Today is hard. My friends are tired and worn out. I wish I had more to give them. I wish the world was a kinder place. I wish there were more people radically committed to loving all of the people.

I have grown up in religious circles and I know that folks inside and outside of the church like to talk about loving people, accepting people, and a 1000 variations of that. The idea gets rebranded every few years with a different emphasis. But for those of us doing the work, it looks the same year after year. It looks like exhaustion, humility, a little anger, and a dim hope.

It looks like listening to everyone. At least, everyone who is a person. That does not include the media, corporations, and politicians. Sometimes a politician is a person and sometimes they aren't. It's complicated. But when something happens in this crazy world, the first place I go is to the individual. There are people telling their story for profit and I don't have time for them. There are also people telling someone else's story for them. They don't always mean to do it. They often mean well, but they aren't helping. Then there are people who are telling their story because they are trying to make sense of the world, trying to connect, and trying to survive. Those are my people. They will always be my people. In every crisis and change. In the mundane days. Loving people means listening to them.

And with that comes believing people about their experiences. None of us get it all right. But it is a true spiritual discipline to remind ourselves that the skepticism that we feel about social media, the news, and our governments should not drive us to doubt our neighbor and the people around us in the same way as FOX or CNN. We need to lean in to the people around us instead of away. Even though they are different. Even though they disagree or think about things in a completely different way. Even though none of us are always good or right. Even though it is SO MUCH WORK to understand and to be understood. 

In recent years, the people around me have noticed that I don't let certain things slide as easily as I used to. That I have strong opinions about race, gender, mental health and so on. I'm a white, straight, Christian, mostly healthy, definitely able, woman. It's hard to feel like I have a right to talk about the difficulties that others face. It's hard to feel like I have the right to stay silent too. And there's the rub. My friends are tired. My people are tired. They are tired of teaching and advocating and trying to explain that these tiny instances of racism, classism, sexism, ableism etc. all add up, weigh them down, isolate them, and communicate that they are less than. Less worthy, less welcome, less human.

Loving them means sharing the load. Loving them means shedding the comfort of my silence. Loving them means saying "putting down any people group lowers all of us". Loving them means letting them rest while I do my best to explain what I've learned from living life with them, from the stories they've shared, and from believing them about their experiences.

I've been accused of caring more about these ideas of equality than people. What I think that person meant was that I care about strangers as much as my own family. And I won't apologize for that.

I have been listening to people's stories for long enough to know that we all have more in common than we have been lead to believe. Strangers and the vulnerable occupy a sacred role in Scripture, along with our enemies. It's easy to take care of our family. You know what's hard? Telling your family that the way they talk about someone is hurtful, that the way they look at a people group is misinformed and damaging, that they haven't been listening to the person but to the noise from the media about people like that. Risking the respect of your close network for those who don't have a community is scary.

But I am convinced that this is the radical love displayed in the Gospel and that it is my task to keep trying to to build a bigger table until everyone that Christ loves can sit together. But we must be people who will come to a table set for diversity that is both foreign and familiar. That seats me and the other side by side. We are only as welcome as the least of us. We are only as strong as the least of us. We are only as loving as we are to the least of us.

Matthew 5:46-47; James 1:26-2:26; Hebrews 13:1-3