George of Sylvania

  • Welcome

    This is my personal website. The thoughts here reflect my own, and not those of my employers, unless they overlap.

    The title of the blog came from Sister Joanne Frania, a spiritual director I saw for a short time. During one of our sessions, I was lamenting about identity in ministry. During it, she blurted out, “what do you expect, you’re just George, George of Sylvania.” At some point I knew I’d restart a blog and I had found the perfect title.

    This is a space where I’ll drop ideas about religion, poetry, or whatever thing I’m writing about. Mostly religion though, as I work in a professional religious setting.

    A little about me, best I am infrequent blogger, and it’s been that way for years. It will most likely stay that way. I’m a suburban dad that lives in an affluent part of Northwest Ohio, with his family and three cats. Privilege is something I recognize and try to use mine to support others.

    Black lives matter.

    Trans lives matter.

    LGBTQIA+ support is not a negotiation.

    Abortion is healthcare.

    God loves everyone, no exceptions.

    I’m George of Sylvania and this is my dumping ground, welcome.

  • This is ameriKKKa

    A few days ago a friend of mine posted an image on social media from the Department of Homeland Security that I thought had to have been photoshopped. Forgetting the people who are leading this country right now, I thought to myself, there is no way this could be real. To my horror and surprise it was real, and it is not fantastic. The image is of a presumably white protestant church with the words, “One Homeland, Under God” with a social media caption reading:

    But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.

    – 2 Peter 3:18

    May our nation continue to be guided by the light of our Savior.

    This is white christian nationalism in action.

    This is the type of radical and blasphemous theology that leads to the horrific murders of our siblings.

    Yesterday Mansour Kaziah, Nader Awad, and Amin Abdullah were murdered in a house of worship. Abdullah was acting as the security that made it possible for this tragedy to not have been worse. As of the time of writing, only one of the murderers has been identified, both were teenagers. Hate speech was written on their guns. Allegedly there is a suicide note that contains white supremacist ideology.

    Last week in my post Ignorance Personified, I wrote about the kkk in America, and the fact that the leaders currently in power are still chasing those ideologies. For over a decade (and longer) the vilification of Islam, and the rampant Islamophobia that has been pushed by american leadership has been shameful.

    While walking up to a podium at a press conference, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria was confronted by an incredible woman who yelled, “This is a fucking direct result of your leadership! Your leadership! Our Muslim brothers and sisters have been talking to you for how long? You had to fucking listen to them, Todd, just like you did with ICE… Zionist propaganda. And you’ll keep doing it as long as it lines your fcking pockets, won’t it? Show something! Worse approval rating than a fascist dictator with shit in his pants.” She went on to say a few more things and you can watch the video here.

    Christian national theology is killing our siblings.

    I know I have been beating the drum of ripping out white supremacy wherever it takes root, and believe me I am tired of having to say it. But until all of us are free from this poisoned fruit, none of us will be free from it.

    You can support the community and families of those affected by the nonsensical violence by donating here.

    Grace and peace my friends.

  • Not Soon Enough

    There are some books that stick with you long after they are finished and one of my 25 of 2025 books, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, by Omar El Akkad is one of them.

    From the National Book Foundation:

    On October 25, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” This tweet has been viewed more than 10 million times.

    As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human—not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is a chronicle of that painful realization, a moral grappling with what it means, as a citizen of the U.S., as a father, to carve out some sense of possibility in a time of carnage.

    The way that El Akkad writes, it is like you are walking with him through what is going on, and parts of this book still stick in my mind over a year after reading. El Akkad provides a harsh look at the reality of what has happened to Palestinians, and everyone needs to read this. The title of this post, “Not Soon Enough” comes from my personal view of not understanding the long history of apartheid, and other horrors Palestinians have endured.

    Something I want to be very clear about is, the country of Israel that has been around since 1948, Judaism, and the ancient Israel of the Christian and Jewish Bibles, are not the same thing. I have spent most of my professional life in ministry working to weed out the anti semitic remarks, theology, and general view that Christians I cross paths with have unknowingly adopted. This is true in my writing, and academic pursuits as well.

    I state this because what is happening in Gaza, and Palestine in general is atrocious, and the fact that my tax dollars are helping fund this genocide makes my stomach turn. If like me, you had spent time in the group of believing that supporting Israel was not only the most moral thing, but what God required of you, but no longer feel that way, this book is for you. Like I said previously, it is not an easy read, but one worth doing.

    10/10, you can purchase it here.

  • Ignorance Personified

    In 1966, my father was walking with my grandfather from their car to one of the libraries in Dayton Ohio. While they were in route, my dad looked over and saw a group of people he didn’t recognize. So he asked my grandfather, “dad, why are those guys walkin’ around in nothin’ but their bed sheets?” The way my dad tells it, my grandfather shook his head and responded with, “Mike, that right there, is ignorance personified.” As the story goes, the white supremacists were showing up in hopes to intimidate the Dayton School Board to cave to their wishes. I was in early high school or late junior high when my dad told me about this, and it something I will never forget.

    How my grandfather described the ku klux klan in those two words has latched on to my soul, and has shaped my implicit bias when it comes to white supremacy. Anyone who thinks they are better than someone else, that has to “other” a fellow human based on the color of their skin is ignorant. However this description doesn’t pertain to just white supremacy, but it is a great encapsulation of the concept of bullies as a whole.

    It is not hyperbolic to say that we are living in a time where white supremacy is being enforced in ways two generations have not seen, but if we had only listened to black women and had taken them seriously it could all have been avoided.

    Like most decent people, I have been feeling a mix of speechlessness, disgust, and dismay with how this current administration has carried itself for the past year and a half (as well as the first four years of it). Not because I am shocked by anything they have done, for over a decade those of us who have been paying attention and doing the work have been told we are overreacting. So while sitting with this puddle of emotions I started a new book that is uncomfortably relevant. Last year my wife read, A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them, penned by Timothy Egan, she told me I needed to pick it up, and I finally did. It is about the rise of the KKK in the early 20th century focused on Indiana, and it touches on how it shaped membership, American policy, and the murder of a young woman. Yesterday I was reading when I stumbled upon this little section:

    To the major victories of outlawing alcohol, disenfranchising black voters, and closing the door on most new immigrants ,the klan now hoped to set up a parallel government in the capital just as it had done in Indiana. The other goal was to prohibit the teaching of evolution.

    The klan backed a law in Tennessee that made it a crime for a public school teacher to explain any theory that denies the story of divine creation of man as taught in the Bible. The fear was that if evolution were accepted it would imply that all people have a common origin.

    For the klan that meant that there was no fundamental difference from themselves and the race they pretend to despise.

    I added the underlining in the quote above, but today people are still pushing klan ideology. None of this should be surprising, considering the moral majority and religious right were born out of the racist gripe of not wanting to integrate schools. Vouchers, and school of choice became the voice of this version of christanity before Roe v. Wade would be a glimmer in their eye. For myself, this is part of what makes the voter suppression and rights stripped over the past few weeks so hard to stomach.

    In 2021 Georgia passed SB 202, which changed early voting, and prohibited anyone other than poll workers from handing out water, which is what many of us call voter suppression. As mentioned previously, the past week we have seen what remained of the Voter Rights Act of 1965 stripped away. In that time, the states that originally voted against this act, have responded quickly with suppressing black voices by gerrymandering new maps. All decent people watching this happen in real time are reminded how deep white supremacy runs, and how much it ruins. What our current Supreme Court has done to this country is not only disgusting, but continues to prove white supremacy is alive and well in the halls of “justice.”

    However, upholding white supremacy in these halls is nothing new, so why are we surprised when they come after the rights of people of color. The truth is, what is happening now is breaking norms we naively thought would not be undone. Did we worry about it? Absolutely. Did white people take seriously the concerns of people of color when it came to what was on the line for the past decade? Absolutely not. For over a year we have been living with the domestic terrorism that the federal government has sanctioned when it comes to the disappearance of citizens and migrantes. It reminded me of another passage from Egan’s book:

    The klan would be a major force at the national conventions, no one onboard… doubted that the future of the country belonged to an organization of shrouded men clinging to the past.

    The fight over the last decade from the “America First” crowd has led us to this moment where the lives of our neighbors have been disrupted and destroyed by men in masks who are being led by others clinging to the past. Egan wrote in his book about the state elections that occured in just barely 100 years ago in Indiana that resulted in, “hundreds of small ways these [klan] loyalists could make life worse for those who were not white Protestants.” For years we have been seeing people say the quiet part out loud, and in reading that line I was disgusted by how relevant it still is. What is happening in Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, and other southern strongholds to suppress black and people of color’s voice right now is exactly why we must not remain silent.

    The reintroduction of Jim Crow voting districts, and the stripping of rights by christian nationalists, and others, does not reflect the values of Jesus. Groups like this do not want Jesus, because to follow him means to seek out the other and care for them. To be a good neighbor does not mean to have a mirror image next door, it is to welcome the diversity that makes all of us better. It is to say no to ignorance and yes to curiosity. It also means to practice the paradox of tolerance that Karl Popper made famous. This act where your society remains intolerant of the intolerant, by stamping out hate speech or othering, and uprooting white supremacy wherever it tries to flourish.

    I know that I am not the only one who feels the weight sitting on their chest about what is happening right now in the United States, and it feels like nothing can be done. We are not alone, and we can do many good things together, we just need to be brave and curious. This is a time to make our voices heard, one way is to follow this link to 5 Calls. It will take you to their, “Protect the Right to Vote and Fair Representation” page where you can call your representatives and ask them to support fair voting rights. Get friends together and turn it into a party, you’d be surprised to find out how much easier it is to do this with a crowd of those you love and trust.

    My friends, it is up to us to carry on this work, and I am asking you to do your part in this peacemaking. Non-violence resistance has worked in the past, and it will continue to work if we remain steadfast and curious.

    Grace and peace my friends.

  • Wake Up Sheeple

    Hey, I am back after a bit of some time off. It was nice to take a short break from writing a few times a week and to observe Lent, Easter, and a bit of vacation without having to worry about this.

    Now I’m back on my bullcrap, and today’s post is brought to you by John 10:1-10:

    John 10:1-10

    Jesus said, “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

    So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

    The parable found here should give us pause and time to reflect because of how relevant Jesus’ teachings continue to be in our world. While I am sure we can all think of times when we have been involved in a conversation or situation where one of us is thinking, “there is no way this sibling in Christ reads the same Bible I do.” This has happened to me probably more times in the past 11 years than the rest of my life combined.

    As I was reading and preparing for my noonday prayer service, two verses struck me which are, “the sheep follow him because they know his voice” and “they will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.”

    For a few moments I just sat staring out the window, because all I could think of was, “this is the gap of the Gospel, and people who are stuck on the idea that it is woke propaganda.“

    In an interview with NPR in 2023, Russell Moore, Editor and Chief of Christianity Today stated the following on the crisis of Christianity in these churches:

    It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically in their preaching— “turn the other cheek” —[and] to have someone come up after to say, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?” And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios when the pastor would say, “I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ” would not be, “I apologize.” The response would be, “Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.” And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus are subversive to us, I think we’re in a crisis.

    In his book, John’s Wisdom, theologian Ben Witherington writes:

    John 10 it appears, in fact that we are dealing with two parabolic images that have been combined here, one having to do with Jesus ads the good shepherd, and one having to do with Jesus as the door, or gate, for the sheep. (pg. 187)

    Witherington goes on to write that:

    It should be seen from the general tone of this material that this teaching is directed to a situation where there are competing claims about who is the true leader and way for God’s people…

    …this material does not suggest a purely defensive and in-house situation (a flock is being raided by outsiders, but suggests competition for the same sheep and a situation where Jesus and his followers are still reaching out for “other sheep” not of his fold. In other words, it will not do to interpret this material without due attention to its missionary overtones. (pg. 188)

    Christian nationalism has ripped the mask off of the nice white gospel in a way that has not been seen or at least felt this public, since the Civil Rights era. When John writes about the confusion of the listeners, it is not so hard to believe how true it rings almost 2,000 years later.

    When we are wake up to accepting our place in God’s family, we are called to give up some things, usually revolving around our ego. Not that we cannot use our talents, but I am thinking more about how we feel when there is a clear line drawn between us and the “other.” How we give into the class system that keeps our collective humanity separated, and the need and want to drive down “others.”

    My friends, may we realize that there is a better way, and that as we shepherd others, we continue to not hop gates, but to seek learning and understanding from the one who reminds us to love our neighbors as ourselves.

    Grace and peace my friends.

  • Nuclear War: A Scenario

    This post is brought to you by our current executive branch, the country committing ongoing genocide in Palestine, and the trouble they are causing in the Arab World.

    In 2024 I read the book Hiroshima by John Hersey which was the first time in possibly 20 plus years I had spent reading about World War Two. When I was in junior high and high school, I was obsessed with that period of history, whether it was through video games, movies, or television, it was all I liked to study. My grandfather served in the Pacific Theater on the U.S.S. Drayton as a Signalman, which heavily influenced my decision to join the military after I graduated high school.

    Spending time looking through his photo scrapbook that included his initiation into the Domain of Neptunus Rex as he crossed the equator left me with a romanticized version of this history. He had been dead for a while and all I had to go on was what he left behind, and I constantly ignored my dad telling me that he (my grandfather) would have taken my dad to their fishing cabin in Canada. Thank God I have lived long enough to be ashamed of supporting our military industrial complex, and the war crimes they have been committing.

    Anyway, back to the book.

    In this almost second by second account of what happens if the US were to experience and respond to a nuclear bomb, it really makes you sick with how much can go wrong in such a short time. The fragility around this, and the fragility of what it takes to maintain our nuclear arsenal displays how truly weak our leaders are to result to this kind of destruction. In short:

    These weapons should not exist.

    The infrastructure around these weapons should not exist.

    The people leading the country right now should never have access to this kind of destructive power.

    These are things I have believed for a few years, but, this book will cement it in the long run.

    10/10, this should be a must read for everyone.

  • From a Certain Point of View

    The title of the blog post this week comes from the incredible Obi-Wan Kenobi after he is dropping the bombshell of Darth Vader being Luke’s father in Return of the Jedi. That concept is what came to mind while reading The Bible Told Them So: How Southern Evangelicals Fought to Preserve White Supremacy by J. Russell Hawkins because of how this book approaches this time in history. I have never read anything from the intentional perspective of the oppressors in such an unpolished and disturbing way, and I mean that as a compliment.

    Similar to how Jesus and John Wayne should be required reading, The Bible Told Them So ought to be as well. To be honest, I am shocked that the author is on staff at Indiana Wesleyan University. To be candid, yes I was put on academic suspension from their while attending online from 2009-2012; however, for how evangelicals and conservatives have acted for over a decade, it would seem like this book shouldn’t see the light of day. But Dr. Hawkins delivers this ugly history in a way only a professor can. Some of it is hard to read because of the academic setting (it’s an Oxford Press book for crying out loud), but the subject.

    Chapter One, Not in Our Church, focuses on the “congregational backlash to Brown v. Board of Education. Hawkins recounts the story of Rev. Fred T. Laughton on the third anniversary of his time at First Baptist Church in Orangeburg South Carolina. A location where General Sherman had made his way to, and burned quite a bit of, leaving the church alone. However, 30 years after the war, a statue of a confederate solider was erected across the street from the church. The white women who were behind the statue invited former confederate Col. James Armstrong to speak, where he said this statue would be a reminder of all that was lost, and to hold on to those memories.

    It is no wonder in this environment 64 years later, that things did not go well for Rev. Laughon.

    Laughon’s inability to help his white parishioners harmonize their Christian faith with the idea of racial equality was related both consciously and unconsciously to the congregation’s veneration of the Lost Cause. Just as James Armstrong had hoped the monument’s dedication in 1893, the Confederate statue had helped sustain notions about white supremacy and the supposed proper racial order in southern society.

    -pg. 17

    Like most books about the birth of the evangelical movement, you find out about how baked racism is into it, after all, charter christian schools, and school choice, were started for a reason. Hint: it wasn’t because Jerry Falwell Sr. had a better sense of educational values, it was the racism.

    If you haven’t, I recommend spending some time focusing on the cover of this book, and what appear to be three generations of people protesting integration. Anyone who has been around kids from birth to growth can tell you they aren’t born racist. Like most things, bigotry is taught, caught, and sought. It is so ingrained in who some people are they will claim not to see color, but have no problem telling racist jokes.

    Last month was Black History month, and I need every white person reading this blog to buy this book and read it. Then, do the work that is making you feel uncomfortable as you finish it. After that, go read more by Black authors about the horrific things we have done to the Black community, because it is bad.

    Anyway, 10/10 highly recommend this book.

    Grace and peace friends.

  • “She’s dead, wrapped in plastic.”

    Today is a good day for coffee and donuts.

    36 years ago this year, Twin Peaks, was released and the mystery of who killed Laura Palmer was all anyone could talk about. I was a late comer to the show since at the time, I was three years old, but the world of David Lynch is something I am still inspired by.

    The weird and quirky world of Twin Peaks the original series, then Twin Peaks: The Return could not be more different, yet clearly a part of the same space. I remember sitting every week with my headphones in, glued to my desktop staying up too late for work the next day to get pure Lynch and this world into my veins. It was nothing short of exciting, especially when in Part 8 of The Return aired. Black and white, nuclear bomb testing, the birth of Bob, and everything else blew my mind.

    Now, that said, there are some problematic things that happen in this series, and The Return. How Lynch exploits the violence of women, how he treats the first woman of color in the series, all of it is an issue. So if you have not seen it, just prepare yourself for that.

    When we moved to Toledo in March of 2020, I did an entire re-watch due to the pandemic, and one day my wife and I were driving around. She pointed out a restraint named Twin Peaks and I was really excited, and though it was odd to have a David Lynch TV show themed restaurant here of all places, and by a mall?

    Just imagine my bitter disappointment when I found out it is not related at all.

    In the times we live right now, inject some joy into your life. Like Special Agent Dale Cooper said, “Everyday, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it, don’t wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt in a men’s store, a cat nap in your office chair, or two hot cups of black coffee.” Today, my gift to myself is enjoying this work, and taking a break from a post about the horrors of the world, and how we must cling to hope and love. More on that later of course.

    Just watch out for the potential fish in the percolator.

    Grace and peace friends.

  • Ring Shout by P. Déjlí Clark

    Book 3 of my 25 of 2025 is here.

    I love the horror genre, not the brutal torture and gore of the sake of it, but the jump scare, ghosts, monsters, and whatever in between. In the past few years have really delved into the bookish side. To be honest, I am not sure where the love of it comes from, maybe it was watching Ghostbusters as a toddler?

    Could it have been going to the library with my grandmother and spending all my time looking through the Crestwood House Monster Series books. A series of books where the covers were black and white photos of the Universal Monster movies that captivated my eyes and mind at a young age. Either way, this has been my genre of choice when I find that I am bored, or looking for something familiar.

    It should be no surprise knowing this about me, that when I saw the cover for, Ring Shout, by P. Déjlí Clark, I was captivated and knew this would be on my top of the year list. If like me, you were incredibly angry at the cancellation of Lovecraft Country on HBO, this will fill a sort of gap for now.

    From Clark’s website:

    D. W. Griffith is a sorcerer, and The Birth of a Nation is a spell that drew upon the darkest thoughts and wishes from the heart of America. Now, rising in power and prominence, the Klan has a plot to unleash Hell on Earth.

    Luckily, Maryse Boudreaux has a magic sword and a head full of tales. When she’s not running bootleg whiskey through Prohibition Georgia, she’s fighting monsters she calls “Ku Kluxes.” She’s damn good at it, too. But to confront this ongoing evil, she must journey between worlds to face otherworldly nightmares—and her own demons. Together with a foul-mouthed sharpshooter and a Harlem Hellfighter, Maryse sets out to save a world from the hate that would consume it.

    American history is rich with the brutal treatment of people of color at the hands of white people, and while Clark does some really creative work with the revamp of the klan, it builds on the true and horrific history. The white legacy is of treating Black and people of color in this country would make you vomit if we taught the truth in school. That is also why this book is so important to read. After all it is easy to ignore that the United States and the way we treated Indigenous Peoples was an inspiration to Hitler and how he treated European Jewish people.

    Not only is the concept brilliant, but the way that Clark weaves many genre’s is so well done. There are so many twists and turns in this book, you really need to pay attention while reading it.

    Highly recommend this one if you are a fan of the genre, even if you’re not, get uncomfortable and read it.

    At least purchase a copy.

  • It is Never Too Late

    Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, and thus begins the season of Lent. It is with this in mind, I’d like to share with you something I wrote last year. On January 29th of 2025, I riffed off of First They Came by Lutheran Pastor Martin Neimöller. It is probably something you are familiar with, whether your know it or not, it reads as follows:

    First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

    Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

    Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

    Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

    Pastor Neimöller’s words have been echoed in many places since he wrote it. It is one of those quotes that I thought I knew the history of, but in reality applied my own ideologies to. I was surprised to find out when I was reading up on Pastor Neimöller that he was a supporter of the early n*zi party. Not only that, but, he had remained silent on how the party operated early on because they were going after the left and leftists. He didn’t feel the need to speak up about it because he did not agree with their politics.

    This may sound or feel familiar for some of you, if not now, perhaps in the future.

    It was not until Hitler came for the Lutheran Church in Germany did Neimöller start to wake up. He had helped formed a group called the, Emergency Pastor’s Group, to help confront some of these issues. Because of the state of Germany, it was believed by the group that the protestant faith could only be compromised that someone could be in the n*zi party. The two were not compatible.

    This may sound or feel familiar for some of you, if not now, perhaps in the future.

    As we stared down the start of a second Trump administration, and the ramp up of the familiar hatred that defined his first term, I sat and Neimöller’s words. It isn’t perfect but it captured my fear of the moment, a fear that has continued to be re-enforced.

    First they came for the undocumented and other immigrants. We didn’t speak out because we thought our privilege protected us.


    Then they came for those on the margins. We didn’t speak out because we thought our privilege protected us.

    Then they came for the LGBTQIA+ community. We didn’t speak out because we thought our privilege protected us.


    Then they came for the allies. WE didn’t speak out because we thought our privilege protected us.

    The last year has seen undocumented, legal, and American citizens who are immigrants disappeared by ICE.

    The last year has seen the criminalization of our unhoused and friends via the Ending Crime and Disorder on American Streets executive order.

    The last year has seen the almost complete dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion, not to mention the roll back of civil rights era legislation has been nothing short of monstrous.

    The last year has seen false information about our trans siblings being spoken from the highest ranks of government, the attempt to throw out Obergefell v. Hodges, and many more targeted acts of legislation state and nationwide.

    My friends, it is time, like Pastor Neimöller, it is time to find your voice. With tomorrow being Ash Wednesday, and the start of Lent, I pray you meditate on this.

    If you are interested you can read more about him here.

    Grace and peace.

  • The Salt and Light in Your Own Darkness

    The Gospel of Matthew’s recount of the infamous sermon that Jesus gives is my favorite. While it shows up most notably in Luke as well, it is in Matthew that I find my connection. It may be because when I first started reading the Christian Bible, I started at what I thought was the beginning, the New Testament, which starts with drum roll… the Gospel of Matthew.

    I only started referring to people as “salt of the earth” consistently a few years ago. One of my co-workers says it all the time about people she adores and has stuck through osmosis. These are the people that make me want to be a better, and more consistent presence in my life. It is such a weird tension to hold right now, trying to be the salt of the earth as the world is falling apart around us, and I mean that, almost quite literally.

    I am not just talking about the genocide still happening in Gaza, Palestine, Sudan, Myanmar, the Uyghurs in China, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The political violence we have seen in America over the past 10 years continues to rise to a crescendo with ICE abducting people off the streets and disappearing them to what an Irish immigrant referred to as a modern-day concentration camp. Not to mention murders of Alex Pretti, Renee Nichole Good, Gerardo Lunas Campos, and Keith Porter.

    The fact that all of this has this has led into the newest 3.5 million documents of the Epstein files that have been released, with still millions of pages to go has been more than overwhelming. Jeffrey Epstein has had his hand in more things that have shaped the United States in the past decade than anyone outside of his circles could have imagined. And it is horrifying. Absolutely horrifying. The cache of information that has come out about what he, other celebrities, politicians, and wealthy people have done to children, if 5% is true, should be enough to make every decent person in this world cry out in terror. It has been so disturbing following this story, I almost took out the prayer in the Coventry Litany of Reconciliation that I updated which reads, “The lust which dishonors the bodies of men, women, non-binary, and children, God Forgive.”

    So, when I sit and think about all of this, a very small portion of what is happening in our world right now, to think of being the salt is a bit overwhelming. Something that has helped recently I found few weeks ago, when I was reading the Essential Writings of Brother Roger of Taizé. On page 33, I came across this quote of his,

    “… always keep in mind that you are advancing with [God] toward the light, even in the midst of your own darkness.”

    The light that we shine forth, that we are not to hide in the bushel is helping light my way in my own darkness. It is helping me remember that salt we are supposed to be isn’t table salt, it is, for me supposed to be course, course and in your face. It is the kind that is brought out by the kitchen and given table side. It is what you see sitting on top of your meal that bring a blast of flavor. It is the people who continue to do their good works in a time of despair, as if it is water off their back.

    It is seeing the weight of the world, and saying to yourself, I think I can bring some flavor to this bland story that keeps being repeated throughout history.

    It is the same example of Jesus bringing liberation, and hope to the masses of people who are being held in oppression by the state.

    It is the story we find ourselves in the midst of now.

    It is who we are called to be in this world, now more than ever.

    My friends, may you find the salt around you, and if you can’t, please remember that the salt may be you.