Two Essential Readings For The Humanly Inhabitable World

Stealing a look at a smartphone screen or sitting down to check in on the wider world via other forms of available technology can feel like turning to face the spray of a broken fire hydrant of sadness and despair.

And yet, there are days when the get-fresh flow appears before us in two short pieces that can be read and meaningfully processed in under half an hour. I often err on the side of exaggeration, but I’m also persuaded that, were enough people to read and share and discuss the two following pieces with people they know who vouch for, vote for, and donate money to bad faith operators among us, it would move the needle.

Do you know someone who has, in recent years, developed a habit of intoning the word “woke” and the acronym “CRT” as if they’ve been suddenly possessed by an unclean spirit? I do. I also have a possible way forward. Lisa Sharon Harper offers a report on where we’ve been and where we’re headed. She anticipates that a number of people who believe they love Jesus will try to deride and even ban her new book, Fortune: How Race Broke My Family & the World & How To Repair It All. I think she’s right. By reflecting on her own life, her research, and the effort to malign people determined to rightly recall the history of the present, she effectively de-weaponizes the words “Critical Race Theory.” Listen: “CRT is not being taught in grade schools and is rarely taught anywhere outside of law schools. That said, these legal scholars crafted a theory proven true by the lives and stories of African American families.” Please read and consider her piece before reading any further.

And then there’s Mollie Wilson O’Reilly, Editor-at-large at Commonweal. She recently stepped forward with a profoundly courageous, personal essay called, “When Abortion Isn’t Abortion.” I live in a state in which Governor Bill Lee, a parent of my former students, appears to be on the verge of signing an abortion bounty law. Her nuanced account of the clear and present threats to women housed within pro-life rhetoric is awfully timely. Please share it with anyone you know who seems to mistake their desire to bring armed force against women and doctors for virtue. Here too, language serves to de-weaponize language, expanding the space of the talkaboutable.

Small, meaningful actions add up to great good wherever two or more are gathered. Wherever two or more are gathered, relationship! Wherever two or more are gathered, politics!

Thank you for tuning in.