Roots: A Communal Journal

[  Photo by Joshua A. Bickel / Columbus Dispatch via USA TODAY NETWORK ] As I process the COVID-19 protests that have been occurring all around the nation, I cannot help but reflect on the "rights" for which these protests are taking place. I am convinced that there is a part of this nation that has come to treasure a certain pathology around individual rights--well, at least for certain people. And while that pathology stemmed from genuinely good ideas, over time, it became poisoned by other toxic aims and mutated into an obsessive, greedy, destructive individualism that cannot see or value interdependent community. It is why virtually any time we are forced to answer for the ways our personal behaviors impact that community, so many of us instinctively answer with fragility, anger, terror, and cries for "freedom!". And I know all of this because I come from that community.  When you combine that pathology with a church that has, for over half a cent...

"All I can point to is the collective trembling of the world; the mass anxiety simmering within us; the seemingly endless cycle of grief that story after story has brought; the fear that can shapeshift so quickly to anger; and the protectiveness of a fragile hope that seems to evade us one day and triumph the next ...I am reminded that our hope is not fragile. It runs deep and wide and everlasting. It is not afraid. It is already victorious. Our hope is in a God who is much, much greater than even a global pandemic. A God who told the sun to rise this morning and to set last night. A God who, even now, mourns with us and restores us." - Mango, Love in the Time of Corona -- Thank you for this post. It was encouraging, profound, and also convicting.  When I read your post* I was reminded about how the kind of "simmering" instability you describe is more common for more people than I might like to acknowledge. If I am honest, this broken world's norm is...

[ The "National Memorial for Peace and Justice" located in Montgomery, AL ]   -- Note: In January, I  posted  what amounted to a public confrontation with my with experience growing up as a White American Evangelical, and more specifically, the anti-Christian, violent impulses which I believe animate much of that community's public and political behavior. It was an attempt to kick-off a series of self-examinations on how my upbringing has shaped my development, tainted my values, and affected even my most basic understandings of the Christian faith. This post is a continuation of that "confrontation" and examination--it was also my answer when I was asked recently what it means to be "white". I welcome your perspectives and insight. -- To talk about whiteness, I feel as though I have to begin with what Chanequa Walker-Barnes describes as the "great moral injury" at the heart of whiteness (see her book I Bring the Voices of My Peo...

Face masks are now ubiquitous wherever we go - you'll rarely see someone at the grocery store, post office, or other public places without one. These masks are physical barriers to protect ourselves from others' germs, and to protect others from ours. But for many Asian Americans, we've had to contend with whether we'd put on figurative masks. Many of us have held in tension whether to amplify or hide our identity - to protect ourselves not from others' germs, but from their bigotry.  First, two things are important to keep in mind. One: this isn't a story about the experience of every Asian American. It's a tension I feel myself. It may not be one that other Asian Americans feel. Two: I don't believe one group's hardship should ever diminish that of the other. Racism and racially-tinged bigotry are very different hardships from contracting COVID-19. I don't believe highlighting the hardship from discrimination should hide the fact that tho...

Every soul upon the restless sea, hold on Every heart that yearns for what will be, hold on Every creature groaning from the curse, peace Every corner of this wild earth, peace Lord come as the fire or come as the rain O let there be life, life here again -"Wild Earth" by Young Oceans Four weeks of social distancing, and this is the first time I'm sitting down to write. It's a little nerve-wracking, honestly -- who knows what my heart and mind will unearth after four weeks of talking to screens and walls? We are all finding ourselves in new ways: taking longer walks, spending more time with our homes & families, cooking, resting, and binge-watching strange TV shows we would have never considered pre-COVID. Yesterday was the first day the gravity of this season fully hit me. I've been privileged to avoid many of the physical inconveniences these circumstances have brought on to others, and generally, have "leaned in" to the ad...