairly, and the tenor or passion of someone's disagreement might make me feel uneasy, but "bullied" and "attacked" are not feelings but verbs. Feeling bullied or attacked is not equivalent to actually being bullied or attacked, and if we're going to introduce those accusations, we better be prepared to back them up. Similarly, feeling ashamed or uncomfortable is not sufficient evidence that another's critique is shaming.

I am responsible for my words and actions, including the harm they cause that I never intended. (No one gets up in the morning with "Marginalize people!" on their to-do list.) I am accountable because my words, behavior, and even inaction can reinforce oppression and stereotype without my meaning to. (How often are men described as hysterical, catty, or contentious? Are white people generally spoken of as savage or brutal?) Misogyny and racism are rooted not in personal prejudice but in structures, institutions, and systems.

I am also responsible for expressing my own feelings in healthy ways. Perhaps I need sabbath, exercise, or firmer boundaries. Maybe I need to stick up for myself, broach a tough conversation, or get away for a while, but ultimately I cannot hold other people responsible for how I feel. Validating each other's feelings is a key aspect of being a good friend or partner, but we don't owe that to strangers on the internet.

Feeling bad isn't a solid indicator that I've been wronged. Discomfort with conflict is valid, but it can't on its own reveal whether a conflict is toxic. Feelings matter, certainly, but using my feelings to derail a conversation that isn't chiefly about me isn't fruitful or fair.

Being implicated in racism, homophobia, sexism, etc. feels crappy, but dealing with that is on me. Can I choose to see beyond my own feelings far enough to care about another's person's lived experience of injustice and my own hand in it? In the grand scheme of things, oppression is significantly weightier than personal discomfort, and compassion looks like acknowledging not just feelings but the uneven and unjust power dynamics at work.

Talking Back

Ugliness exists online, as everywhere, but it's careless to conflate strong words with malice or something that requires cleansing (by whom?). "Women of color know that when we leave the supposed 'toxicity' of Twitter, we are not going to another place that is not toxic" (Kaba & Smith).

There are no shortcuts around conflict to unity, and not every conversation that makes my heart race must be indicted or shut down. Sometimes I just need to shut down my computer and take a deep breath. Other times I need to commit to listening and doing the work, because "constructive crisis and tension are necessary for growth," and constructive is rarely akin to comfortable.

Having or cultivating distance from anger isn't any sort of inherent moral good either. Anger is often fruitful, catalyzing desperately needed change. It's not a fruit of the Spirit, but then neither is apathy, protected power, or smarm.

Social media is eroding the control the gatekeepers have historically held to shape the dominant narrative, and that's a breath of fresh, decidedly non-toxic air. The democratizing effect trickles down, and it's foolish to presume I should be able to control the narrative either. I can't always foresee what will happen after I press publish, which can be paralyzing or scary, but it also can be tremendously liberating.

Any of us is able to talk back, and each one speaks on her own behalf. There is power in naming and in making the invisible visible. Speak we life.

Interlopers on Social Media: Feminism, Women of Color and Oppression
The Color of Toxicity
Bigotry Not Twitter Makes Feminism Toxic
White Supremacy's Toxic Twitter Wars #BigBadWolfFeminism
This Is What I Mean When I Say White Feminism
words like weapons - poem

[shared with #FaithFeminisms]

stuck between stations

Four hundred years was the echo of time between prophesy and that first advent.

Four hundred years of silence and waiting. And hope.

Blessed is she who believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her.

–

Bus stops, grocery lines, and on-hold music teach us to think of waiting as throwaway time, a way station between here and Where We Want To Be.

But in some sense, isn’t all of life a way station, this now-and-not-yet time between Christ’s resurrection and return? We pray and work toward on-earth-as-it-is-in-heaven, trusting the Kingdom of God grows among us, but things aren’t right, not yet. Sin, death, and oppression abound. We worship things, objectify people, and pick each other’s wounds until they’re raw. Here isn’t Home, yet here we are, overwhelmed by longing for Eden’s shalom.

He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

It’s a troublesome tension: treading dark corners without despairing of them and holding onto hope though the waiting feels interminable.

–

I’ve played the waiting game. Looking for a job, waiting out a rough one. Trying to connect, to put down roots that take. Some days parenting is an exercise in being fully present, in not just waiting for second shift when Dad tags in, bedtime, or tomorrow’s new mercies, sweet Jesus, please.

I want to learn the discipline of waiting well. To not wish away this season for an imaginary ideal. I don’t want to despise the day of small things, missing today’s hallowed joys waiting numbly for tomorrow’s, real or fantasy.

Narrow expectations prepare us only for disappointment, and they’re the opposite of the kind of expectancy advent calls us to. Advent’s hope isn’t a perfect, selfish fantasy. Our hope is a Savior who bends low and pours himself out.

Waiting well prepares our hearts to love like that.

–

I wonder sometimes about the landscape of faith between testaments, during those four hundred years of scriptural silence. The Bible is mum, but surely God moved. His prophets kept no records, but wasn’t every common bush afire with God? Did the hills burst into song and the trees of the field clap their hands?

Even now, spring lies waiting beneath winter’s dormancy.

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.

Can I trust God at work beyond all that I see, hear, and touch? Can I glimpse glory amidst the mundane?

–

Anna waits, her husband dead fifty years and without any man as her surety. Even in those barren years, the faithful kept watch. She worships and wonders, and she prophesies. God’s Word was never silent for those with ears to hear.

She gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

The Word enfleshed poured out his Spirit, bidding Anna to speak as the prophets of old. Steadfast Anna, mouthpiece for God’s good work. Let lonesome exiles rejoice: Emmanuel has come.

They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.

Blessed are they who wait and mourn and the expectant ones who hope.

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where are the women?

The Nines, a whitewashed, uber-masculine Christian leadership conference featuring just three female speakers (among more than hundred) had folks buzzing last week, particularly after popular author Rachel Held Evans engaged the organizer on Twitter about the lack of female voices. Later, Christianity Today characterized her as having a "meltdown" and gave organizer Todd Rhodes a few hundred words to explain that there were so few women (and people of color, presumably) because their theme was "what's working in churches."

Yup.

They then gave female speaker Christine Caine--who I've no doubt is a lovely person--another several hundred words to suggest that a lack of female accomplishment and God's will may account for the dearth of women in recognizable positions of Christian leadership:

I am grateful for the opportunity to serve leaders at conferences like The Nines, and I think the very fact that some one like me is included as a speaker in leadership conferences all over the world suggests that the church is very willing to hear from women as well as men…. 

The discussion over women's representation over conferences like The Nines is a valid one, and I think as more women step out and accomplish things empowered by the Holy Spirit then they will have something to contribute to helping leaders grow. 

I think you actually have to build something that is producing fruit whatever gender you are if you want to help others do the same. Your gender should not be what determines whether you speak at a conference, your gifts and fruit should be. I truly believe that if God has called you to do something, then God makes a way for you to do it... 

We have some work to do, but I think the medium is the message, and the fact that I am there lets women, minorities, and young people know that they can get there if there is where God wants them to be.

This is what is called internalized sexism. Having made it within an evangelicalism that frequently expresses itself as a boys' club, Caine seems to suggest that if her female peers had something to contribute, they'd be at that podium with her. To her credit, Caine later speaks of "holding open as many doors for young women as I can," but her set-up strengthens the locks on others by denying exclusionary or patriarchal factors at play in platform building and Christian leadership development practices.

Caine is clearly an accomplished and godly woman. Having someone like her as mentor would be a tremendous asset to anyone in ministry, male or female, and I applaud her for looking out for and grooming younger leaders coming up behind her, but we can't pretend that many of these metaphorical doors aren't bolted shut to women, people of color, LGBTQ Christians, and more.

Christianity Today glosses over the systemic injustices breeding the inequalities we see plainly with our eyes, brushing them under the rug and worse, implying they are sanctioned by God. Life isn't a meritocracy, exclusively rewarding those who work the hardest and those on whom God's favor rests. Those are hallmarks of the health-and-wealth prosperity gospel, not the the Kingdom of God, which as Jesus demonstrated is good news for the least, the last, and the lost.

Better Than Some!

This hasn't exactly been the Best Week Ever for women in evangelicalism, but it's got to be better on the progressive side of things, right?

@dave42w Better than some! #stillalongwaytogo
— Alan Hirsch (@alanhirsch) November 16, 2013

Whenever I point out sexism within evangelicalism, men inevitably tell me that I should join the Mainline or perhaps a church like Roger Olsen's, where there's not even a hint patriarchy. When I critique patriarchal strongholds in the emergent/progressive church, others try to shut me down with reminders that, "They're on our side", "He means well", or "X is so much worse", like somehow it's only okay to push back against conservative or fundamentalist expressions of Christianity.

But that's ridiculous. Inequality is systemic, and all of us--particularly leaders--should be able to meet a considerably higher standard than "We're better than Mark Driscoll on gender." It's not second-guessing anyone's motives to shine a light our praxis and ask, "Is this really the best we can do?" "Progressive" should never be a static label to wear but a shared commitment to actual Kingdom-oriented progress measurable in word and deed.

Some conservative Christians have entire theologies explaining why women shouldn't lead, so I don't expect anything different from their speaker rosters. I disagree but honestly, I respect when they put their cards on the table.

But progressive Christians whose theologies fully affirm women in leadership and who consider themselves to be LGBTQ affirming and wholly committed to racial justice cannot compare our record on women, LGBTQ equality, or race to The Gospel Coalition's. If we know better, we should be doing a lot better, not resting on fixed positions or past laurels. We can't be defined by what we're not, particularly when pushed on our own lack of representation and diversity, progressives may not react all that differently from conservatives. We shuffle our feet, mumble something reminiscent of "Bootstraps," and insist we tried our best or that it may not be practical to do it differently. (Or we cry my personal favorite, identity politics.)

Either all things are being made new among us, or they aren't. Are we incarnating Christ and reflecting resurrection in our ministries, or do we mirror the empire's deathly halls of protected power?

Diversity, equality, and justice have little to do with how good anyone's intentions are. Most of us generally mean well, and we still perpetuate oppression across theological and political spectrums. Sin manifests in our lives and systems despite our best intentions, and if we're honest, even our intentions aren't always so pure, because we're frequently lazy and selfish. (Just me?) It is absolutely a beneficial community practice to assume positive intent in one another, but good intent won't cover (or atone for) a multitude of personal or social sins--or erase the power dynamics at play when people of certain races, genders, or sexual orientations are marginalized in overt and subtle ways. (We exclude others, too, like those considered to be less sure, strong, educated, beautiful, married, wealthy, healthy, or righteous.)

Love covers, yes--and it does the work!--but good intentions alone are pretty useless, particularly conceived as a sort of "get out of jail free" card excusing us from taking responsibility for oppressive, marginalizing action or apathetic complacency. The questions that matter most are not, "What was the intent?" or "Do they believe X?" but "How well are we walking this out?" and "What steps can we practically take to do this better?"

A popular eighties cartoon professed that knowing is half the battle, but knowing is just a baby step out the door. Knowing better stuff rarely made me more like Jesus, and neither kindness nor shalom has much to do with simply knowing the right thing.

Walking it out is the hard and hallowed, messy part--the worthy work of cultivating something better, nourishing it together, and helping justice to roll down and flourish among us.

--

Worthy Reads:

A Female Author Talks About Sexism and Self-Promotion

Quotas get results: A chat with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on tapping sources more diverse than the usual pool of white dudes

Only 19 Percent Are Women

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we are pierced women {guest post Osheta Moore}

Our paths crossed in an online group of faith writers, and I am continuously struck by the boldness and vulnerability Osheta brings to the page, particularly when she's writing about race, faith, and family. She is a woman who loves Jesus deeply, and her blog, Shalom in the City, is one to watch--a breath of hope in a world of cynicism.

This month on my blog, I’ve been writing about finding my tribe. I’ve never thought about a community of like-minded women as a tribe before, but there’s something fitting about this word that takes its roots in the primitive, organic, and ancient. To be a tribe means to push pass the excess to the essential of who we are and what we stand for.

So my thirty-one days have been on “finding my tribe”, my community who pushes pass the excess to the essentials of Jesus, his life, ministry, and death. Every time I wrote the word, “tribe”, certain images and sounds filled my mind.

I heard vibrant, welcoming, rhythmic beating of drums. I felt the heat from a gathering fire as women dance with abandon, laugh from their bellies, and wet the shoulders of their fellow tribeswomen with cleansing tears. At the word, “tribe”, I pictured sable beauties with shorn hair and fascinating markings on their strong bodies. I see women with interesting piercings, naked and unashamed with their tribeswomen.

And that’s the image that drove my series—a tribe of women so committed to Jesus that we’re willing to be inconvenienced, uncomfortable, and forever changed. Like Jesus, who for love was pierced to stand in solidarity with us, I want to be a woman who loves the women in my life well enough that I am willing to be pierced for them.

Last Friday, for her seventh birthday, after a month of pleading and promising that she was ready, I took my daughter to get her ears pierced. Then, much to her delight, I would get my nose pierced.

But my bold and brazen daughter, who can put her brothers in their place with a well-executed eye roll, stood outside the shop and said, “Mama? I don’t think I want to do this anymore.”

After a few hugs and promises that I was with her, and even I was a little afraid, she straightened her spine, shyly smiled, and said, “Let's do this.”

That’s my brave girl! I remember holding her hand as our sexy-chic body art practitioner, who noticed her telltale shaky breaths and nervous fidgeting, knelt down and said, “Girl, you’ve got this” to my little woman-child. “When I’m done with you, it’s going to be so cute, you won’t believe it.”

He winked up at me, and I wondered, ‘How does he get his eyeliner to do that?’

Sitting in his chair as he prepped to pierce, my daughter and I held each other. I could feel her heart beating, yet she smiled and played with my hoop earrings.

“Okay, girls” Sexy-Chic began, “I’m going to count to three. When I get to three, breath in, and when I tell you to… breath out.” He positioned the pink tourmaline stud on my baby’s right ear and gave me another wink over her head.

“1…2…3…” he said confidently, and we breathed in together. “ Now exhale,” and as we breathed out in unison, the stud pierced my daughter, marking that moment with both beauty and pain.

We did the same for her left side, sharing breaths and twitches that reminded of me the hours after her birth when she slept on my chest, twitching and breathing with an exhausted me.

Then we did my piercing, and when she saw tears flowing down my cheek, Trinity handed me a tissue while Sexy-Chic cleaned me up promising, “She’s alright, boo. But isn’t your mama’s nose so cute?!”

Today she remembers our piercing date as fun mommy/daughter activity. And it was, but one day when she’s older, maybe on her thirteenth birthday or when she gets her period, I’m going to sit her down and show her this outing in a different light. I’m going give her a pair of hoop earrings—her first pair and teach her about being a Pierced Woman.

Maybe this first pair will be large beaded silver and gold hoops like the ones she’s eyeing in my jewelry drawer now, or maybe they’ll be simple white gold that goes with everything. They’ll probably be made my refugee artisans as this Tribe, this Jesus Tribe, cares about women globally.

They’ll definitely be chosen with love and care because this lesson is one I want her to hold onto.

I’ll sit across from her, who somehow has become more woman than child, and ask her if she remembers when we got pierced together. And then I’ll tell her,

“Trinity, these hoops are for you. Every time you wear them, I want you to think of Jesus who was pierced for us out of his great love for all people. His love is as never-ending as this hoop is round. When you go to wear them, remember, just as He was pierced for us, so we must be pierced for him and press into the hard of being a Jesus follower, baby.

"When you go to match these hoops with your outfit, remember that this Jesus Tribe is diverse and beautiful and quirky and fun, so take chances. Wear them against an odd color or different texture. Celebrate the different. Remember how Jesus was pierced to bring unity among diversity. This is what we pierced women do, baby: we love the diversity and defend the unity.

"When you put these on, remember how we held each other while you were oh so afraid of the pain of the piercings, and ask Jesus to help you hold your friends when they are afraid. This is what we pierced women do: we hold the terrified in our strong, capable arms since we know what it’s like to be afraid.

"Trinity, I give you these hoops and I hope you remember that I, too, was pierced with you. This is also what we do—we are pierced women who love the pierced King, and we stand with one another through celebration and pain. Just as we both celebrated your seventh birthday and shared in the pain of our piercings, celebrate with your friends and share in their pain. Listen to their keening cries that pierce your eardrums when her heart breaks. Hold her hand and let nails leave marks on yours as she bears the weight of sorrow. And somehow find a way to share in her pain. This is what is means to be a pierced woman.

"And when the usurper of relationships comes to cause you to doubt if your tribeswomen have your back, remember the times they were pierced for you. Go back to your ugly cries on their shoulders and the late night with Ben and Jerry’s. Place your fingers in those holes in your soul left by your tribe’s love, and like doubting Thomas, remember that You. Are. Known.”

And someday when she’s moved away and maybe has a daughter of her own, I hope she comes across those hoops while rummaging through her jewelry box. I hope smiles as she remembers Sexy-Chic and his amazing eyeliner. I pray she remembers how her birthstone just happened to be her favorite color—pink. I pray she remembers being held in my arms, trembling and sharing anxious breaths. Then maybe, she’ll puts those hoops on and ask Jesus, “Lord, help me be a pierced woman today.”

Hi, my name is Osheta. I’m an Assembly-of-God-Methodist-Southern-Baptist-a-teryn turned Anabaptist. I love Jesus who is THE MOST scandalously loving person to walk the face of the earth. I love to dance and you can find me doing the Robot with my husband and three kids in our tiny apartment in Boston. Someday...somehow...somewhere I will be in a flash mob. All the better if we dance to Michael Jackson's "Thriller"! When I'm not dancing, I'm planting a church with my husband, writing on my blog, Shalom in the City, or watching "Pride and Prejudice" for the eleventy billionth time. 

shabbat shalom

On the seventh day He rested.

(Did it take a toll, the 
crafting of creation
universe-shaping
calling forth Something
out of Nothing?

Did You rest to show us
How, or was it Why?)

To pause. Selah.

To revel in the work of Your Hands,
delighting in what's Good indeed.

On the seventh day we rest as well.

Babies and garden need tending still,
but many hands make such care light.
We revel in the work of our hands,

and Yours. Co-laborers, we

pause. Selah.

Tarrying over breakfast:
eggs fresh, jam sweet, coffee hot.

Loading bags and bikes, we country-drive.
The day is cool, path straight through 

bridges high and forest green. Rain falls 

softy, misting skin 'neath canopy of trees.

Listen. Baby giggles, silly songs,
"Faster, Daddy, faster!" Wheels spin, 

pedals push and river rushes, muffling 

rafters' lively cheers below.

Look. Four wide eyes peer from trailer 

window, sibling smiles spread fast to 

passers-by. Mushrooms spiral trees and 

tiny frogs play hopscotch through our path.

Breathe. Rhododendron and rain perfume 

the air. Inhale the quiet, drink deeply from

fountains of Rest. This re-creation is good 

indeed, the very Shalom of God.

Another throwback post, this one from three summers past. Happy Sabbath, friends. Rest ye well.

31 Days of Embodied Faith

October is upon us, and what better way to revive this sleepy-of-late blog than to jump in with both feet for 31 Days?

(Hold me.)

Last year, we spent 31 Days Practicing Peace, and although I considered taking another crack at that same topic, I finally decided to take on Embodied Faith instead.

What is that, you ask?

I want to explore how we practice faith not just with our hearts or our minds but hands and breath and feet and bodies. Let's talk about the intersections of faith with work, play, art, exercise, rest, sexuality, food, hospitality, race, body image, discipline, suffering, beauty, pain, death, birth, pregnancy, gender, masculinity, illness, worship, celebration, grief, service, justice, parenting, singleness, dating, friendship, marriage, community, health, time...any area one might connect his or her humanity to an experience of God.

Let's look at scripture, particularly how Christ's incarnation affirms life in a human body and how we're called to honor God and one another with our whole selves. I want to examine embodied prayer and practices like fasting or pilgrimage that tangibly connect bodily experience to the transcendent.

I want to explore this together and am welcoming guest posts again on any topic related to Embodied Faith. One thousand words or fewer that fit alongside how we do at the smitten word. Poetry, narrative, essay, photography...this topic can be interpreted in a number of different ways, and I'm looking to get creative. Tell a story of how you meet God on the trail or in the kitchen. In recovery. On the dance floor or in the garden. In the bedroom, playground, or hospital.

What does faith with skin look like? Let's spend October finding out.

Day 2  prayers of the body
Day 3  incarnation
Day 4  God gives to his beloved sleep
Day 5  the practice of "no"
Day 6  shabbat shalom
Day 7  on sacramental feminism {guest post Krista Dalton}
Day 8  the naked ask {guest post Aaron Smith}
Day 9  where kindness leads
Day 10 fish out of water {guest post Misty Green}
Day 11 love shows up
Day 12 like precious oil
Day 13 let us breathe deeply
Day 14 unless the Lord builds the house
Day 15 let's lay down arms, love
Day 16 fold your hands {on teaching consent to pre-schoolers}
Day 17 on waiting {guest post Catherine Hawkins}
Day 18 embodied {guest post Seth Haines}
Day 19 an act of faith in time itself
Day 20 in the half-light of our love
Day 21 fasting, my iPhone, and prayer {guest post Morgan Guyton}
Day 22 from my head to my hands {guest post Heather Caliri}
Day 23 faith with scars {guest post Bethany Paget}
Day 24 do not go gentle into that good night
Day 25 with all his might {guest post Natalie Hart}
Day 26 walking the question
Day 27 the resurrection of the body {guest post Christina Tremill}
Day 28 a faith i can live with {guest post Sarah Moon}
Day 29 an ounce of action {guest post C. Wess Daniels}
Day 30 body of Christ, cup of salvation {guest post Micha Boyett}
Day 31 we are pierced women {guest post Osheta Moore}

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waging peace: conflict, christian unity, & power

Those who hate conflict will avoid it like the plague, but I'm not one of those people. It's not that I like to fight, balls-out, guns-blazing, I-will-CUT-you. I just happen to believe that conflict is inevitable, necessary, healthy, and not inherently indicative of battle lines drawn, Us vs. Them, or all-out-war. My life is full of people with whom I disagree about a million things, and we manage to love each other all the same.

I'm realizing that my (relative) comfort with conflict is a minority position in many Christian circles, where disagreement can be conflated with attack and one of The Worst sins: disunity.

Whenever Christians get to disagreeing, as we're wont to do, someone inevitably waves the "UNITY!" banner, imploring folks to pipe down and get along. This is understandable, to a certain degree. We are supposed to be known by our love and what-not.

But conflict itself is not a threat to peace, and those pleas for unity rarely occur on neutral ground. When the Supreme Court was considering marriage equality, I read arguments by Christians on the right and the left about how disagreements were a distraction from what God really cares about.

It may be natural to prioritize our own passions, but one person's "issue" or hypothetical thought exercise is another's actual life. If I, as a straight, cisgender person, can ignore the fact that LGBTQ Americans do not share many of the rights that I take for granted, my "opting out" is a luxury and privilege, proof more of my callousness than enlightenment. It's also a wildly presumptuous leap to project my own apathy onto God. 

Unity pleas rarely occur in a vacuum, and they can come off as silencing dissent when issued by Christians for whom the "fight" is not personal. Those without a horse dismiss the race with record speed, but not having stake in the battle du jour should never be confused with the moral authority to explain how there are bigger fish to fry--or the ability to impart God's own perspective!

There are uneven power differentials at play within many conflicts. Glossing over them not only misses the heart of much disagreement, it impedes the very reconciliation those unity pleas strive for. The most heated conflicts are deeply personal, and injustice and hurt may bring the most heat of all. We all have unique perspectives and intrinsic value, but if someone is being hurt, silenced, marginalized or oppressed inside a conflict, that inequality bears profoundly on its resolution.

Unity pleas sound noble, but they cannot bring about healing or justice, and without those, there can be no real unity--just the appearance of it (and even then only from select vantage points).

Conflict must be worked through and harm accounted for, even the hurt we never intended. We rarely hurt each other on purpose, but good intentions don't mean never having to say you're sorry. We are responsible for our words, actions, and inactions: meaning well alone is not absolution. 

I generally mean well, and I hurt people all the time, usually the ones I love the most. Everybody does, and we rarely intend to at all. Christians who believe that we're all sinners should know this better than anyone, but again and again, we act as though meaning-well covers over a multitude of (our own) sins.

But that's not how it works. People rarely intend to be racist or misogynistic, and yet well-intentioned people say and do hurtful and oppressive things all the time. This doesn't make us bad people but human people, and part of being human is being accountable for our behavior. We all mess up, and hurt isn't any more palatable just because the offending party didn't intend it. 

If a wounded party has already experienced marginalization because of race, gender, sexuality, abuse, etc., conflict is often experienced within a deeper, systemic context and repeated pattern of social inequality, which cannot be ignored if we care about unity, peace, and love. If someone lets me know that my words or actions caused pain, I need to account for that, especially as a person of privilege. I need to listen, and I need to make it right.

So yes, by all means, let's assign positive intent. Let's not assume that people intended us harm (or that our own critics are picking fights for sport or being too "sensitive"). But then let's also choose to acknowledge the power dynamics at play and take responsibility for our own behavior before pleading, "Can't we we all just get along?"

There are no shortcuts around conflict into unity. Unity involves forgiveness and loving well, but it is also about righting wrongs. Conflict is not a threat, especially to a unity that did not exist in the first place. If there are inequalities within a community, pleas for unity can function as unwitting endorsements of existing hierarchies and an unjust status quo. Real peace is not kept but made: forged in fire and hard-won. Unity is like peacemaking, and it won't be achieved without the kind of love that sees conflict through all the way to the wholeness of shalom.