Tag: accountability

Beatitudes and Bias

The past year in the U.S. has been hard to watch. The people we’ve elected, the decisions we’ve supported, the direction we’re heading. It all makes me mad.

Although I haven’t always succeeded, I’ve tried not to add to the noise because things already feel so divided. But I keep coming back to this: when we see actions that lack compassion, elevate power over people, or divide rather than reconcile, we have to ask whether that reflects the way of Jesus. And that question led me to the Beatitudes.

The Beatitudes were written in a time of political instability, economic inequality, and high taxation. So many people were hurting, hungry, marginalized, and attacked under Roman rule. Wealth was concentrated among elites. There was tension between collaborators and resistors, and people faced violence when they dissented.

Rome’s political leaders sent their men in armor throughout the empire to make sure their authority was visible and feared. Leaders said it wasn’t about control, but instead about order and stability, with protection and trade. Stability would enable prosperity, and prosperity would enable taxation that would continue to support the stability. (Somewhere my middle school Latin teacher is so proud!)

At the same time, the religious leaders who set the parameters for faithfulness and worship made laws that were near impossible for ordinary people to consistently follow. The laws weren’t a path to God but a standard that was impossible to meet.

People no longer believed political or religious systems could deliver what they promised. Because people couldn’t trust the political system that kept them in a cycle of oppression. And because people couldn’t trust the religious system that was constantly judging them.

What all the systems lacked was compassion.

What all the systems lacked was grace.

What all the systems lacked was humanity.

The more I read about the context of the Beatitudes the more I see our modern-day America, with people searching for something trustworthy in a world where both power and religion can feel (and maybe are?) unreliable.

In Jesus’ time, the specific issues were different but the labeling was the same – people were grouped together based on things like cleanliness and obeying guidelines. Today, issues like abortion or voting habits are moral shorthand for how we evaluate and include/exclude people.

At a time when people need the church most, what they see from “Christians” can feel inconsistent, and I think it’s because we’ve let our politics shape our faith instead of letting our faith shape everything else. If we as Christians can’t agree on something so simple like God’s love extending to all people, how can those who already feel unloved or ashamed ever encounter the love of Jesus through us?

It’s into worlds of unreliable systems that Jesus speaks about why and how we are blessed.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. We don’t have to have it all together to be blessed, and we don’t earn our way in.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. God’s with us in the good and the bad.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. I don’t have to win or control or be famous.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. I’m supposed to care deeply about right and wrongs in the world, and about what God cares deeply about.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. I’m supposed to have compassion and offer forgiveness, even when it’s hard.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. I’m supposed to be the same person at home and at work and at church and at the grocery store and everywhere.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Peace takes work, and does not mean avoiding conflict or hard discussions.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I need to do what’s right even if it costs me something, including the approval of others.

The Beatitudes are for the ordinary moments of our lives. All the days of all the lives of all the people who’ve lived since the time of Jesus. Even and especially when they are mad and frustrated. And maybe today, they’re an invitation – to love more like Jesus.

March 19, 2026
Freedom

Do you make New Year’s resolutions?

I never know the right age to divulge more information to the girls. Should I just say yes because they’re going to do it in school or should I really say what I think and practice? And most importantly, will my truth result in an email from a teacher who thinks I’m the craziest parent ever when one of my girls repeats something I’ve said?

I do not understand New Year’s resolutions. Once you’re a grownup, when you realize you need to do something differently you need to do something differently. Starting right then. Combine that with the fact that we abandon 80% of resolutions within 30 days, and I think we can deduce that the vast majority of the time the vast majority of us just don’t want to do the hard work to do or be better.

I found myself admitting to Audrey that I do not make New Year’s resolutions. However, I do end each year and begin each year by reflecting on three things:

(1) What are the ways that the past year’s word were fulfilled in my life?

(2) What is my word for the coming year?

(3) Is my list still good or do I need to make changes or additions?

I have a word each year. A point of focus that I talk to God about, journal about, research, look for signs of, speak out loud, and expect to make progress in. In the past few years, my words have been things like fruit and promise and I can easily name how God showed up in my life in those years in those ways. So my words are also a way to practice and stir up my faith. Because I don’t always feel so faith-filled, and maybe more often than not am a bit of a doubting Thomas.

My word for the coming year is freedom. Among dozens of other things on the topic of freedom, the Bible says we are called to freedom and that God responds to us and sets us free. There’s also the obvious the truth shall set us free. But the one nugget I like the most (so far) is that we are not to let ourselves be burdened again or to let go of our freedom. That implies that we already have freedom – and yet I don’t feel very free in several areas of my life. Perhaps this year will bring freedom from some negative thought patterns or the expectations of others, or maybe it will bring greater freedom in my mind and heart to dream bigger or simply to be silly more. It’s only day 2 and the possibilities are endless.

And then there’s my list. The list of things that I want to be true for Ella, Audrey and I. I started it long ago in my phone and it helps center my thoughts and prayers for us – and as we all get older and the world gets bigger, new things get added to the list. The old faithfuls are that we are healthy physically and spiritually and mentally, and that we are full of hope, givers of grace, brave. As we got further into the teen and tween years I made additions like we embrace helpers and help, we enjoy school and work, we are safe and trustworthy friends, and we make good choices. And now this year, as Ella in particular has big decisions coming up, that we seek God’s plan for us, that we are not enticed by distractions, that we are honest with ourselves.

I do have two constant resolutions: to put my girls first in all things and to be the best Mom I can be. On days when the house is tense because we’re all arguing about curfews or the length of shirts or how it’s OK to need help, I don’t feel like I’m doing a very good job. One of the things I need to be free of is the in-the-moment worry that their anger with me means they’ll act out or hate me. It’s on those days that the list reminds me of what’s really important and all the ways that things are going right.

Our friend Abby took this photo of us a month or so ago. It’s one of my reminders that we can go from happy to mad to playful to dessert at The Cheesecake Factory all within about a 2 hour time period.

January 3, 2023
Be Strong Right Now

I struggle to be at rest when I don’t have things figured out or when I am overwhelmed. I don’t have to know the answer, but I need to at least identify the next step. What is the next right thing to do?

All week, my thoughts have been disorganized and full of feelings. Sadness. Despair. Frustration. Rage. And just as I was trying to focus on God and church and a sermon and peace this morning, I opened an email about our schools partnering with the city to remember the lives lost here 3 years ago – asking that “we reflect together on the essence of #VBStrong” – and it really triggered me.

The hashtag #VBStrong seriously pisses me off. We should not have to be strong. We are capable of taking steps to prevent the situations that result in these stupid hashtags.

I went back to my journal entry from three years ago and realized that absolutely nothing in this city or this country has changed.

Why can’t we start being strong in the areas that could help prevent these things from occurring? Why can’t we be strong when we vote, supporting candidates who support mental health care and background checks and reforms? Why can’t we be strong about a commitment to finding a compromise on gun control? Why aren’t we willing to put our strength into finding a compromise that shows that our commitment to life and quality of life is more important than our commitment to allow anyone to own any kind of weapon? Why are we just perpetually stuck in an argument about what we can and can’t have and what medical conditions we will and won’t help with, and then relying on each other to be strong when the guns we won’t give up end up in hands that kill our family members and our children and our neighbors?

We should all be horrified by and convicted by The New York Times Sunday Review cover today.

Our belief that gun violence won’t impact us personally may have been the original reason we were quiet, but at this point we must all accept and admit that our inaction and our selfishness and our obstinance got us here.

I am done with all the reasons for not talking about it right now, with all the reasons this is really mostly a mental health issue, and with whining and indignant quoting of the second amendment. Those are the actions of cowards – people afraid of losing money, people afraid of losing votes, people afraid of losing power or control, people afraid that they have been complicit. News flash: you, we, are complicit. Our inaction makes us complicit.

I don’t live in Texas and I have no idea if I agree with all the man’s politics, but I cried this week when I watched Beto stand up and call a thing a thing and call liars liars. There is no longer any right or appropriate time for these sorts of things. People – children – are being gunned down every day in schools, grocery stores, churches, movie theaters. I am so proud of this man in the moment captured in this photo.

Maybe he wants votes. Maybe he’s a Dad and heartbroken. Maybe both. Likely both. But this took some guts. He has a hell of a lot more courage than most of us – and we stopped him a hell of a lot faster than we stopped an armed 18-year-old in a classroom up the street.

I am a believer in the second amendment, the purpose of which was to ensure our ability to defend our country and our homes in the event of a tyrannical overtaking of our land or government. But we cannot be so afraid of compromise on finding regulations that we allow our own countrymen with AR-15s to tyrannically overtake our schools and our churches and our grocery stores and our peace.

Today Audrey and I visited Horton’s Cemetery to talk about what Memorial Day is really about, to honor the memories of such brave men and women, and to pray for all those who mourn. Some fought in World War II, some Korea, some Vietnam, some Iraq. Some were drafted and some volunteered. Some died young and some died old. I read the words of Abraham Lincoln etched in a wall of stone there: “Honor to the Solder, and Sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country’s cause.”

Albert G. Horton, Jr. Memorial Veterans Cemetery

Albert G. Horton, Jr. Memorial Veterans Cemetery

What did they actually fight for? It wasn’t for our right to own an AR-15. It was so we wouldn’t need to live in fear of evil people who would wield weapons such as that against us.

We need to be strong right now and actually take steps in the direction of making America safer. We can march. We can write. We can donate. We can vote differently. We can speak differently. We can open our hearts and minds to finding compromise. We can try something. We can try anything.

In the words of David Hogg, a student survivor from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School: “I can respect you have a different opinion than me on guns but I can’t accept that we can’t do anything to save our kids.”

May 29, 2022
Keeping Myself Honest

My journal entry from January 19, 2014, was called Keeping Myself Honest. I wrote it and then shared it because I really wanted to not wimp out and I thought I might.

I have been thinking about going back to church.

Since Audrey was born, I’ve only been a couple of times – early on to show everyone we were OK, then once a year later to have her baptized.

Some people know I haven’t been attending and some people don’t. I’m ashamed of it, so I’m pretty good at hiding it. Truthfully, I think I am closer to God now than I have ever been. I pray about everything, all the time. I just don’t go to church right now.

Why did I have Audrey baptized in a church I haven’t been attending? Tradition?

Because I still believe in God. And because I want to cover her with some sort of protection shield – she’s God’s child, so with that protection she can’t be sick or overtaken by illness.

But God’s children sometimes do get sick. I, of course, know that. I’ve seen people much more faithful than I who had a much sicker child than mine was. People much more faithful that lost their child. People with no faith at all, or who have the “wrong” God, whose children got a horrible diagnosis but were healed – or who never even were sick! So who did something right and who did something wrong? Why were some people’s children healed and some not? Was it luck of the draw? Is it something the parents did or did not do? What is the secret? And why haven’t I under covered it yet?

I was a pretty good pregnant person – I didn’t eat junk all day, didn’t smoke, etc. Yet people who treated their bodies horribly were having healthy children while Audrey was in the NICU. People who didn’t want children were having healthy children. I’ll admit I wasn’t a happy pregnant person. I didn’t feel well and I was grumpy to say the least. Was that it? But then why Audrey – I was the same way with Ella and she’s fine.

Was it the oats I sowed in my younger years? Perhaps I was being punished for those. Was it the cheese I ate, the painting we did in her room, the water I drank from the tap, the chemicals in my lawn, or the fact that I laid more on my left side than my right?

Was I not really as good of a Christian as I thought? Was God disappointed in me? And if so, seriously, was THIS the punishment?

No, of course not. I *think* I have finally resolved that the answer is pretty simple. We live in an imperfect world, and sometimes really crappy things happen. It just is. Some people lose their children and some people don’t. Some people have children with medical issues and some don’t.

So why not go back to church after this epiphany? Because of intense emotions. Shame. Anger. Thankfulness. Sadness. Love. The desire for anonymity.

Shame: I have spent a lot of time wondering what I did to bring on the cancer diagnosis for my child. Other people have to wonder the same thing. How horrible must they think I have been at some point in my life?

Anger: I have been a Christian my entire life. Not that anyone deserves a cancer diagnosis, but seriously this is what I get? Aren’t I owed something a little better than that?

Thankfulness: I am so grateful, every moment of every day, that Audrey is healthy. When I walk into the building that we call church, sometimes I am so overwhelmed with gratitude that my eyes fill with tears. Just as I don’t know what I did to deserve the diagnosis, I also don’t know what I did to deserve the miracle of healing. It is humbling, to say the least.

Sadness and Love: These two are uniquely tied. There are people at church that truly care about me, that I have known my entire life. They sent me cards/texts/messages that conveyed their love and hope and faith, and I cherish each one. But what I can’t get out of my memory is the looks on their faces during those early days. They would see me and immediately their countenance would change. I could see their pity, and I still hate that. I could see their sadness and concern, and I am still overwhelmed by it.

Anonymity: Sometimes I think it would be great to just meet all new people who didn’t know and who wouldn’t make me feel all these emotions. Do people know I will never be the same again and would the people I grew up with be disappointed by that? Is that a failure, not getting back to your old self? Does everyone see us through the lens of the cancer Audrey had? Of that time in our lives. Do I? I think maybe I do and that frustrates me.

Did you notice that I didn’t say “Audrey’s cancer?” That was purposeful. I don’t want to speak anything negative or even slightly acknowledge in my speech that the cancer is Audrey’s. It most definitely is not. Call it superstitious. Or call it the southern Pentecostal belief that words have power and can work for good or bad. Call it neurotic or silly or sad. I believe it’s a bit of all of it, and frankly if I read somewhere that a daily ritual of hopping on one leg while singing Mary Had A Little Lamb had worked to keep someone else’s child cancer-free I would probably do that, too, just in case.

I am thinking about going back to church, because I need to be fed. I am thinking about going back to church because Ella and Audrey are missing out on something that is an important and fun part of childhood. I am thinking about going back to church because Ella is asking more and more questions I need help answering. I am thinking about going back to church because I think this range of emotions may never go away, or at the very least will not get better without exposure over time. I am thinking about going back to church because I can now give support and not just take support. I am thinking about going back to church simply because I miss it. I am thinking about going back to church because I’ve realized that there’s not a point at which I will be my old self again, and that that’s not a weakness.

I am sharing this simply to keep myself honest. I am going back to church and am not going to wimp out.

Thankful I did not wimp out – I am stronger and better and happier because of it. Thankful that God did not – and will never – give up on me. Thankful that Audrey is a cancer survivor. Thankful for all the people who supported us and loved on us during those early years – many of whom I still get to hug on Sundays (they must be tired of waiting for me to get to real adulthood). Thankful that my girls both love Jesus, and for all the people in their village who teach them and guide them and pray for them. Thankful for the beautiful historical building that is my church and for the beautiful group of people who are my church – whether we are gathered together in person or online, the words of Matthew always come to mind: “where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there among them.”

January 20, 2022
It’s All Of Us, Too

It’s complicated.

How I feel about Biden and Afghanistan and the world is complicated.

Biden really screwed up.

Why are we still even in a country that we invaded because we wanted Bin Laden? We got him a decade ago. No answer anyone gives me will suffice because the truth is – outside of heated moments just after 9/11 when I really wanted retribution – I have always kind-of been an isolationist, against our country’s crusade-ish tendencies and angered by the thought that young men and women go off to fight in wars that aren’t ever about what politicians say they are about. I support our troops 100 percent. The people who get to send them out to do their bidding? Not so much.

Every president in my lifetime, maybe every president ever, has blood on their hands. The blood of 13 soldiers and hundreds of Afghans this week, the blood in Beirut in the 1980s, and the blood of the people living under the Shah we put back in power in the 1960s, and the blood of Kansans during their own civil war in the 1850s, and even the blood of a half a million U.S. citizens who’ve died from a virus we lied about and didn’t protect people from.

It’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback. I don’t have all the information and I’ve never had to make decisions of such magnitude, but it just seems like we could have done some things differently. I don’t think we could have pulled such a large number of people out of any turmoil-filled country without casualties, but that doesn’t make what happened this week feel like less of a fail. Colin Powell quoted No battle plan survives contact with the enemy and perhaps that’s why we’re here today – failure to accurately predict and plan for all possible outcomes.

It’s heartbreaking, learning the stories of these soldiers – kids really – who were in a land very far away, helping to save the lives of strangers and trying to protect themselves and their comrades. It was all the more poignant for me this week because we were traveling around DC seeing federal buildings and museums, monuments and memorials. I was in my element – a history buff talking about the accomplishments or inventions of great Americans, some well-known and some unknown, in ways that I hoped would be interesting at 16 and 10. But as I looked down the wall of names etched in granite at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, it struck me that those were the names of my Dad’s comrades. And that he was a young soldier once, in a land very far away.

“All of these people died?” Ella said. Yes, tens of thousands of people. It was a long war and it was the first televised war, where the American people had a small glimpse into what happens when they send their sons off to war. There was a lot of conflict about whether or not we should stay the course but one of the lessons I hope we learned is that it doesn’t matter whether or not we agree with the decisions of our leaders, we must always always always support the young people they send out into the world – who dedicate years of their lives to serving our country and our people, and who are committed to freedom for people everywhere.

The girls at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Just like everyone else on social media, I know pretty much nothing about what really happened this week and all the factors that led us to this point. And yet still I can’t shake the feeling that we could have done better. Maybe I’m all up in my feelings, but Biden really screwed up this exit. I won’t defend someone I voted for simply because I don’t want to admit that my candidate isn’t perfect or I was wrong. Our votes are complicated, or at least mine sometimes are. The truth is I’d vote for Biden again, given the same choices – my vote was for health care and against a man who abuses women. But I don’t feel good about it today.

As I stood at the wall staring at tens of thousands of names, I said a quick prayer for all the people who loved them. Their lives were forever changed – because of the decisions of politicians, because of evil in the world, and even because of the ballots cast by voters. I believe all of us will one day be accountable for our votes (or lack of participation in that regard), and I feel that responsibility today. It’s not just presidents who have blood on their hands – it’s all of us, too.

Help us, O God, to remember that we are Americans, united not by race, or religion, or blood, but to our commitment to freedom and justice for all. When we focus on ourselves, when we fight each other, when we forget you: Forgive us. When we presume that our greatness and our prosperity is ours alone: Forgive us. When we fail to treat our fellow human beings and all the earth with the respect that they deserve: Forgive us. And as we face these difficult days ahead, may we have a new birth of clarity in our aims, responsibility in our actions, humility in our approaches, and civility in our attitudes, even when we differ. Help us to share, to serve, and to seek the common good of all. May all people of goodwill today join together to work for a more just, a more healthy, and a more prosperous nation and a peaceful planet. And may we never forget that one day all nations, and all people, will stand accountable before you. ~ Rick Warren, 2009

August 28, 2021