Again.

My heart is heavy and my eyes are not dry. Again. In the past two days, we've seen two black men killed executed by the police. Again.

I've seen post after post by my black friends about how they're treated like their lives don't matter, how they live in fear for their black sons, brothers and nephews. Again.

We see #blacklivesmatter and the names of the victims on social media over and over. Again.

I watch and hear the media try to spin the story and diminish black people's lived experiences. Again.

We hear people claim but "all lives matter," who somehow seem to blame the victims, who seem to miss the blatant truth staring them in the face. Again.

///

The ignorance that many people have around this cannot keep happening.

White friends we CANNOT choose ignorance anymore. We CANNOT sit idly by while human beings are being killed by the people who are supposed to "serve and protect."

We CANNOT ignore the fact that:

Black men represent less than 10% of all Americans but over 40% of unarmed people killed by American police.

OR

Unarmed African-American men and boys are an astounding 700% more likely to be shot and killed by police than unarmed white men. In fact, unarmed black men and boys are killed at almost the same rate by police as armed white men.

We CANNOT diminish the lived experiences of black men and women in our country because their perspective and their stories MATTER. And if you don't know their perspective or stories, listen. Here's one place to start.

We CANNOT turn a blind eye to the systemic racism and injustices that weave this country together and make it run.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor, Desmond Tutu says, and I refuse to be neutral.

We should care so much about justice and for everyone whose skin is not white to be treated in a way where they do not have to be fearful for their lives that we cannot be neutral.

///

I know that because I am white, I will never understand what it's like to be treated like I am disposable and that my life doesn't matter. When I saw police I always assumed they were there to help. The ones who make sure everyone is okay.

But that's my story and that story is really only true for white people.

Instead of getting pulled over for a "busted tail light" or asked why I'm in a certain area of town, I get pulled over and asked if I know where I am and am I lost because "don't you know what kind of area this is."

The examples and experiences I have to show the difference between the white lived experience in America and black lived experience in America are too vast to list here.

It is terrifying to think about my friends, my soon to be brother-in-law and nephews, and kids who I love so much not having anyone there to protect them...to be fearful of the very people who are supposed to help. 

///

To my white friends, family, coworkers, neighbors and strangers please open your eyes and your ears to see and hear the injustice that plague non-white people each and every day.

Choose to not be a white moderate, who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice - remember that shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will and lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection [MLK JR].

Make the choice to listen, to understand your bias, to understand why there's no such thing as "reverse racism" and to see outside your limited perspective.

Make the choice to be better.

To my black friends, family, neighbors and strangers, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you have to live in a world where your story isn't heard, where there are too many experiences to share that your life doesn't seem to count as much as others and where you have to carry the weight and burden of fear, racism and injustice.

///

I believe that justice is meant to roll down like a river and righteousness like a never-failing stream so I will say #blacklivesmatter. Again, and again, and again.

A letter to my younger self.

Life is hard. That's normal and it's okay. Trying to figure out why it's hard isn't really worth it. Just know that things that are hard are usually worth it. Life is worth it.

Your thoughts and feelings may not always match what people say you should think or feel. Your goals and desires may not look like how others define success.

You may see things reflected in the world around you or in the church about how women should be and it makes you scratch your head because you and many of the women you know don't fit in those boxes. Constantly, you'll hear, you should, you should, you should ... but you don't have to listen to it.

That urge you have to shrink down in your seat, to cross your arms, to hunch over, to withdraw to the corner or apologize for taking up space is going to be there, but you don't have to listen to it.

That immediate response you have to apologize when someone bumps into you or when you stumble over your words will be on the tip of your tongue, but you don't have to say it.

You don't have to be anything or check off the should boxes.  You never have to make yourself small. You never have to apologize for taking up space.

You were meant to live big. To live into your gifts and into your strengths. When people stay true to themselves and live into who they were created to be...that's big and that's powerful.

You carry a lot of shame and that makes you feel small.

Shame knows no boundaries. It eats at our souls and constantly makes us believe we're not enough. But we don't have to listen to it.

Shame makes us believe something is wrong with us. That we are wrong. That we can't be who we are. But that's a lie.

Shame flourishes in the dark. It whispers that no one will understand, that we can't admit to this and we're the only one.

That's bullshit.

We are meant to be who we are.We are meant to take up space. We are not meant to be silent. We are meant to speak our truth.

So who should you be?

You should be you. Your full self with all of the messiness, anxiety, joy, love, anger, sadness, craziness, humor and personality that makes you, you.

You are powerful.

You are strong.

You are enough.

You can do hard things.

You can be brave.

So be who you are and by doing that you'll help others find the freedom and confidence to do the same.

We're all connected.

There’s a lot of division around us these days…it’s an election year so I guess that’s to be expected. But it's about more than just politics.

What is most striking to me with all the debates, with all the finger pointing, with all the hate and fear and talk of shutting down our borders is that we’ve forgotten to see the humanity in people. Finger pointing, fear mongering and exclusion create space for the humanity of people to be erased.

We should never seek to erase people. We should never forget each other.

I think in pictures most of the time. When I think of the world and humanity, I have always pictured all of us connected. It’s like there’s a thin string connecting each of us to one another.

All beautifully different, but still connected. We need to look past what makes us call someone “other” and see the humanity in one another. We need to recognize that we are not separate.

Richard Rohr says,

A saint sees things in their connectedness. They don't see everything as separate. It's all one. What you do to your neighbor, you do to yourself and how you love yourself is how you love your neighbor. How you love God is how you love yourself and how you love yourself is how you love God. It's all one. How you do anything is how you do everything.

It's like we've forgotten that we're supposed to love one another. For too long we’ve dehumanized people. For too long we’ve put some lives over other’s lives. For too long we’ve promoted a message that some people, whether it’s because of where they live, where they were born, what color their skin is, what their occupation is or how much money they have, they are more important than another.

This way of thinking has become engrained in our systems, in our actions, in the words we say, in the way we treat each other, in the way we vote, the policies we support and sometimes even the things we preach.

For too long we have forgotten to truly see each other and to see how we are all connected.

I believe God created each and every single person. And therefore, they deserve to be seen. They deserve to be treated with love, dignity and respect. I know I don’t always do this well, so I’m asking God to help me see.

Help me see how we are all connected. Remind me that we belong to one another. Help me recognize that we each have the image of God stamped on us.

Richard Rohr goes on to say,

Faith is recognizing things in their deepest meaning. To be a person of faith means to see people as inherently connected to God and connected to yourself and therefore they must be worthy of love and dignity.

To me, when I see that connection between myself and someone else things make more sense and become clear. It makes sense why we would want to welcome the stranger. It leads to a deeper understanding of why we need to declare Black Lives Matter. It helps us see that people don't deserve to be treated less than and that the table is big enough for everyone.

We begin to see the error in exclusivity and that any kind of theology or policy that dehumanizes or marginalizes people is not truth.

We begin to recognize that string that connects each of us to one another.

This is my prayer for myself and for you today...

May we seek to be saints who see our connectedness. Who do not forget about each other.

May we have the courage to speak out against the systems, the actions and the policies that seek to erase and dehumanize people.

May we seek to be people of faith that see the world more deeply and realize that how we do anything is how we do everything.

May we seek to affirm the dignity in every person we meet.

May we move from just seeing others to recognizing the image of God represented in them.

Amen.

What Living Means to Me.

Probably at least once a month I ask the question, What is life? What does it even mean? Why are we even here? What's the point? I basically have an existential crisis on the regular.

The other day while I was brushing my teeth I was thinking about this. (What...am I the only person who has an existential crisis while brushing my teeth?) Why do we get up and do life every day? What are other people's motivations for going through life? What's the point of life? How is it that someone who does a repetitive monotonous job every day can have more joy than someone who claims to be doing exactly what they want to do? The questions continued tumbling in my brain, but then a thought stopped the tumbling.

The point of life is to live.

Duh, right?

I think this idea "to live" can mean different things to different people.

To me "to live" means to be fully who I am.

It means to do things that make me come alive.

It means finding joy in the little things and when I can't do that resting in the knowledge that one day soon I'll be able to again.

It means to love and invest in the people around me.

It means finding gratitude in what I've been given.

It means embracing wonder and being remarkably curious.

It means moving forward and growing.

It means acknowledging all the seasons of life and understanding we don't always live in a world of summers.

It means accepting all the parts of myself, the parts I don't like, the parts I love, and the parts I would rather ignore.

It means desiring wholeness and doing the hard work it takes to live into wholeness.

It means resting in my God-breathed worth and doing my damnedest to treat each and every person I come in contact with knowing they have God-breathed worth too.

It means realizing the point of life is to live. We aren't here to just exist and float through life. We're meant to be who we are. We're meant to love each other well. We're meant to be a part of something bigger than ourselves that involves a whole lot of love and a whole lot of wholeness...some people call it shalom.

The world needs more people who realize the point of life is to live! One of my all-time favorite quotes is from Howard Thurman:

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

Figure out what makes you come alive. Figure out what living means to you.

Because the world needs you.

The world needs more people to be who they are and not who they think they should be.

It needs more people to come alive.

To live from our scars.

On the palm of my left hand, under my thumb, lives a scar. You can barely see it, but whenever I notice it I remember how I got it. My brother and I were little and we made a fort outside with old fencing as the barrier. My brother decided the way to get in was to jump over the fence. Because I wanted to do everything he did, I ran after him and took the leap. I didn't quite make it and my hand landed right on a spoke of the fence. There was blood, tears, a wound, but then healing and eventually a scar.

I recently heard Nadia Bolz-Weber speak and she made a statement that has stayed with me.

"When I preach, I preach from my scars, not my wounds."

When we preach or write or communicate in general, it can be easy to do it from our wounds. It's fresh, we're fired up, someone says something that triggers that wave of pain. Or we speak from that place where we haven't quite experienced healing.

It's okay that those places exist.

But do we live out of those places? Are we living from our wounds or our scars?

Think of your life like a water pitcher.  All the water inside is your life, your energy, your love. This sustains you and you can pour it out to others. At the bottom of the pitcher are rocks. When we're wounded the rocks float around in the water. There's a chance we could pour some of our rocks into someone else's pitcher.

When we've been wounded, it's easy to stay there. It's easy to not confront the hurt in order to heal. Hurt people, hurt people. People who live from their wounds, wound other people.

So how do we live from our scars instead of our wounds? Everyone is different with what that looks like, but I will tell you this. Everyone has wounds. Everyone.

Wounds can't turn into scars without healing and healing isn't easy. In order to get those rocks in the water pitcher to settle permanently on the bottom so they're there, but not being poured out into others, we've gotta heal.

When we live from our scars,  it's not ignoring the wound or the pain, rather it's acknowledging that it's there and is a part of us. It just doesn't dictate the way we live, the way we treat people, the way we communicate or the way we make decisions.

While I can't speak for what healing looks like for everyone, there are things I do that help me live from my scars rather than my wounds.

1. Counseling. Sometimes it's hard/impossible to walk through healing alone. Having someone to walk alongside you through that journey who has the skills and ability to hold up a mirror, to listen, or to affirm is priceless.
2. Time. I don't think the saying "time heals all wounds" is necessarily true. Time may heal all wounds, but the scar is still there. It's always going to be a part of you, but it doesn't have to define you. Do we take the time to walk through the hard things, to feel the grief, to lament what we need to lament, to not be okay in order to experience the healing?
3. Writing. I write to process and it's very clear the writings that originate from my wounds. Those are the ones most people will never see. For me it's writing, for others it's dancing or singing or running, whatever makes you feel most alive and helps you process. Figure that out and do that.
4. Self-care. The previous things mentioned are all ways I practice self-care and without them I would be lost. We need to realize that we must invest in ourselves if we truly want to invest in others. Remember the water pitcher? Doing the work of healing allows our wounds to turn into scars and settle to the bottom of the pitcher. Practicing self-care, engaging in life-giving practices and relationships allow life, energy and love to pour into our lives. When we do this our pitcher will overflow and we'll have what it takes to pour into others. Self-care allows us to love others and interact with them out of the overflow of our own life. It allows us to not pour our rocks into their water pitcher.

Everyone has blood, everyone has tears, everyone has wounds and everyone has scars. While one size doesn't fit all I do believe everyone is meant to experience freedom and healing so they don't live from their wounds, but from their scars.

I want myself and others to live healthy and thriving lives where we're able to come alive. We can't do that without doing the hard work of healing. This hard work leads towards wholeness.

Healing is hard, but it's worth it.

Living from our scars rather than our wounds is hard, but it's worth it.