Speak Truth in Love

I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change, I am changing the things I cannot accept. - Angela Davis.

I have this quote posted on my mirror so I see it every day. It’s become my new motto.

I am no longer willing to sit on the sidelines.

I believe one of my spiritual gifts is discernment, but I have often ignored it.

I’m not ignoring it anymore. When something feels wrong in my spirit, I am moved to do something about it. Say something. Speak out. Act. Protest. Stir up some good trouble. (Sidenote: One of my bucket list items is to get arrested for causing good trouble...)

I do not always know what if anything comes from my efforts. Sometimes it’s like raging against a storm. Or like pebbles thrown into the rapids.

And sometimes, it leads to negative consequences.

My speaking out against the Christian support of our previous president, for example, lost me my church, relationships within my family, and many friends. But it also found me a new community of believers who were in a similar boat as I was.

My speaking out for the rights of asylum seekers at our border may not have changed any policies on a national level, but did inspire a couple of local movements and brought more people in to the cause.

Lately, I’ve been working in the area of trauma and child abuse prevention. And I often wonder the impact I am having, if any at all. Prevention work is hard to measure. But there have been a few things.

I had a concern about the way a program was being delivered. I didn’t let it rest, and the course corrected. I am immensely proud of that.

And then someone on Facebook wrote a post about refugees that didn't sit well with me. I wrote a comment, very polite, giving information that seemed to be lacking about refugees and what it means to be one. And the individual apologized, and course corrected. She took her other post down and she posted another, asking her friends, how can we as a community support local refugees?

It seems like such a little thing. But it’s not.

I didn’t used to be that girl. I have often been very passive, a wallflower, flying under the radar, not wanting to cause waves or draw attention of any kind. I have often been the one to hold back my opinions for fear they wouldn’t be accepted.

I have to push myself to speak up.

I am bolder in writing than I am in person. My written voice is much braver than my speaking voice.

My goal is to speak from a place of discernment, from a place of love and compassion and gentle correction.

I do not always succeed.

In fact, I fear I often fail.

There is a lot of hurt here, still, and anger, and disappointment, and confusion. And sometimes I speak too harshly or too rashly. Sometimes I speak from those places of hurt, rather than of love.

A random person from the internet commented that my last post about how we make it hard to find Jesus was too critical. Specifically, he said, "You are too critical of the Christian Church." 

Maybe.

After all, I know there are churches out there who haven't sold their souls to the right-wing party. I know there are churches - and individual believers - who are committed to living out Jesus' words of loving our neighbor and welcoming the stranger and making a difference in their communities. I've been to some of those churches, too. I've met some of those Christians.

There are even members of the right-wing party I admire. Like Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney and others who have tried to save the party from the far-right extremists.

I don't mean to demonize everyone.

However... 

The Christian Church is supposed to be the salt of the earth and a light on a hill. People are supposed to know us by our love. We are supposed to be a caring, generous community, set apart and distinctive, ushering in His Kingdom on Earth.

And yet, overall, we are failing.

We are failing to be a witness. We are failing to show the world who Jesus is. We are failing to love.

We are known for hate. We are known for judgement. We are known for supporting Trump and right-wing politics and guns and racist systems. We are known for our ignorance of how old our planet is and how we are killing it rather than taking care of it. We are known for refusing service to people in the LGBTQ+ community and for book banning and for being anti-masks and anti-vaccines and for editing history.

In this 2021 poll, 55% of non-religious people polled believed Christians are hypocritical. Only 12% believed Christians are compassionate. 

In this one, only 21% of non-religious people saw the Church in a positive light. The majority of people polled said churches are "detached" from real-life issues, and are known more for what they're against, than what they are for.

We aren't known for our love. We aren't known for our service. 

There's a saying, one bad apple ruins the bushel. We have many, many bad apples.

Until the Church separates herself from the bad apples by declaring loud and clear through our words and deeds "This is not who we are" ... I'm not sure we will ever recover.

It may not make me any friends, but I will continue to speak out.

May God help me to do so in love and compassion.