with many amens

Kathy Escobar

with embarrassment for how rarely i post on facebook about something i feel strongly about (aka, how often i read something, think about posting it, and don't)

“One of the easiest ways to discredit another Christian is to label their questions, concerns, or calls for justice as too “divisive.”
Obviously, there are issues of privilege at play here. Because the reality is, some folks benefit from the status quo, and it is in their best interest to characterize every challenge to the status quo as wholly negative and a threat to Christian unity. This makes it difficult for those who perceive inequity within the status quo to challenge it without being labeled as troublemakers out to make Jesus look bad.

…

I don’t like being divisive. Believe me.

But I don’t like being silenced either.

…

This Body is still growing, so there will be growing pains.

But if we love one another through these growing pains, “then we will no longer be infants…instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”

I suspect Paul combined this call for the Body’s unity with an acknowledgement of the Body’s diversity because he knew that unity isn’t the same as uniformity.

We’re not called to be alike; we’re called to love.

We’re not called to agree; we’re called to love.

We’re not even called to get along all the time; we’re called to love each other as brothers and sisters, as people united in one baptism, one communion, one adoption.

Maybe we need these differences to be animated, to be alive, to mature. Maybe friction isn’t a sign of decay, but of growth.

…

And when it comes to injustice, a far more important question to me than “What will the world think if they see us disagreeing?” is “What will the world think if they don’t?””
— Rachel Held Evans

with thanks to the someone who nudged

just an attempt to start compiling the collage of other people’s writings, doings, and imagings that are coloring one woman’s learning and life process.

just a small form of output from someone who needed a nudge to go beyond the habit of devouring input, input, input all the time.

just a little love nudge to the world, to the ones the world screws over, and to the ones agitating for social justice, for God’s dreams, all around the world.