Roots: A Communal Journal

We watch television for many reasons. Sometimes, we watch it to escape. Or to feel a rush of adrenaline. Sometimes, we watch it to laugh. Other times, it helps us learn, or grieve, or remember. But sometimes, we watch it because it is a mirror on a screen. We see glimpses of ourselves through another reality. We pick up on threads that connect us to characters or stories. We tie those threads together to create tapestries of our lives - the little parts of us that make us whole. When we want television to act as our mirrors, it's even more important that what appears on those screens represents - even if only in little pieces at a time - the parts that make us who we are. So, when I see someone that looks like me on television, I jump at the opportunity to watch the movie or the show. I don't often care how good it is - I watch them because I think, in some small way, I'll find a mirror through the screen. I believe that I'm going to resonate with some part of...

I woke up this morning, made coffee — black and found myself envying the strawberries. They were all together in the bin sidled up against one another, oblivious to social distancing mandates, immune to pain, to grief, to loss. I moved on to another jealousy, this time of the clementine slices, peacefully curled into themselves, as if preparing to model for a still life painting. And don't get me started on the avocado— alone in the fruit bowl, but perfectly content browning with confidence, asking no permission of anyone but itself. None of them know what it is to feel uncertainty to risk everything for the right thing to be pummeled by doubt in the morning and haunted by regret in the evening. None of them know the wretched breath of our demons, the salty sting of shame, the helplessness, the fear, the darkness. Then I remember, what inanimate fruit cannot see— the sunlight wiggling its fingers through the window, the summer air, whooshing in f...

As this pandemic continues and its effects take a toll on our communities and collective morale, I feel a responsibility to spur fellow white American evangelical Christians away from the grotesque roleplay of the political martyr--a role I admit we have been trained in for at least two generations--so that we can mobilize to meet our neighbors' needs. Churches should be thinking creatively and compassionately about how to bring healing where there is suffering, and to do so with the confidence that we are welcoming the presence of Jesus each step of the way. I am more convinced than ever that the white American evangelical church has utterly forgotten cruciformity --meaning that we are a people who, as Jesus taught, deny ourselves and carry our crosses. Said differently, we are a  people shaped by the cross and its implications.  I fear we have forgotten this basic truth, and along the way, our imaginations shriveled up. We have become so consumed with obtaining ...

[ Photo Credit: JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images ] I think it is fair to say that many of these Lansing "protesters" have convinced themselves that they are the heroes of their own story. You can see it throughout their public statements—they are constitutional champions, protectors of patriotism, legends of liberty. They are, in their own stories, the difference between keeping and losing the republic. Of course, they're wrong. These "protesters" are throwing a very public temper tantrum. With their rifles and respiratory particles, they are recklessly endangering themselves, their comrades, and the brave public servants facing them nose-to-nose. And of course, they are flaunting their ever-apparent white privilege.  To be frank, this selfish and senseless superhero complex is the predictable result of how many of us white folks grow up. And if we (white people) want to confront this protest, we have to confront that reality.  Think abou...