1. Part 1

2. Part 2

3. Part 3

4. Part 4

What’s up, .

I know it’s technically your turn to respond in our correspondence, but something happened today and we should talk about it.

We read 1 Thessalonians 2:14-20 in noon chapel and I had to walk out.

And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last!

“I had to walk out” can mean a lot of things depending on who’s saying it. For me, it wasn’t a crisis of faith or a bad week. There is a history of blood attached to those words, and my body made the interpretive decision before my head caught up. I wonder how it looked to see Lana walk out both laughing and crying at the same time.

Verses 15 and 16 stack an extraordinary set of indictments against “the Jews”: killing Jesus and the prophets, expelling the apostles, displeasing God, and being “hostile to all people.” That last phrase, πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις ἐναντίον (pasin anthrōpois enantíon), echoes antisemitic tropes later used by Tacitus to frame Jews as cosmic enemies of humanity. If all of that is not enough, this passage ends with “the wrath has come upon them at last.”

Of course, we can go through mental gymnastics like the interpolation argument that Birger Pearson and others have made. Interpolation, for the readers who are unaware, is a passage that scholars believe was inserted into a text by a later editor or copyist, rather than written by the original author. In this case, it states that verses 14-16 are a non-Pauline addition written after 70 CE, because “the wrath has come” reads retrospectively, the tone contradicts Paul’s anguished tenderness toward his own people in Romans 9-11, and the manuscript tradition cannot definitively settle when these verses entered the text. (I think I ironically made a Paul-length sentence there, ha.) If the interpolation holds, Paul didn’t write this. I’m going to be real with you, Tripp, that would be clarifying, in the way that learning a wound was accidental rather than intentional is clarifying, without actually healing anything.

There’s also the intra-Jewish polemic reading, which I take seriously. Paul was himself a Jew writing in a moment of intra-community conflict, and the genre of fierce denunciation between Jews is well attested. This is especially apparent when we look at the Qumran discovery, specifically in ‘The Community Scroll’ and ‘the War Scroll,’ where the authors mince no words when they attack their fellow Jews. They call them “sons of darkness” and even “the lot of Belial.” Calling this antisemitism may apply a modern category to an ancient intra-Jewish dispute. I can hold that argument in one hand and still not be able to go back into the room with the other.

My gripe with all of this is that none of that matters. Meaning comes from how a text functions within the whole web of a community’s life, and not from authorial intent. Lindbeck would argue that doctrine shapes formation at a pre-reflective level, and people do not consciously choose what the text instills in them. So doctrine functions as a grammar for us to understand text and just like our every day grammar, we don’t think about it, we just use it.

Let me say this with a less theological bent. Our mental models predetermine what the text means. We have receipts for this: language like this was used as the basis for the antisemitic rhetoric in the works of historian Tacitus, it was also used during the Rhineland massacres, and again… how can we forget… in 1939-1945.

It has authorized contempt, violence, and the deaths of Jewish people across centuries of European Christian history. An appeal to first-century grammar cannot launder the twentieth-century function, because the grammar changed! The text was re-grammaticalized inside a system where Jews were a subordinated out-group rather than co-religionists in dispute, and that is the text we now have.

I think even more damning, the hearers do not neutralize the grammar by knowing the interpolation theory, because the grammar operates below conscious thought, which is precisely what Lindbeck told us. People are formed by the grammar they inhabit, not by the footnotes. Requiring graduate-level textual criticism to undo the formation a text is doing in real time is not a pastoral burden we can reasonably place on anyone.

Of course, Lindbeck also didn’t have a great answer for what to do when the grammar itself is corrupted. He was much better at describing how grammar works than at adjudicating when one needs to be broken. For that you’d need someone like Willie Jennings on the racially deformed Christian imagination, or Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s hermeneutics of suspicion, doing work Lindbeck left undone.

So what do we do?

I can’t answer that for you, Tripp. But what I can offer is three questions intersectional theology demands that we ask.

1. Who is being harmed by this text’s continued use, and are they in the room?

   Not who was harmed historically, but who bears the weight of it now and whether the people with the most standing to answer that question have any power over whether it stays in the lectionary.

2. Whose suffering is being centered, and whose is being instrumentalized to explain it?

   In this passage, Gentile Christian suffering is the subject. Jewish behavior is the explanatory frame. An intersectional reading asks who gets to be the subject of their own story and who gets flattened into a plot device in someone else’s.

3. What is this text forming in people who can’t be expected to bring a commentary with them to the pew?

   Drawing directly from Lindbeck, if religious language shapes people at a pre-reflective level, the question is what it does to ordinary people absorbing it as sacred, authoritative, and read aloud in a worship context.

An intersectional reading teaches us that the rhetoric of “hostile to all” has a pattern. This kind of accusation, that a minority group is a threat to the whole of humanity, is the template for racialized scapegoating. You see identical logic applied to Jewish communities in medieval Europe, to Black communities in America, to queer people in Christian nationalist discourse. Reading it intersectionally means recognizing the structure of the argument as dangerous and independent of its specific target.

If you take a liberationist hermeneutic seriously, you have to be willing to say: some texts in the canon have been, and continue to be, instruments of oppression, and reading them “charitably” without naming that is itself an act of political violence.

We could of course just ditch it from the lectionary. But I like what said when I talked to him about this. Just ditching it and refusing to look at it is the same as the bigotry Christians display when they conveniently leave out the verses that demand that we welcome the immigrants.

I think another way forward is to name the harm the text has done and continues to do. This gives us the opportunity to add liturgy to our lectionary and it allows us to repent.

“Creator, we confess that the text that we are about to read has been used to justify hate in the name of Jesus…” How would that prayer end, Tripp?

With love,

Lana

1. Part 1

2. Part 2

3. Part 3

Good evening, Tripp.

I hope that you’ve had at least one quiet moment this week that was just yours. I worry about you every now and then, especially when I see a post dated at 4 AM. We all need sleep!

There are two things that I want to touch on:

1. The importance of your lived experience when it comes to liturgy.

2. Clarifying intersectionality, or at least what I mean by it.

I’ve been sitting with your letter since it came in, and I want to say first that your deep understanding of liturgy is what I think these letters between you and me need. You can reach into the body of Christian prayer and pull out language that is already communal and confessional and also aimed at something bigger than the two of us writing to each other. I’m always surprised how you can pull one of those liturgical prayers out of a proverbial hat. Next thing I would like to see is how your understanding of those prayers can be converted into our community of being ‘a small city upon a hill’. Not in the John Winthrop sense, but in a communal sense.

Which brings me to the Casa De Sol Prayer that you mentioned. I have noticed that we often use that prayer at the end of the service at Richmond Hill, and I love it. Although I do wonder why a Canadian/Scottish scholar used “Casa Del Sol” instead of “Taigh na Grèine.”

Hold that thought, I’m just now finding out that John Philip Newell served as a Companion Theologian for the American Spirituality Center of Casa Del Sol at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico. So it should be “The Prayer of Jesus that we pray at Casa Del Sol,” not “The Casa del Sol Prayer of Jesus.” Tripp, did you tell your readers already that I have pretty severe ASD and that you run into these brain farts of mine on a regular basis? I digress.

Back to the prayer. When I pray that prayer at Richmond Hill, I feel moved. I recognize the undeniable inspiration of the Lord’s Prayer, and I see the necessity of changing the language. Jesus’s context is just different from ours. To just copy and paste what Jesus prayed feels… wrong. If the prayer were immutable, wouldn’t Jesus just pray “Hear, O Israel?” I say this because I can already dream up the angry comments, calling me a heretic for changing Jesus’s words. But Jesus’s words were culturally tainted and inevitably affected by the mental models that gave even Jesus an edge of misogyny.

Can we get to a place where we’re comfortable saying that out loud? I mean, if God came down and incarnated into the body of Jesus, I have to believe that Jesus was fully human with all the consequences that come with that. It means that Jesus probably didn’t know right away that he was an incarnate God. It means that he didn’t use special tricks to make his life easier… that would be cheating, right? It also means that he had the mental models of every person in that culture and would be capable of sin. I know that most will disagree with my last assertion, but I’m ok with that.

Now into the necessity of precision when it comes to the usage of the word intersectional.

You used the word intersectional in a few places in your letter, and I think we need to be more careful with it. Not because you used it wrong in some academic sense, but because intersectionality is a term I use with a specific meaning in my own writing, and I think our readers deserve that same precision here.

Intersectionality, as Kimberlé Crenshaw named it, and as I use it, describes what happens when someone holds multiple marginalized identities at once. The way that being trans and a person of color is not simply “trans + person of color” added together, but something distinct that neither category fully accounts for.

For example, a bi-racial person who is also trans is intersectional; their experience of racism and transphobia compound in ways that neither “this is about race” nor “this is about gender” fully captures. But two privileges held by the same person don’t produce an intersectional experience because they just produce advantage at multiple axes. The term was designed to name a specific kind of erasure that single-axis thinking (fighting racism or fighting sexism) can’t fully encompass.

So when you write that “new beginnings are intersectional,” or that “all of our privileges, our sins, our identities are intersectional,” I think I understand what you’re reaching for. Do you mean something like: it’s all connected, it’s all complex, none of it is separable? Because that is absolutely true but also not quite my working definition of intersectionality. A person or a liberation framework can be intersectional. But our privileges, taken together, are not intersectional. They’re just... multiple.

When intersectionality becomes a word for everything overlapping, it loses the thing that makes the term useful. If we stretch it to include the intersection of privilege and sin and identity generally, we risk making it yet another abstraction layer. It will just become a warm, inclusive-sounding word that gestures at complexity without doing the work of naming whose complexity, and at what cost.

So, I want to sit with your title for a moment. I love what you’re trying to say with Confessing the Intersectional Body of Christ. I believe Christ’s body held real margins like being Jewish under Roman occupation, being poor, being associated with the disreputable and touching the untouchable. But “intersectional” as a universal claim of intersectionality of the proverbial body of Christ moves in the opposite direction from where we need to go.

This of course also touches on the need for precision when we use Christianese words. In this context, is the body of Christ the believers, his actual body, or both? Regardless, it will change the meaning of your entire piece.

Which brings me back to Richmond Hill. You said it: we are always in conflict, whether we know it or not. And I think the liturgy you brought into this letter, as gorgeous as it is, can function like all beautiful liturgy: it can summon us to the work, or it can substitute for the work. So that leaves me wondering about how we can prevent that from happening. Can we prevent that from happening?

It makes me think about the dude you mentioned, Ion Bria, and his concept of the “liturgy after the liturgy.” His argument was that the Divine Liturgy doesn’t end when the service does because the dismissal, ”Go in peace,” is not a conclusion; it’s a commission. I have to sit with that for a bit because this means that the Eucharist is incomplete until it’s lived out in the world. It means that worship shapes the ethics; what happens at the altar has to continue in the street.

I really want to believe what Ion said. But we have said “go in peace” for a long time and yet here we are… still struggling to do the work. Do we just admit defeat and ditch the commissioning? Do we stubbornly hold on to it? They both feel like… meh. I would love to hear your thoughts on it because I want to know how we can move beyond creedal and confessional.

As always, with love and a little pushback,

Lana

Last Trans Day of Visibility I preached a sermon to a group of people that was mostly white and mostly not queer. It felt very vulnerable, especially because I have the strong feeling that most people in this group consider themselves quite progressive. Ironically, this has been one of the more conservative places that I’ve spoken since coming out. Knowing the composition of the people and my apprehension to even speak led to this sermon. I wanted to share this with the rest of you because I will be referring to it quite a lot.

I would love feedback, my biggest struggle is that as someone with autism, many of these topic are my special interests. Which also means that I don’t often hear feedback on the core propositions. But part of my worldview is that my brain should be open source, i.e. it should be open to revisions, new versions, and a communal effort of improvement.

If you prefer to watch it:

OPENING

Early in my transition there was one day that I felt particularly feminine. I just woke up that way and I was feeling it. I put on my make up, sprayed perfume, had cute shorts on and slid on my wedges. My confidence was noticeable because when I later went to the grocery store with my kids I was greeted left and right. A nice “how you’re doing ma’am” here or a “you look amazing” there. It didn’t feel like the day could get any better but then I noticed a guy moving in the same patterns as me. I was at the produce aisle and he kept on creeping closer. I figured we were just looking at the same vegetables. But when I was at the frozen food aisle, the same guy was there and when I moved to the bread aisle, he was there to. This guy was following me! I quickly walked to the checkout line and figured he’d give up but he b-lined towards me and I could feel his breath on my neck. I quickly checked out and basically ran to the car. Remember, my kids were there.

When I arrived home I explained the whole story to Kim and she just held me and let me cry. I remember this moment so vividly because it was the first time I got targeted by someone. I felt disgusted and defiled.

Later that week I took my son on a playdate at Lewis Ginter and the other mom asked me how I was doing. I told her my experience and how horrible it was. Her response was not what I expected. She covered her mouth and let a small squeak out. I kinda felt like a small laugh. I asked her “what’s going on” and she looked at me with kind and concerned eyes and said “I’m so so sorry that you had to go through this Lana, and also, Welcome to womanhood”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Both, actually.

Our text today is Mark 7, verse 24.

The Syrophoenician woman asked Jesus to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 He said to her, “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and to throw it to the dogs.” 28 She answered, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” 29Then he said to her, “Because you said this, you may go. The demon has left your daughter.” 30 She went home and found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

Coming out taught me something I was not prepared for.

I had spent forty years in the world as a man. An intersectional man, yes, with all the complications there in, but a man. I thought I had some sense of what women’s lives were like.

I was embarrassingly wrong.

MOVEMENT 1: ABOUT WOMANHOOD

The grocery store was just the beginning.

One day, I was teaching about Intersectionality. I explained who Kimberly Crenshaw was, the woman who coined the term first, and made a point to explain to people that women face injustice and black women face injustice squared because their social location is on the intersection of blackness and womanhood. One white trans woman said, “I feel too much. I feel like I can’t make my voice heard because I’m white,” I explained to her that a. She’s a trans woman and she has been dismissed too much, and that women, even white women, have a disproportionate amount of scrutiny to go through every single day. She too, was facing injustice squared

One man in the group halted me there and said, “No, white women need to be quiet and then went on to explain that the term intersectionality was actually coined by a black legal scholar, and went further to explain to the group what intersectionality means.

You know, the thing I just taught. In the class I was teaching.

When I shared this story with Kim, I explained that I felt very uncomfortable during that exchange and that there was a sense of injustice I couldn’t explain. Kim said, “You’ve been mansplained.”

Oh my everything… THAT’S HOW IT FEELS?

Or how about the time that I watched my son swim at the Y and a guy sat behind me on the bleachers with legs on either side of me. I looked in panic at my wife and she told me to “go get water” and explained later to me that he was manspreading.

But not just in public spaces. Here at Richmond Hill as well. One day at work, a clergied retreatant came in and he, Sam, Tom, and I all went up the elevator. He introduced himself joyfully to the rest of the group but gave me a side handshake without even looking my way.

My point is

I thought I had understood. But I had never once felt a man’s breath on the back of my neck. Even women with significant privilege navigate a world that was not designed for them. Coming out didn’t just change my gender. It changed my reality.

So here’s what that means.

I spent years advocating for women. And I still couldn’t feel the texture of their lives until I lived it myself.

So I want to ask, gently, of the men in the room: if a closeted trans woman still couldn’t imagine it... How could you?

MOVEMENT 2: ABOUT TRANSNESS

Trans women carry something that most cis folks don’t.

I spent forty years being expected to fulfill male roles. And every single time I fulfilled one of those roles, something in me died.

By the time I came out, I was — and this is not an exaggeration — basically on life support.

And my body knew it.

But my body was also trying to find its way home long before I had language for it. There were glimpses: The day my grandmother let me wear a dress. The girls in my foster home who did my makeup. My best friend Anne, who just treated me like one of the girls. Every one of those moments was a crumb from a table I wasn’t supposed to be sitting at yet.

However, now that I’m seated my Instagram fills up with messages. Some are just vomit emojis. Some are religious: “What an abomination. You were never a pastor, but a deceitful jackal in disguise to blaspheme scripture and to mislead those whose are still on milk.” And some — I am not making this up — say: “Make the world a safer place for children they don’t need to be involved in the trans community bring back Hitler.”

And it is not just strangers behind screens. In Kansas, presenting a driver’s license with the wrong gender marker can lead to imprisonment. In Idaho, using the wrong bathroom can too. The current Attorney General has directed that organizations holding what she calls a “radical gender ideology” be labeled domestic terrorist organizations.

This is what trans visibility costs.

Most cis folks don’t know what it is to have spent a lifetime grieving a self they were never allowed to be. Or to carry that grief stored in your actual body. Or to open Instagram and find someone invoking Hitler because you exist.

I am not asking cis folks to feel guilty. I am asking the same thing I asked men: pause before assuming you know my story.

Because the path to this pulpit ran through forty years of dying. And that is not a path most people have walked.

Which brings me back to the text. Because there’s a moment in Mark 7 that most of us rush past.

MOVEMENT 3: ABOUT JESUS

Jesus is exhausted. He’s just come from controversy — debates about purity, tradition, and what defiles a person. He slips across the border into Tyre, looking for rest.

And then she shows up.

A Greek woman. Syrophoenician. Gentile, female, foreign — she is carrying every strike against her that first-century Palestine could offer.

She asks for help. And Jesus says —, and I want us to really sit with this:

It is not right to take the children’s bread and to throw it to the dogs

He called her a dog.

There are centuries of theological gymnastics trying to soften this moment. Maybe he was testing her. Maybe it was a cultural idiom.

But I think the most honest reading — and the most beautiful — is the simplest one: Jesus didn’t see her. Not fully. Not yet. He approached her, shaped by his own social location: Jewish, male, with religious authority.

And notice: the text doesn’t even give her a name. She will change the direction of Jesus’s ministry, and we don’t even know what to call her.

She doesn’t leave. She says:

Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs

She teaches him. And Jesus — and this is what I love most about this story — listens.

The Son of God had his understanding of his own mission expanded by a woman whose name we were never given.

ENDING

I don’t have a solution tonight. I wish I did.

But I think the path forward looks something like what happened in that house in Tyre.

It looks like someone being willing to stop and say: “I haven’t fully seen you. Tell me your story.” And then actually listening.

Tonight marks the last day of Women’s History Month. It is also Trans Day of Visibility. And what I want to say to this community is this:

Visibility is not only about being seen. It is about doing the seeing. It is about letting the unnamed woman not yet at the table correct you. About letting the crumbs teach you something about the feast.

Not because it’s simple. But because Jesus did it.

For those who are allies, let this Trans Day of Visibility mark the beginning of the journey where you choose to see us.

And for those who are queer like me. Hold on a little more; this is not the end.

Amen.

After my sermon but before communion, we sang this song.

Dear ,

I’m doing pretty well. More like irrationally well because of this perfect weather. Winter doesn’t affect me too much because I thrive in the cold, but when spring hits, some hormones in my body make my world so rose-colored. Ask me again next time. The rest of the family is well too, besides some lingering coughs from winter colds and spring allergies. The state of my heart though… that’s a pretty deep question. Let’s just say it feels more settled now than it has been in a while. I feel like I’m going through some existential dread and, honestly, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

How about you? How are you, your family, and your heart?

You’re right that Richmond Hill could (could, not is, I’ll explain later) be a brave space, and I want to affirm that before I complicate it, because the complication only matters if the affirmation is real. But Richmond Hill is a complicated place. A while back I wrote about meeting God in the unexpected. I feel so deeply connected to the ground that Richmond Hill is built on. Every time I’m walking around there’s something magical that draws me in. That being said, working in person at such a... I don’t even know what to call it... deeply traditional place has its challenges. I’m pretty used to online hate and dismissal but receiving it in person hits different.

I was just talking about this with my friend Kiry. It is unreasonable to ask of me to advance trans, queer, women’s, and racial rights because those are all my intersections. And at the same time, who’s better equipped than someone like me to highlight the systemic injustice that’s happening to my staff and myself? It certainly is not my job, but I feel called to do it anyway.

Then this stat came out last week:

One observation is that between 2015 and 2025, America has become more hateful. Another observation is that I embody three of the top four categories. There is an innate danger to being on the front lines while holding so many identities. But if it weren’t for Marsha P. Johnson, Yuri Kochiyama, or Abraham Heschel, I wonder what place there would be for me here in America.

Marsha P. Johnson taught me that when the entire world is against you, mutual aid is our lifeline. Yuri Kochiyama taught me that even when the literal walls are closing in, we can still see hope. Abraham Heschel taught me that when other intersectional identities suffer, we too suffer.

However, I didn’t choose to enter a brave space. I am the brave space. My body is the thing the institution is practicing its bravery on. When I walk into the building, I feel a particular kind of attention that I have learned to recognize. It’s not hostile. It is almost never hostile. It is closer to watchful: the micro-adjustments people make while they figure out what to do with me, the slight recalculation before someone chooses a greeting. I am not being rejected. I am being processed, and that processing is its own form of labor, quieter than rejection but cumulatively just as heavy.

You said Richmond Hill has been closeted in its own way for decades, and I think you’re exactly right. But institutional closets operate differently from personal ones. When a person comes out, they take the risk onto themselves. When an institution comes out, the people inside it who are already visible become the evidence the institution points to as proof of its own progress. That can be honoring. It can also be a kind of exploitation, and the difference between the two depends entirely on whether the institution is willing to name its own sin alongside the visibility it’s claiming.

This is where your twelve-step framing hit me hardest. You’re right that it’s foundational to Richmond Hill’s theology. God rescues us from what we cannot rescue ourselves from, and the work begins with naming the specific thing that has us in its clutches. Richmond Hill did that around race, imperfectly and genuinely, and the imperfection didn’t disqualify the genuineness. The question is whether we can extend that same surrender to include our ignorance about queer bodies, about trans bodies, about my body specifically, while still holding our awkward relationship with race.

The sin we would need to confess isn’t primarily overt hostility. We don’t have much of that. The sin is something harder to name, which is why it persists. It is the studied not-knowing (mental models), the way that genuine warmth can coexist with a refusal to ask the questions that would make things uncomfortable. Richmond Hill has been very loving toward me in ways that stop just short of full recognition. I feel that gap. I believe God does too.

Your intersectionality point is the one I keep returning to. The twelve-step model for racism worked because it named one sin. But liberation is not singular. To name only racial sin while leaving gender, sexuality, and gender identity unnamed isn’t just incomplete; it is a form of the same structural avoidance we are trying to repent of. The mission of Richmond Hill is racial reconciliation, and I believe that with my whole heart, and I also believe that a liberation theology that cannot name my body is not yet finished. These are not competing truths. The second one is what the first one requires.

Richmond Hill’s willingness to make racial reconciliation its mission is only saying yes to a very long journey that will never end. It’s acknowledging that when it comes to black bodies, white people can never be the ones to lead that charge. While those white people are asked to step aside to make space for black bodies, they are also gently reminded that it is their job to openly protect those same black bodies.

Racial reconciliation is therefore implicitly connected to trans liberation, i.e., without racial reconciliation, there can’t be trans liberation.

I want to write the confession with you. Here is what I would want it to name: not just the sin of active bigotry, which is the easy one to confess and the least present among us, but the sin of performing welcome while protecting the structures that make welcome conditional. The sin of loving people in ways that stop just short of full recognition. The sin of letting the most visible people carry the institutional courage while the institution itself waits.

I do want to point out for our readers that when I use the term “sin,” I mean “missing the mark,” as in missing the mark of your destiny. Which can look different for every faith expression.

I like the bones of your prayer. I’m drawn to language that states that “we have denied your goodness in each other,” which directly speaks to the exclusion of bodies like mine. Excluding me from the table is excluding what God made.

I don’t like the idea that everyone can say the phrase “we repent the evil that enslaves us.” Chattel slavery was widespread in Indonesia until the 20th century and, according to walkfree.org, an estimated 1.8 million Indonesians still live in modern slavery. So I don’t know how I feel about people without a history of slavery or indentured servitude reciting those words. I’d be interested to hear what descendants of those enslaved in America have to say on this topic.

For those who are reading my work for the first time: I’m Indo. This means that my mother is Indonesian and my father is Dutch and white. Mixed-race Indonesians had a particularly interesting history of racial injustice as they always got grouped together with the oppressed. By the Dutch, we were seen as “exotic” and when the Japanese invaded Indonesia in WWII, Indos were placed in concentration camps together with native Dutch people.

I would also be interested to see what a merger of the confession of sin in Rite II would look like with the Episcopal confession that you posted. I especially like the phrase “by what we have done, and by what we have left undone,” which directly speaks to the mental models underlying the sin of exclusion.

Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.

In Judaism, we reserve part of our liturgy for the Amida. It’s a collection of 19 prayers that has a structure of 3 praise blessings, 13 requests, and 3 thanksgiving blessings. The sixth prayer is called “סְלַח לָנוּ” (S’lach Lanu). It states:

Forgive us our Father for we have sinned, 
pardon us our King for we have willfully transgressed, 
for You pardon and forgive. 
Blessed are You, O Lord, 
Who is gracious and ever willing to forgive.

Besides the gendered language, I like the explicit mention of our willful transgressions. In the same article you quoted, I make a point of saying that we are creating abstraction layers. We tend to vilify just one evil so we don’t have to look at the other atrocities we commit daily.

We chant “free Gaza” without chanting “Free Nagorno-Karabakh.” We demand an end to the mining of cobalt in the DRC without demanding an end to the mining of nickel in Indonesia. We criticize the use of AI in water units, while eating one beef patty emits as much CO₂ as tens of thousands of AI queries.

The problem is that we latch onto one objective evil (Gaza, DRC, or AI) and utilize that as an abstraction layer to distance ourselves from the other effects our lives have. When we put on eyeshadow with mica, little children die in the mines of Jharkhand and Bihar; when we water our lawns, communities go thirsty; and when we post this Substack, we devastate communities in Inner Mongolia.

Consistently acknowledging our willful transgressions is a hard prayer. It is also a genuine one.

With love,

Lana

I’ve been thinking about supply chains lately. Specifically, the rare earth mines in Inner Mongolia, the radioactive tailings ponds, and the communities living downstream from the cost of our smartphones. And somehow that thread pulled me all the way to trans athletes, AGI, and why perfectly reasonable people looked away during Nazi Germany.

Bear with me. What follows is quite literally a collection of my scattered thoughts in quick succession.

The Abstraction Layer Problem

We are extraordinarily good at living within systems that harm us without recognizing them at all. What modernity did was add abstraction layers, like supply chains, algorithms, and financial instruments, that make the systems harder to see.

When you hold a smartphone, you are holding the output of a system that includes radioactive waste, exploited labor, and geopolitical dependency on materials controlled by a small number of nation-states. We both know this, vaguely, and then we both keep scrolling.

The price we pay for a phone only works because enormous real costs have been offloaded onto ecosystems and communities that don’t have a political voice. The problem is the upstream of our choices.

And I just can’t stop thinking about how we built the upstream, keep building it, and mostly shrug.

On Being the Product

People have known for years that they are the product on platforms like Facebook and Google. For those who’ve been sleeping under a rock: we are not Meta’s clientèle; we are Meta’s product, and the advertisers are the true clientèle, which is not hidden information.

I used to think this was a failure of consumer education, but now I think it’s something else entirely. By the time the Faustian bargain was legible, Facebook was where your grandmother posted photos and Google was how you got anywhere. Exit costs became social costs. You weren’t just leaving a service; you were leaving a communications layer that had quietly become a load-bearing infrastructure for your actual relationships.

Network effects are deeply anti-innovative. They make it structurally irrational to adopt a better alternative if the people you need to reach are still on the incumbent platform. So we stay and the system grows more entrenched around our staying.

The AGI Displacement

The part of all this that genuinely keeps me up at night is the Artificial General Inteligence (AGI) question. People are afraid of AGI, specifically:

• A system that optimizes for its own goals rather than human flourishing

• A system that surveils and predicts human behavior at scale

• A system that concentrates power in ways that make democratic accountability impossible

• A system that humans become dependent on and cannot exit

And then they open Instagram and like my reels.

What we fear about AGI is already here, not as a general intelligence but as a collection of narrow ones. Recommendation algorithms that optimize for engagement over well-being. Financial systems that operate faster than human oversight can follow. Supply chains that have their own logic now, independent of any individual human decision. Platforms that have made themselves so structurally necessary that exit feels impossible.

We are afraid of the vivid science-fiction version of this problem while living quite contentedly inside the mundane, actual version.

Hannah Arendt’s observation about the banality of evil feels exactly right here: atrocity doesn’t require monsters, it requires bureaucrats, people doing their jobs, following procedures, and not asking the question that would make their lives harder.

The Sports Digression That Isn’t a Digression

As a trans woman, I want to use the ongoing panic about trans athletes as a case study in how systems think.

The stated concern is fairness in competition. However funding, nutrition, and coaching access all create advantages orders of magnitude larger than anything hormonal, and we don’t just tolerate those, we celebrate them as the American dream in action.

So the argument isn’t doing logical work; it’s doing identity-boundary work, and trans athletes became a face, a legible threat, onto which a pre-existing discomfort could be projected and organized around.

What would sport look like if we genuinely designed it for equity rather than just naturalizing existing biological variation? What if we organized competition differently, rather than by a gender binary that doesn’t actually map cleanly onto athletic advantage anyway?

We don’t ask this because asking it would reveal that the entire edifice of competitive sport is built on celebrating certain kinds of difference while pathologizing others. The system doesn’t want that question and so it produces a face instead, letting us debate the face rather than the architecture.

Systems generate faces to protect their load-bearing walls.

Why Good Arguments Make Things Worse

When information threatens a person’s identity or social belonging, the brain treats it as danger. This means that a perfectly constructed argument can actually increase entrenchment if it arrives before the relational groundwork is laid. Your good argument becomes training data for a better counter-argument.

Polarization understood this before the rest of us did, or rather, polarization is this, scaled and monetized. Platforms profit from the back-and-forth. Political identities organize around having an enemy. The righteous callout, the viral takedown, the perfectly devastating response are all inputs into a machine that doesn’t care who wins the individual exchange.

Which puts people like me, people whose existence is politically contested, who have real stakes in these arguments, and who are genuinely harmed by bad policy, in an impossible position. I either fight the way the system wants and feed it or I refuse to fight and lose altogether.

The Practice

I’ve been developing something I’m calling relational-first engagement. It’s less a strategy than a commitment, and the idea is simple even when it’s hard: relationship before argument, presence before performance, human before symbol.

Facts just land differently when they come from someone you trust and feel seen by. The sequence matters: connection first, then information. This is both kinder and neurologically more accurate about how minds actually change.

It also means refusing to let my opponents choose the frame. When someone wants to debate trans athletes, the move isn’t to win that debate on its terms but to gently expose that the terms themselves are doing the real work: I notice we’re talking about fairness in a pretty narrow way. Want to talk about what fairness actually means?

For those who know how IG growth works, this stunts my growth on platforms optimized for outrage. I’ve mostly made my peace with that.

What This Has To Do With Uncertainty

All of it, the supply chains, the AGI fear, the sports panic, the polarization machine, points toward the same underlying hunger: the need to resolve uncertainty into a stable system, and then defend that system against all evidence.

We build frames, the frames start serving themselves, and challenges to those frames get treated as existential threats rather than invitations.

The conservative and the progressive are both, at their worst, people who found an answer and stopped asking questions. And I say this as someone with strong convictions, strong enough that I live with real consequences for them. I’m arguing for something harder than spineless centrism: staying in the questions even after you’ve committed to action, holding your convictions and remaining genuinely open to being wrong about them.

This is a practice, not a position, and the moment you become comfortable with your discomfort, you’ve probably stopped practicing it.

I don’t know where this ends, and I think that’s the point.

We already live in the thing we fear, and the question isn’t whether the system will come for us; it already has, in forms we’ve mostly normalized. The question is whether we can stay human, relational, and genuinely curious within that reality, rather than harden into the mirror image of what opposes us.

I’m trying, some days better than others.

A while back, I was scrolling on YouTube, my poison of choice, and I came across a video by Ray Lau, a stand-up comedian. Immediately I felt a deep sting as I was watching this, can you see it too?

My mother is from Indonesia, as in she moved from Indonesia to the Netherlands in the 50s when she was little. Her mother was Indonesian, and her father was from Papua New Guinea by way of the Maluku Islands.

My father is a run-of-the-mill mixture of several European countries and is Jewish. Obviously, they were not European enough, though, because the Nazi’s came for my grandmother as well. She fortunately survived.

I’m also not Asian enough, according to this video. I literally cried after watching it, and I was reminded of a long conversation I had with about being Indo and the struggles that come with finding connection with my fellow Asians. I mean, no one doubts Henry Goulding being Asian, nor do I hear anyone doubt if Obama is black, while both of them have white parents.

Just because I don’t look a certain way, other people feel the need to tell me that I don’t belong. I’m either too white or not white enough. It’s a lose-lose situation.

That moment reminds me of Mark 7. Because the whole chapter is essentially one long argument about who gets to decide who’s clean enough to be at the table. And the answer Jesus eventually gives, after a woman who had no business being in the conversation forces it out of him, is a lot more radical than most Sunday school curricula would have you believe.

Pull up a chair. We have some things to talk about.

The Handwashing Police

Mark 7 opens with a delegation of Pharisees and scribes who have traveled all the way from Jerusalem to watch Jesus’s disciples eat lunch. And their complaint? The disciples didn’t wash their hands according to the tradition of the elders.

I want to be careful here, because anti-Semitic readings of this passage have done enormous damage and I refuse to add to that pile. The Pharisees weren’t petty bureaucrats making up rules to torture people. The purity codes were sophisticated, communally meaningful, and deeply tied to Jewish identity in the context of Roman occupation. Keeping yourself ritually distinct was, in many ways, an act of resistance.

What Jesus is actually pushing back on is something more specific: the weaponization of tradition to avoid accountability. He quotes Isaiah: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” And then he turns it around and catches the religious leaders in their own contradiction: they’ve found a way to use the korban law (dedicating your wealth to God) to avoid financially supporting elderly parents.

Don’t we see this all the time? “Lana, you can’t be gay here” while they don’t welcome the stranger. Or “Lana, speak out more against wars” as they invest their 401k in Palantir.

The issue isn’t tradition. The issue is when tradition becomes a wall that protects the powerful from having to reckon with the vulnerable. I’ve seen this pattern enough times that I could write a book about it. (Oh, wait.)

What Actually Makes You Unclean

After the confrontation, Jesus pulls the crowd aside and says something that, if you hear it with first-century ears, is genuinely scandalous: it’s not what goes into a person that defiles them. It’s what comes out.

On one level he’s talking about food, which is already pretty radical, since the dietary laws were central to Jewish identity. But Mark’s gospel is always doing more than one thing at once. The list Jesus gives of what defiles from within reads like a catalog of harm: “evil intentions, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.” (7:21-22)

Notice that this list is entirely about what you do to other people and who you choose to be. None of it is about what kind of body you have. None of it is about what you eat, who you love, or what gender you are.

I find it more than a little bit ironic that the church has spent centuries obsessing over bodies, what they eat, how they express sexuality, what gender they present, when the one time Jesus gives an actual list of what defiles a person, he doesn’t mention any of that. What defiles you is what you choose to do, particularly to the people around you.

Which makes it all the more ironic how so many people, Christians in particular, have so many opinions about my body. I’m a degenerate who has fallen to social contagion, and at the same time, I’m the mastermind of a trans agenda.

The Woman Who Changed Jesus’s Mind

Here’s where the chapter gets really interesting.

Jesus, having just finished a whole teaching about what doesn’t make someone unclean, gets up and travels to the region of Tyre, which is Gentile territory. He’s trying to stay under the radar: “When he went into a house, he did not want anyone to know.” (7:24 NET) Jesus needed a break, honestly. Who can blame him?

And immediately (because it’s Mark and immediately is Mark’s favorite word) a woman finds him. She’s described as a Syrophoenician Greek. She’s a Gentile woman in Roman-occupied territory with a daughter who has an unclean spirit, and she falls at Jesus’s feet and begs him to cast the demon out.

And Jesus says something that, at face value, is kind of awful: “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and to throw it to the dogs” (7:27 NET)

The “children” are Israel. She’s one of the “dogs.”

People have been tying themselves in theological knots trying to explain this away for centuries. Jesus was testing her faith, Jesus was using the word for a pet dog, not a feral dog, Jesus was just playing devil’s advocate. I want to sit with the discomfort a little longer than that.

This woman has three strikes against her in the social order of her time: she’s a woman, she’s a Gentile, and she’s coming to a Jewish rabbi with an audacious request. She is, by every metric that mattered to the people watching, on the outside of every table that counted. And Jesus’s initial response reflects the conventional wisdom of who gets the bread first.

And she doesn’t accept it.

“Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” (7:28 NET)

She doesn’t perform submission. She doesn’t apologize for her presence. She takes his own metaphor and she turns it: even in the world you’re describing, there is still something for me. And if there is still something for me, then give it to me.

Jesus changes his mind. “Because you said this, you may go. The demon has left your daughter.” (7:29 NET)

I don’t think we let this land enough. Jesus, in the middle of his own ministry, was confronted by a woman who arguably had no standing to confront him, and he listened to her and changed his response. His understanding of the scope of his mission expanded as a result of this encounter.

She taught him something.

Let’s be real here: her body was not something to be debated, just like my body is not debatable. Jesus, in his privilege, didn’t even see the value of helping this woman, just like a large chunk of the church doesn’t feel like serving me.

Be Opened

The chapter ends quietly. Jesus heals a man who can’t hear and has a speech impediment. “After Jesus took him aside privately, away from the crowd, he put his fingers in the man’s ears, and after spitting, he touched his tongue. Then he looked up to heaven and said with a sigh, “Ephphatha” (that is, “Be opened”)." (7:33-34 NET)

That word has stayed with me. Ephphatha. The Aramaic was preserved in the Greek text, I think, because it was too significant to translate away: Be opened. The author of Mark could have simply used the Koine term Διανοίχθητι, which is used in Luke's Emmaus road story ("their eyes were opened") and in Acts for Lydia's heart being "opened." It was preserved, I think, because it’s a beautiful word to say with a deep, deep sigh… Ephphatha.

After a whole chapter about who gets defined as clean or unclean, who gets a seat at the table, whose bread is whose, the chapter ends with Jesus privately, tenderly, opening the ears of someone who couldn’t hear and loosening the tongue of someone who couldn’t speak.

I think about all the people whose ears have been closed to them. Closed by doctrine, by shame, by the sheer exhaustion of fighting to be heard. I think about all the voices that have been bound by purity culture, by complementarianism, by the accumulated weight of being told their experience doesn’t count as theology.

Ephphatha. Be opened. This is not addressed to the person who can’t hear. It’s addressed to the situation. Be opened. Let this person hear. Let this person speak.

Some questions I’m sitting with

When have you been told, explicitly or implicitly, that the table wasn’t set for you? What did you do with that?

The Syrophoenician woman didn’t argue that the hierarchy was wrong. She worked within it and won anyway. What do you make of that as a strategy? Is it enough? Does it bother you?

If Jesus’s understanding of his mission could be expanded by an encounter with someone his tradition told him was outside, whose voice might be expanding your understanding right now? And are you listening?

What needs to be opened in you?

Next time in my Intersectional Commentary: Mark 8 — “Who do you say I am?” Peter gets it right and immediately gets it wrong, and Jesus says something about picking up a cross that nobody in the room is ready for.

It has occurred to me that the word "deconstruction" could have many different meanings. I wanted to write what I mean by deconstruction just so we’re all on the same page. I’m not here to give you a lecture on the history of Evangelical Deconstruction. So instead, I will give a short overview of where, I believe, said deconstruction originated.

From the 90’s till now

In the late 90’s, there were already some cracks visible within the church. I’d like to categorize this as disillusionment with the purity culture movement, a response to the Moral Majority movement, and maybe even the Emergent Church, led by people like Brian McLaren. However, this “emergent” movement wasn’t quite focused on deconstruction; I’d argue that they were focused on the reimagination of Christianity.

In the late 2000’s, a rapid decline in millennial church attendance occurred. It’s understandably tempting to look at the correlation between exposure/scandals and their exit. It was also the time the iPhone came out, and the internet became more accessible than ever. This may still not be quite deconstruction, but more a group of people actively leaving faith behind.

Fast forward to 2015 and a whole new picture starts to form. Annecodotally, the people who grew up evangelical and explained to me why they left the church said they did so because of Donald Trump, when evangelical identity became fused with political ideology. I remember vividly when I asked people like and why they moved away from their pastoral positions, and they both shared similar stories. When Donald Trump became president, they couldn’t cognitively stay evangelical. This group is different, though, from the previous group that simply left the church. This group looks more like the first group that is trying to reimagine a post-evangelical world, but does so by deconstructing their current beliefs and carefully putting together a faith that makes sense to them.

Of course, take what I wrote above with a grain of salt. It’s just my observation, and I find the Deconstruction movement fascinating and necessary for Christianity to survive.

So what do I mean with Deconstruction?

Those close to me know that I’m a fan of Derrida, so they will not be surprised by my definition of deconstruction. But a few words before I continue. I know that the terms are mostly unrelated and that we are nearing the homonym territory. But I can’t help but believe that the deconstruction movement started with similar beliefs as Derrida and slowly moved away to be the new arbiters of Christianity. I say this with the utmost respect to my interlocutors. I am truly inspired and deeply respect the leaders of the current deconstruction movement. But our paths are not the same. I would like to explain why, and I want to connect it with my, sometimes, an absurd quest towards ambiguity.

Ok, so what does Derrida mean by deconstruction, and how does it differ from evangelical deconstruction?

First things first

If evangelical deconstruction carefully takes apart the faith and puts it back together slowly. Derrida’s deconstruction is, in its simplest form, a strategy to stay critical. Where evangelicals seek to replace, Derrida simply aims to destabilize.

For Derrida, the paradigm of the world often relies on binary oppositions. One of my favorite examples is the concept of “equality.” Because equality exists, inequality must exist too, and any person with a moral compass would say “equality is better than inequality.” But Derrida disagrees. Not with the merits of equality over inequality, but with the concept that equality is always superior to inequality. Derrida argues that a teacher-pupil relationship or a parent-baby relationship is inherently unequal but nevertheless virtuous and just. His point is to lean into the other side of the binary, glean what can be true there, and live in its ambiguity. Although Derrida didn’t call it ambiguity, he used the terms Aporia and Différance.

I’m not trying to claim to supersede Derrida, I just prefer ambiguity because it captures enough of the essence of Aproria and Différance without replacing them completely.

Aporia can be best translated as an impasse. For example, in order to execute justice, you have to be a rule follower, but sometimes you have to be a rule breaker to be just. Practically, undocumented immigrants are illegal in the US without due process, but it would be unjust to just throw them out, right? Derrida argues that impasse moments occur often in everyone’s life and that one’s opinion or even decision can’t possibly be fully grounded and stand on its own.

Différance is essentially a merger of “to differ” and “to defer.” I’m so sorry to my fellow Derrida fans. I know fully well that I’m butchering and oversimplifying things, but this will have to do. So différance is a combination of distinction and postponement, i.e., meaning only exists because of the difference with other words, and therefore the true self bearing the meaning of a word never arrives and is in eternal postponement.

Easy right? 🤭

In order to understand the word “faith,” we have to be satisfied with what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean doubt, for example, but we need the word doubt in order to reach a temporary understanding of what faith means.

How would Derrida’s Deconstruction approach Evangelicalism?

So I thought it would be fun to let Derrida loose on evangelicalism in order to explain my dissonance with the modern term. What pressure points would Derrida find?

The first pressure point would be sola scriptura and the authority of the text. Evangelicalism puts enormous weight on Scripture being clear, self-interpreting, and directly accessible — but Derrida’s entire career was an argument that no text is self-interpreting. Meaning is always deferred, always dependent on a chain of other signs, contexts, and interpretive traditions. The evangelical claim to “just read what it says” is itself a reading which is shaped by tradition, community, and theological inheritance. But the framework requires suppressing that fact. The structure needs the myth of immediacy to function, but the myth is exactly what close reading dissolves.

The second would be the center. What evangelicalism places as the fixed, transcendent point that organizes everything else. For most evangelical theology, this is something like: the inerrant Bible as a transparent window onto the mind of God. Derrida would call this a “transcendental signified,” a meaning that supposedly stands outside the play of language and grounds it. But his argument is that no such anchor exists outside the system of signs. Even “God says X” is a human sentence, transmitted through human language, translated across millennia, interpreted within communities. The proposed center is already inside the play it was supposed to stabilize.

Third, he’d examine the binary oppositions on which evangelicalism depends: saved/unsaved, believer/heretic, orthodoxy/apostasy, sacred/secular. Derrida consistently showed that these oppositions are never clean. The subordinated term is always contaminating the privileged one. The heretic is required to define the orthodox. The unsaved are necessary to the soteriological drama. The secular keeps bleeding into the sacred in ways the structure must manage through constant boundary work. So for Derrida, deconstruction doesn’t flip the binary; it shows the binary was never stable to start with.

Modern evangelical deconstruction often follows a very un-Derridian path: people exit one structure (evangelical certainty) and arrive at another (progressive certainty). The structure of binary opposition and the desire for a stable center are reproduced, just with different content. Derrida would find that deeply unsurprising and would probably say the work isn’t done until you’re willing to live without the replacement center too, which is genuinely harder and more vertiginous than most deconstruction narratives allow.

So where do I stand?

So no, I don’t agree with modern evangelical deconstruction. Mostly because many of the new progressives, who have previously colonized the conservative spaces, are now colonizing the progressive spaces with their newfound binaries.

As I wrote above, living without a center is arguably harder. Take my own life: I’m Jewish by birth, grew up in a Pentecostal church, pastored a conservative evangelical church, and will be confirmed in the Episcopal church in May.

The irony isn’t escaping me. I don’t fully know what the Episcopal Church can offer me. I also don’t know if I theologically agree. Honestly, I just like singing and seeing my wife and kids be happy. And yes, I also feel a spiritual pull. But it is slightly odd: if Christians are grafted into Jews, then am I now being grafted into myself?

But to return to my point, deconstruction is living without a center and without binary truths. And yes, saying that completely undermines the claim I’m making. How can I state that I live without a center and without binary truths by stating that living without a center is my center and by stating, in quite a binary way, that I’m going to live without binary truths. But that’s the beauty of deconstruction. It’s not about reaching a new center; to me, it’s about indefinitely postponing one. It’s Différence. It’s Aporia. Or as I like to call it: living in ambiguity.

Yesterday was epic.

Last year I organized Valentine’s Day and it was our first one together. Yes, yes, we’ve been married for 13 years but we were that couple that said “it’s commercial, we shouldn’t observe Valentines’s Day…” But then I transitioned and things changed. Underneath my resistance to celebrating this day was something deeper. That something was that I didn’t like the idea of me doing the “manly” thing of buying Kim dinner for Valentine’s Day. So it felt apt, as a woman, to buy Kim a fancy Valentine’s dinner last year.

This year, Kim organized our date. The premise was simple: we all go to Target and pick out five items for the other person. My kids were part of it too and were charged with doing it for one another. Part of the fun was trying to avoid each other in the store and checking out separately. The list was as follows:

1. Drink

2. Snack

3. Treat

4. Dinner

5. Something Fun

I bought Kim Lime Topochico, Reese’s Cereal, Sour Patch Strips, Soup Dumplings (because I call Kim my potsticker), and a charcuterie board made out of mini squishmallows. Kim got me a peach iced tea, macadamia nuts, Tony Chocolonely, Saag Paneer, and a black crop top. I’m going to call this the most fun Valentine’s Day ever, for many reasons.

My whole life I’ve been expected to fulfill male roles. Play with boys, wear boy clothes, be loud, be a player, you name it. Every time I fulfilled those roles, something in me died. So after forty years of being a man, you may be able to imagine that I was basically on life support. Looking back at my pictures and remembering my past self, I can attest to how dead I felt inside.

Every time I didn’t have to fulfill a male role, I was handed a glimpse of my future. When my grandma allowed me to wear a dress. In elementary school, I spent every day with my friend Daphne. When I lived in foster homes, the girls in the group home did my makeup. And later, in my twenties, my best friend Anne treated me like one of the girls.

For those who are not religious, today is Transfiguration Sunday. It’s the last Sunday before we enter the Lenten season. One story often read on this Sunday is when Jesus is going camping with his buddies Peter, James, and John. When they wake up they see Jesus in his divine form, essentially made out of light. Our Associate Rector, Blake, shared that this was kinda like a sneak peek into the future. But to reach Pentecost, or the Ascension, Jesus and his buddies first had to go through a period of suffering.

I couldn’t help but tear up a little bit. These are a few of those moments that I’m reminded that Jesus actually does know what I’m going through. Here he is, a divine being in human form (it doesn’t get more closeted transgender than that), then we see his transfigured body (it doesn’t get more transgender than that), and in order to get to that point, Jesus has to go through immense suffering (an apt description of my childhood). It would be quite accurate to say that Michel died so that Lana could be resurrected.

And this resurrected Lana loves being pursued as a woman.

Last week I wrote about how salty I am. Not because the world is on fire and we’re all going to die. It’s because the world is on fire, and I genuinely think the way we’re responding is making it worse.

So, to answer the burning question after last week’s post: ICE is out of control. Untrained. Unaccountable. All of it is worrisome. (For one concrete data point: 2025 was ICE’s deadliest year in over two decades, with 32 people reported to have died in ICE custody.) But here’s why I don’t respond by saying, “Abolish ICE.”

Last year, I was driving home after visiting my friend in Mechanicsville. A Henrico police car turned on its lights, and since I rarely get pulled over, I wrongly assumed it was for someone else. But they stayed behind me with the lights on, so I called Kim and started panicking.

For the record, I wasn’t panicking because it was the police. I was panicking because I’m autistic, and this kind of situation is genuinely stressful for me. Kim calmed me down and told me to pull over immediately. The police officers parked behind me, walked up slowly, and asked me to roll down my window.

I can’t express how much unpredictable situations make me stim. And when I stim, I don’t look capable of understanding what people are saying.

“Do you know why we pulled you over?” the police officers asked.

And I said, “I’m so sorry. I’m autistic, and my wife is on the phone in case I can’t answer you clearly.”

The police officers calmly identified themselves and told me my lights were off. They asked if I was capable of driving, and my wife explained that I might look incapable, but I was fully present.

It turned out that after our car got a service checkup, the mechanic switched my lights from “auto” to “off,” and I’d been driving with my lights off for a while. I explained that to the police officers and showed them the lights worked fine. I just needed to switch them back to “auto.”

One of the police officers asked for my driver’s license. Then they asked, “Excuse me, how would you like me to address you. Ma’am?” I nodded, and they checked my license.

While the police officers were checking my file, Kim and I talked about how friendly they were, and how good they were at making me feel comfortable. They were obviously trained to see that this was stressful for anyone. And that it was probably extra stressful for me, because I’m trans and autistic.

The police officers came back with my driver’s license and told me to check my lights in the future. They let me off with a warning and wished me a good day. I drove off feeling seen. I felt appreciated. And I felt confident there are police officers out there who do their job for the safety of everyone around them.

Which, for the record, is usually how I feel when I see police officers around me. My first instinct is to feel safer.

Anyway, the moral of this story is that a well-trained police officer can do a lot for a community. This is exactly how I answer my progressive fellow Richmonders. You may not know it, but Richmond, Virginia is a queer Valhalla in the South. Most of my friends and acquaintances are leftist progressives, and we agree on a lot.

One big difference is that I’m absolutely not an ACAB person. Sure, I was as upset as everyone else after the murder of George Floyd. But as many of you know, I typically lean into ambiguity. Saying ACAB feels like flattening a complex issue into something two-dimensional.

ACAB: “ACAB” stands for “All Cops Are Bastards.” It gained popularity after the murder of George Floyd. In Richmond, a lot of progressives live and breathe it.

When I was about 20, I was hospitalized during a major episode. We know now it was because of autism. I lived in an apartment building in Enkhuizen, in the Netherlands, with a glass stairway. The glass was basically massive panels running from the ground to the third floor. I was so distressed that I jumped out of a window on the ground level and was screaming in distress, walking around naked, with glass shards stuck in me. The Dutch police arrived within minutes, de-escalated the situation, and made sure I got professional help.

Sometimes it’s good when police officers are around. I’m sure you can think of a dozen moments when you felt unsafe and wished there was a police presence nearby.

But just because I’ve met well-trained police officers who helped me after I jumped out of a window, and who made me feel seen during a traffic stop, doesn’t mean there aren’t also police officers who are untrained, unchecked, or simply not good at their jobs.

My point is not “defund the police.” My point is better training. Pair police officers with social services, so people like my past self, in a mental health crisis, can get the help they actually need. Give police officers better de-escalation training, so we don’t get another Trayvon or Breonna.

Let me be frank with you. “Defund the police” is lazy. It’s a one-liner people hide behind, and it gives them a weird sense of absolution from actually doing the work.

Take Seattle, for example. In 2020, amid the ACAB energy and “defund the police” pressure, the Seattle City Council debated cuts to the Seattle Police Department’s roughly $409 million budget, and approved reductions in the millions. Not long after, Carmen Best, the chief of police, stepped down. She was the first Black police chief in Seattle.

In my humble opinion, leadership like that, especially a Black woman at the top, matters. It is one of the most direct ways to shape a police force that is actually capable of reducing racial profiling and violence against Black communities.

“But what about ICE, Lana. Surely you agree we should defund ICE.”

In the same vein as what I wrote above, I think yelling “Abolish ICE” is lazy activism. Screaming at ICE agents on the street doesn’t do anything except make an already tense situation even tenser. When is the last time yelling at an ICE agent made them go, “Hmm. You’re right. I should quit my job. I’m perpetuating a racist system.”

I mean, fuck ICE. And yeah, this new batch that came in untrained is a problem. But what do we do with the bigger questions? Like, who enforces the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000? Do we think human trafficking magically stops if we defund all law enforcement?

I 100% believe what’s going on right now is out of control. But sheesh, progressives. Your tactics are not working, and they haven’t worked for a while.

In my view, a lot of the “ceasefire now” chanting has been counterproductive. I can’t quantify it cleanly, but I’ve watched the tone of it push some people I care about into a more defensive, bunker mindset.

Your #MeToo movement has been undermined by what’s come out of the Epstein files.

Most frustratingly, we may have taken down some Confederate statues here in Richmond, but why doesn’t my predominantly Black neighborhood have usable sidewalks, while some fucking alleys in the ritzy Fan District have expensive cobblestone pavers?

And right now, the “Fuck ICE” movement is not the only thing responsible for getting any ICE agents out of Minneapolis. Protest matters. It changes what feels possible and it makes people feel less alone. But it’s also judges, legal pressure, and political pressure, including Governor Tim Walz, that have helped force movement. Those are the people who go beyond short-term satisfaction and actually do the work. Those are the real activists, in my book.

My complaint about some of the current progressives is that so much of it is built on one-liners people can hide behind. My complaint is that real activism costs more than boycotting Israel, Target, or Starbucks. True activism looks like asking me, “Hey Lana, you hold a lot of intersectional identities. How can we best support you?” instead of telling me how I should pursue activism.

Yeah, I’m still salty. And I’ll probably stay salty for a while, until the people I’m supposed to feel safe around stop tokenizing me without checking in with my community. I get that it’s frustrating to feel powerless. But for fuck’s sake, we’re right here. Stop talking about us like we’re not.

Wow, it’s already February. I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’ve lived a whole life in this month alone.

I’ve received a tiring number of inquiries about what I’m planning to do to address the state we’re in. And I’ve seen a tiring number of surprised faces every time I say that I’m going to stay present and focus on joy as a form of protest. I’m not trying to minimize what’s going on in the world, but I can’t help being upset that all this time my voice has not been heard. Every time I’ve led a workshop, spoken in a church, or posted something here on Substack or elsewhere, I have mentioned all my intersectional identities. Within those identities, I embody the state of today’s world every day.

At the risk of over-explaining the obvious, here’s the list of identities I show up with in this world:

• I’m a woman, living in a patriarchal society.

• I’m transgender, and while my identity was relatively safe among democrats, that’s starting to break down as well.

• I’m Asian, specifically Indo. More often than not, I’m told that I don’t look Asian. I’ll let you figure out how that’s erasing.

• I’m Jewish, and for some reason, I have to explain that I’m against bombing children every time I share my religious heritage.

• I’m autistic and have OCD. I have to work so hard to simply be perceived in this world.

• I have deep-rooted PTSD. I lived through a war, had extremists murder close family friends, and lived through years of sexual abuse.

• I’m an immigrant, which has been something I’ve been more painfully aware of.

In my workshops, I explain that having all these intersectional identities is not a scale of how bad I have it. It just helps explain what my social location is. Think of each of my identities as a Venn diagram, and where all circles meet—that’s my social location.

It’s important to understand people’s social location because it gives others context for the challenges they face. It also gives a good idea of what a person’s lived experience is like. So to bring this circle to a close—when people ask me what I plan to do about ICE in my position as both ED of Operations for Transmission Ministry Collective and Director of Operations of Richmond, the answer is absolutely nothing.

The answer is nothing because I already walk around with multiple forms of identification in case I get profiled, arrested, and deported in front of my kids. The answer is nothing because, besides the two white people who have been brutally murdered, seven people of color have been murdered by the US CBP in January alone. The answer is nothing because 37 known transgender individuals lost their lives through violence in the US between November 2024 and November 2025. The answer is nothing because, as per usual, the suffering of the Asian American community is underreported. The answer is nothing because while I wanted to light my first Hanukkah candle, 15 Jewish people were murdered in Australia.

With all of the above in mind, asking me what I intend to do to stop ICE is kind of insulting. Because it looks like every time I’ve been speaking, people were hearing me, but they didn’t listen. You wouldn’t tell a blind person, “Wow, did you ever notice how challenging the world is for blind people?” It’s also interesting to hear privileged people decide what the best course of action is for me without ever asking me. To stay with the example of the blind person, wouldn’t it be odd to pursue legislation to help blind people without ever consulting blind people?”

Yes, I’m salty, very salty, but I don’t want to spend too much time writing about this—Dr. Tamice Spencer Helms does a much better job than I ever could addressing this exact issue.

Doing nothing doesn’t mean that I’m not actively protesting. I stay present, I hold on to joy, and no one can take my identity away from me.

Staying present means that I consciously stay aware of the things directly around me. It means taking care of my body and nurturing it. It means spoiling my kids as much as possible and making sure that my wife gets a lot of us time. It means checking in with my friends, feeding their stomachs and souls. It means praying for the city of Richmond. My friend has taught me that staying present is such a strong form of protest because it doesn’t throw us into the maelstrom of despair. When we despair, we freeze. When we freeze, we become unable to love our neighbor as ourselves. We become unable to love ourselves.

Staying present is protest. Take a bath or a shower and pamper yourself. If you live with your family, give them an extra hug. Text at least one friend who you know is intersectional and ask them if you can drop off a meal. People can take away our rights, our physical freedom, but let’s not forget to make music, laugh, eat, and create. No one can take that away from us.

I’m pretty excited about this episode. My friend Kori, and former kickball team mate, also happens to have a PhD in Educational Psychology and every time I talk to her I am amazed by her wisdom.

In this episode, we delve into research on belonging in STEM through a critical lens. The discussion reveals that the view of STEM as inherently objective, rational, and logical is a cultural assumption rooted in whiteness, which can exclude people of color and other ways of knowing, such as indigenous perspectives. By examining how systems of power impact context and belonging, particularly for Black and Latina students, we aim to challenge and deconstruct these prevailing perceptions in STEM.

Find out more about Dr. Kori: https://education.indiana.edu/about/directory/profiles/nicolai-korinthia.html

Wow, we’re back, everyone! I may have convinced my wife, Kim, to join me as a permanent co-host! For those who don’t know her, Kim is a brilliant scholar and human being. She’s got a background as a creative director for our UX design studio back in the day and in non-profit management. She received an MA in Education from VCU in Culturally Responsive Leadership.

Today, we’re surveying the upcoming season and briefly touching on the concept of the perception gap. First, from a theological perspective, and later we apply it to a modern concept.

I’m so happy to be back with y’all!

Follow Kim on IG @kim_van_essen

Over the last couple of days, I've been migrating my podcast to Substack. For the last few weeks, I had some folks tell me that they miss the podcast, and to be honest, I miss it too. So, thank you, everyone, for encouraging me to bring it back. And thanks, Mary, for bringing it up again the other day. Expect an invite for the upcoming season!

For those who are new, I used to have a podcast called “The Models We Live By.” It’s about Mental Models. When I was a grad student at Fuller Theological Seminary, I took a class taught by Dr. Susan Maros about Organizational Leadership. As part of the class, I had to read Peter Senge's book “The Fifth Discipline,” which, in part, is about mental models, and it resonated with me for some reason.

Basically, mental models are how our brain simplifies the world to save energy. Imagine your brain as a miser that wants to hoard as much energy as possible. This works well most of the time, like when you hear screeching tires and jump out of the way. But sometimes, these shortcuts don’t help us at all. They can get in the way of acting rationally. For example, that’s why when you hear “Dr. Smith,” you typically picture a man (and if you don’t, congratulations, you’re one of 13% who don’t). All that said, I find this interesting—that I, Miche Ilana van Essen, often behave and act without knowing why. I started the podcast to gather stories about what mental models other people and I might hold.

I also want to direct y’all to my first two episodes, which answer some of the most-asked questions. Like how I met Jesus, is Kim now suddenly a Lesbian, and how do we navigate our marriage in the midst of my transition? I also explain why I’m calling it “inviting you in” rather than coming out. I’m excited to hear your thoughts.

Seasons 1 Episode 1:

Like Quiche

S01 Episode 1 - Inviting You In

Welcome to the Models We Live By podcast. In this first episode, I share my own story to give context to why knowing our mental models is so important…

Listen now

4 years ago · Miche (like quiche)

Or if you’re on Spotify:

Seasons 2 Episode 2:

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S01 Episode 2 - False Dichotomies

Today Kim van Essen joins us as a guest - not only is she very talented and extremely insightful, she is also my wife…

Listen now

4 years ago · Miche (like quiche)

Or if you’re on Spotify:

If you’ve never read this newsletter before and are here because you read the Richmond Hill newsletter, you can skip the first two paragraphs.

On October 1st, I started a new job at Richmond Hill. Richmond Hill is an ecumenical fellowship that stewards an urban retreat center located in a historic monastery. YES, I’m working in a historic monastery! For those interested, in the 19th century the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary sent some sisters here to Richmond to establish a monastery and a girls’ school; they remained until 1987, when they moved to Rockville. Richmond Hill bought this place that year (how they did so is a story for another time), and we’ve been here ever since. I just started here on October 1st as their new Director of Operations, and I am fully committed to this role and the community it serves.

This reflection will introduce me to the people of Richmond Hill. But it will also give y’all some background as to why I disappeared for a few months. And yes, I still serve on the Transmission Ministry Collective and intend to do so for at least another year. And, also, yes, I will continue to write my book slowly. But because of this professional shift, some things had to be dropped. My consulting firm will be slowly closing its doors after serving all my faithful clients for years. My start-up businesses will also close their doors, and I’ve also stepped down from my duties as a board member of Stonewall Sports. My goal with this transition is both to serve my local community AND to take a break from nationwide activism. I’ve been tired y’all and I think it’s time for a younger generation of trans activists to take over.

Meeting Jesus at Battery Park Pool

But if you’re here because you clicked on a link in the Richmond Hill Newsletter, let me introduce myself properly.

Hi, my name is Dr. Miche Ilana van Essen, although most people call me Lana. I’m the new Director of Operations for Richmond Hill. My faith background has been quite interesting, to say the least. I was born in a Pentecostal commune in Amsterdam, moved to Israel in 1987, went to an orthodox Jewish school, and wanted nothing to do with Jesus until I was 29. While I still consider myself Jewish and pride myself on that heritage, I met Jesus when I was 29, and we have had a rocky relationship ever since. When I moved to America, I was already working with a therapist to transition. But when I arrived in America and got married to my wife, the gender roles and the church in America shoved me back in the closet. Let’s say metrosexual Miche became super masculine Michel in America. It was during this time that I became connected to some bible churches in Virginia, and ultimately I ended up as a Worship Pastor at Independent Bible Church in Port Angeles, Washington.

My story in Richmond starts in 2021. I stepped down from my pastoral position, and my family and I moved to Richmond in April of 2021. My gender dysphoria was screaming at me, and I came out to my wife that year, started hormones in September, and have been proudly out as a transgender woman since. It was also during this time that followers of Jesus were the most damaging to my mental health. I cried myself to sleep so many times due to nasty messages from old friends and community members, because of death threats, and online harassment. But more painful than all of that was that the inclusive church that I went to here in Richmond hurt me so much more than the conservative church did. Let’s say, I’d rather go into a space that is overtly anti LGBTQ+ than go into a building with a rainbow flag on the outside that can’t handle our LGBTQ+ identities.

Enter last summer. I was introduced to a community member of Richmond Hill when my kids and I went swimming at Battery Park pool. And what was supposed to be a networking meeting started a chain of serendipitous events that I ascribe to the work of the Holy Spirit. Yes, you heard that right, skeptical Lana is ascribing something to the Holy Spirit. But how can I not?

For example, in the last year, I have been in talks with a close friend who just came out and is struggling to reconcile her theology and church community life with her sexual orientation. But the reality is, our conversations were as helpful to me as to her. I was the one who started feeling closer to Jesus again.

Meanwhile, I also hang out with a group of Jewish moms, and we’ve been doing so for the last three years. This year felt different for some reason. I felt the joy again of participating in my Jewish heritage. Here, too, I used to feel like the person who was bringing spirituality to a group of Jewish moms, but instead, they’ve brought spirituality to me.

The serendipity is this: every time I was brought into a conversation to share about faith, my gender or sexual identity, my asian heritage, I’ve been surprised by how much I was poured into. I have been so used to pouring into other people that I think I had forgotten how it feels to be poured into.

So, back to Battery Park Pool. I thought I was there to pour into another person, but instead she and her husband poured into me. Likewise, I thought I was coming to Richmond Hill to pour into them, and they have been pouring into me—big time. I am deeply grateful for the support and love I have received from this community.

Walking through the gardens that are connected to my office, joining their Rule of Life, seeing an intentional community that has actually worked for the last 40 years, and, dare I say, being part of a community that is inclusive to my gender identity BECAUSE of their love for Christ, rather than a policy change, has been a breath of fresh air. Now I don’t find myself crying myself to sleep because of the hate Christians give me, but I cry myself to sleep because of the love Christians give me.

I have seen an ecumenical community that takes the ecumenical part seriously. For example, last Tuesday I attended one of their evening services to participate in communion. It was a lovely mixture of Anglo-Baptist, Non-Denominational, UCC, Episcopal, and Presbyterian ministers who led the entire service. And when the call for communion was made and they said, “all are welcome to the table,” I jokingly responded with, “even Jews?” They very seriously looked me in the eyes (well, tried to because I don’t look people in the eyes, but that’s a different story) and unapologetically said, “ALL are welcome.”

I will cry!

So Here We are

In case you’re not into my spiritual journey and are primarily concerned with what I can bring to Richmond Hill, I’m actually pretty competent as well. As I mentioned above, my name is Dr. Miche Ilana van Essen. I have a degree in Jewish Liturgy, an MA in Global Leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary, and a DMin with a specialization in Leadership in Higher Ed from Pacific School of Religion. Besides my roles as worship leader and worship pastor, I’ve been a UX Designer and Management Consultant for the last decade. I’ve served many for-profit and non-profit organizations, helping them achieve their maximum potential. I’m very excited to bring all those years of experience to augment, but not change, Richmond Hill.

If you made it this far, thank you for your patience. I will slowly get back to writing again as I get my bearings, and I am excited to share more about Richmond Hill as we grow accustomed to each other.

Last week I was able to share some of my unfiltered thoughts. For those who texted me and started interesting and constructive conversations thank you so much!!! 😊

As a palette cleanser of sorts, this week I want to share some things that make me happy.

Kpop Demon Hunters

Ya’ll. Have you seen KPop Demon Hunters already? Early in my transition, like when only Kim and some friends (I’m looking at you Jen) knew about my cherished secret, I got very deep into BlackPink, Twice, Red Velvet, and ITZY. Something about hyperfeminine was so attractive to me and it didn’t take long until my entire family was yelling “hit you with that DDU-DU DDU-DU” (and for the record, Jisoo 😍 is by FAR my favorite). To say that BlackPink helped me in my transition is an understatement but it’s also very hard to explain. Doing all the dance moves, trying on 😅 and absolutely hating what they were wearing, and overall just joining the Blinks was so healing to my journey.

Fast forward to a while back, when KPop Demon Hunters was released, and seeing such a beautiful journey that is almost directly overlayable with a trans journey AND songs that are now on repeat in our house, I can’t be more excited. So please do me a favor and listen to the music video above and as you do that, imagine baby Lana (my friends call me Lana) slowly becoming herself.

Pie To Go

🎤 I think I caught the open mic bug - and I’m to another one this week and share of my new songs. It felt so amazing and I felt supported by my friends and the people that showed up. So if you have nothing to do this Tuesday, hmu and come hang!

🏊🏼‍♀️ I’m going to the pool today. I’ve been to a public pool before, but that was with a pride bike ride and there were tons of queer people jumping into the pool with me after the ride. I’ve also been at a hotel pool but that’s kinda private. I haven’t been to a public pool with my family ever since I’m out. So… I’m kinda nervous 😬

🧆 A weekly traditions that I’ve been looking forward to ever since inception is our “family dinner” which is just a dinner with dear friends and we typically end with a cuddle puddle and a show. I love my sissies so much! 😍

Welcome back, dear ones. I'm so thankful you're here with me as we’re digging through Mark's Gospel. Today we're diving into Mark 6, where the miraculous healings of chapter 5 give way to stories about rejection, mission, and the dangerous work of speaking truth to power. This chapter forces us to wrestle with what happens when prophetic ministry encounters hostile reception and how we sustain hope when our own communities turn against us.

It kinda reminds me of all the prophetic voices in our time who have been rejected by their home communities for speaking uncomfortable truths - from climate scientists dismissed by their own universities to LGBTQ+ advocates pushed out of the churches that formed them to journalists blacklisted for reporting stories that powerful people don't want told.

Mark 6: When Home Becomes Hostile Territory

Mark 6 presents us with a series of interconnected stories about mission, rejection, and power. The chapter moves from Jesus's hometown rejection through the sending of the twelve disciples to John the Baptist's execution and the feeding of the five thousand. Each story explores different aspects of what it means to speak truth in contexts that don't want to hear it.

When Familiarity Breeds Contempt (6:1-6)

The chapter opens with Jesus returning to his hometown of Nazareth, accompanied by his disciples. When he teaches in the synagogue on the Sabbath, the initial response is amazement: "Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands?" (6:2).

But amazement quickly turns to offense. The crowd begins asking questions that sound like genuine inquiry but function as dismissal: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" (6:3). They know his family, his trade, his social position. In their minds, these familiar details disqualify him from having anything significant to say. I might hold a doctorate, but that doesn't make me more qualified than any other to write, think, or ideate. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t theologize!

Mark notes that "they took offense at him" - the Greek word "skandalizō" suggests not just disagreement but active stumbling. Jesus's teaching and authority become obstacles that his hometown community cannot get around. Their familiarity with his ordinary background makes his extraordinary claims unacceptable.

Jesus's response has become proverbial: "Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house" (6:4). This isn't just a comment about human psychology but a theological observation about how prophetic ministry functions. Those closest to prophetic voices are often least able to hear them because proximity creates investment in maintaining existing power dynamics.

The consequence is devastating: "And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief" (6:5-6). Jesus's power is being limited by human resistance. The healing that flowed freely among strangers encounters barriers among family and neighbors.

From an intersectional perspective, this story speaks powerfully to the experience of marginalized people whose prophetic voices are dismissed by their own communities. How many LGBTQ+ people have found their families unable to hear their truth about identity and love? How many people of color discover that their insights about racism are rejected by the very institutions that claim to value diversity? How many women find their theological contributions dismissed by religious communities that know them "too well" to take them seriously?

I also find it notable that this rejections follows predictable patterns. Prophetic voices threaten existing arrangements of power and privilege. When those voices emerge from within communities rather than from outside authorities, they're particularly dangerous because they can't be easily dismissed as foreign influence or outside agitation.

Shared Authority and Vulnerability (6:7-13)

Following his hometown rejection, Jesus begins "calling the twelve and sending them out two by two" (6:7). This represents a significant shift in strategy - from individual ministry to collective mission, from centralized authority to distributed power. But it also makes me giggle because it makes Jesus sound like a kindergarten teacher asking them to line up haha.

The instructions Jesus gives are startling in their emphasis on vulnerability and dependence: "He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics" (6:8-9). Which to me sounds like modeling a different relationship to security and power.

The disciples are sent out without the resources that typically enable effective ministry: no food for sustenance, no money for purchasing necessities, no extra clothing for changing circumstances. They must depend entirely on the hospitality of those they serve and the authority Jesus has given them over unclean spirits.

I hope you can see where this is going and see that his vulnerability is strategic. When ministers arrive with their own resources, they can maintain independence from the communities they serve. They can speak prophetic truth without worrying about where their next meal will come from or where they'll sleep that night. But when ministers depend on community hospitality, they must build genuine relationships and earn trust through authentic service. Maaaaaaaaaybe some modern missionaries would do well to listen to these instruction instead of presenting my ancestral community with clear cut answers.

The instructions about rejection are equally important: "If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them" (6:11). The disciples are authorized not just to preach and heal but to pronounce judgment on communities that refuse their message.

This shaking off of dust represents more than personal disappointment - it's a symbolic action declaring that rejecting communities have forfeited their connection to God's kingdom work. The disciples don't argue, negotiate, or try harder to convince hostile audiences. They declare their message, offer their service, and move on when it's not received. I feel like we can all learn from this… harshness I guess? I find myself spending way too much time on communities that don’t want to hear but are only interested in telling me.

Mark reports that "they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them" (6:12-13). The mission succeeds despite - or perhaps because of - its vulnerability and simplicity.

The Cost of Speaking Truth to Power (6:14-29)

Mark interrupts the disciples' mission story with a flashback to John the Baptist's execution, creating literary tension between successful ministry and violent opposition. The story reveals how prophetic voices are silenced when they challenge the personal behavior of political leaders.

King Herod had arrested John because the prophet publicly condemned Herod's marriage to his brother Philip's wife, declaring "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife" (6:18). This wasn't theological debate but direct confrontation with royal behavior. John spoke truth to power in the most personal and dangerous way possible.

Mark provides psychological insight into Herod's conflicted response: "Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him" (6:20). Herod recognizes John's moral authority and finds his message compelling, but he cannot act on what he hears because it would require dismantling his entire power structure.

The execution happens through a combination of manipulation, pride, and political calculation. Herodias (lol like Robert and Roberta), Herod's wife, uses her daughter's dance to extract a public oath from Herod, then demands John's head as payment. Herod grants the request "out of regard for his oaths and for the guests" (6:26) - prioritizing public reputation over moral conviction. I reminds me of the story of Esther, remember how many people got put on a stake?

John's death represents the ultimate consequence of prophetic ministry. When speaking truth to power threatens the personal interests of those in authority, violence becomes the preferred method of silencing prophetic voices. The story serves as both warning and vindication - prophets may be killed, but their message cannot be destroyed.

The detail that Herod thought Jesus might be "John the Baptist raised from the dead" (6:14) suggests that prophetic voices have a way of multiplying even after individual prophets are silenced. The truth John spoke continues to haunt Herod's conscience and finds new expression in Jesus's ministry.

Abundance in Unlikely Places (6:30-44)

The chapter concludes with the feeding of the five thousand, which Mark presents as both miracle and social critique. When the disciples return from their successful mission, Jesus tries to take them "to a deserted place by themselves and rest a while" (6:31), but crowds follow them, creating a crisis of competing needs.

Jesus's response to the crowd reveals the heart of prophetic ministry: "As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things" (6:34). Compassion, not duty or obligation, drives prophetic engagement with human need.

When evening comes, the disciples suggest sending the crowd away to buy food for themselves. Their solution is reasonable and practical - let people take care of their own needs rather than creating dependency. But Jesus responds with a command that seems impossible: "You give them something to eat" (6:37).

The disciples' objection reveals the scope of the challenge: "Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?" (6:37). They're thinking in terms of market solutions - purchasing enough food to meet the need. But Jesus asks what resources they already have available.

The answer is meager: "Five loaves and two fish" (6:38). These are the lunch provisions for Jesus and his disciples, woefully inadequate for feeding thousands of people. But Jesus takes what's available and transforms it into abundance that satisfies everyone with twelve baskets of leftovers.

From an intersectional perspective, this story speaks to communities practicing mutual aid and resource sharing in the face of systemic scarcity. The miracle isn't just about supernatural multiplication but about discovering abundance through different economic models than market-based consumption.

The detail that people sat "in groups of hundreds and of fifties" (6:40) suggests organized distribution rather than chaotic scrambling for food. The feeding happens through community structure and shared participation, not individual consumption or charitable handouts.

Thank you Pastor Gail Song Bantum for explaining this story to me like this.

Prophetic Ministry in Hostile Contexts

Mark 6's stories of rejection, mission, and persecution speak directly to contemporary experiences of prophetic ministry in hostile environments. Each narrative provides insights into how truth-telling functions when communities resist uncomfortable messages.

The Nazareth rejection offers both warning and comfort to those whose prophetic voices are dismissed by their own communities. Familiarity often breeds contempt precisely because intimate communities have the most investment in maintaining existing power arrangements. When family members, childhood friends, or religious communities that shaped us refuse to hear our truth, it's particularly painful because we expect better from those who know us best.

But Jesus's experience suggests that hometown rejection is normal rather than exceptional for prophetic ministry. The limitation of healing power in familiar contexts reflects a theological reality about how transformative work functions. People must be open to change for change to occur, and those closest to us often have the most resistance to seeing us differently than they always have. It’s not a secret that my parents don’t acknowledge me and unfortunately my story is more often the rule and not the exception.

The sending of the twelve provides a model for sustaining prophetic ministry through community rather than individual heroism. The disciples travel in pairs, sharing authority and vulnerability. They depend on hospitality rather than independent resources, creating accountability to the communities they serve.

The instruction to "shake off the dust" when rejected offers practical wisdom about when to persist and when to move on. Prophetic ministry isn't about convincing everyone but about finding those ready to hear and respond. Time and energy spent arguing with hostile audiences could be used more effectively serving receptive communities.

John the Baptist's execution demonstrates the ultimate cost of speaking truth to power. When prophetic voices challenge the personal behavior of political leaders, violence often follows. The story serves as both warning and encouragement - prophets may be silenced, but their message continues through others who take up their cause.

The feeding of the five thousand suggests that prophetic ministry involves practical care for human needs alongside spiritual teaching. Jesus doesn't just preach to hungry people - he feeds them. The miracle demonstrates that alternative economic models based on sharing rather than purchasing can create abundance where market systems produce scarcity.

Questions for Reflection

I think that these stories invite us to examine our own relationships to prophetic ministry, community rejection, and the costs of truth-telling:

• Where have you experienced rejection from your own community for speaking uncomfortable truths?

• How do you sustain prophetic ministry when familiar contexts resist your message?

• What does it mean to depend on community hospitality rather than independent resources for sustaining ministry?

• How do you balance persistence with wisdom about when to "shake off the dust" and move on?

Next week, we'll explore Mark 7 and its stories about religious tradition, cultural boundaries, and the expansion of God's inclusive love beyond familiar communities. The themes of rejection and mission will continue to evolve as Jesus increasingly turns toward Gentile territory and confronts religious authorities about their exclusive practices. Until then, may you find courage for prophetic truth-telling and community for sustaining the costly work of transformation.

Good morning, beautiful humans! I'm writing this with what I'm calling "rain man feels" - those who know me know what I’m talking about - those who don’t… ask away haha. But the gist of it is that I have extra strong feelings about everything. Spoiler alert: I survived, everyone is good and fine, and I'm still finding big feels in place I didn’t think. Sooooo, grab your favorite Sunday beverage and let's catch up, maybe not quite for a Sunday Brunch seeing that it’s almost lunch time.

Family Slice

It happened, so far we’ve had a rigid structure every single week until last week. I completely crumbled down because of some personal issues and I had to spill the news to the family that I won’t be available for any scheduling this week. Interestingly enough we did ended up going to many of our favorite places but instead of me taking care of the kids they were a little bit more self-serve this week.

The week taught me things about our family dynamics that I hadn't noticed before. The kids adapted to the change faster and with more empathy than I adapted to not having my morning coffee routine. And I discovered that I actually enjoy being taken care of by my family, even though it’s not their job.

But here's what struck me most: how quickly we all relaxed into different versions of ourselves. Without strict oversight, schedules, and the usual distractions, we had space for conversations that don't usually happen. We told stories, played card games, and my boy actually read the first two Harry Potter books and is now well versed in that universe. My girl was consistent in bringing me my carrot squish mellow whenever tears welled up and I’m such a proud parent to see them grow to be such empathetic human beings, truly.

Honestly, these shared challenges created bonds that feel different from our everyday family connections. We proved to ourselves that we can handle more than we think we can. I’m finding comfort in knowing that I have special needs and that my family can handle, and more importantly wants to handle, those special needs.

This Week's Special

If you'll indulge me, please allow me to share some raw thoughts this week. I typically offer nuanced theological reflections, but sometimes the frustration needs to come out unfiltered. Last year when I went offline for a couple of months, this exact topic swirled me into depression. Harriet in Geek Girl said at some point “do you ever feel like a polar bear in a jungle?” I feel EXACTLY the same way 😭

Getting back on social media for book promotion has been... educational. I created a Threads account and was promptly obliterated by both progressives and conservatives, all adhering to the same binary thinking patterns. Last year I wrote an article about the boolean logic that dominates both sides, and today it feels more relevant than ever.

For those who are new here: when I was 18, I tattooed "only a fool trusts his life to a weapon" on my back. I fought with my rabbis about their unrelenting support for Israel's military. I fundamentally believe Judaism is pacifist, which is why I am a pacifist.*

With that context, I'm asking you not to accuse me of things I'm not saying.

After almost two years of relentless war and death, the situation in Gaza is arguably worse than when it started. What frustrates me most is watching online discourse where everyone points fingers at anyone but themselves. We pat ourselves on the back for making statements early, showing up to protests, and joining the BDS movement. But I believe this performative activism is fueling the problem, and we've seen evidence of its ineffectiveness over the past years.

Think about it: Columbia University settled their protests, a VCU student got her degree denied, and the stock market bounced back showing resilience. Meanwhile, my social media feeds are full of people expressing outrage about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. I share that outrage - how can we watch this without feeling sick? But I fundamentally disagree with the progressive movement's approach, especially progressive Christianity. While I don't blame them for causing the war, I do believe their naivety and privilege make them unable to see that they're chief contributors to it.

I'm talking about tax dollars, yes. But more importantly, I'm talking about our mental models, our refusal to give up actual profits, and our desperate desire to find a scapegoat.

Our mental models demand scapegoats. By definition, the scapegoat is someone other than you. By definition, you can't be the cause of the problem. By definition, a scapegoat is the most obvious choice to blame. But if we look beneath the surface, how much are we actually willing to sacrifice our comfort?

Let's start with a neutral example: Palo Alto, generally considered liberal territory, faces constant lawsuits over zoning restrictions and state compliance. The underlying issue? People worry that apartment complexes will decrease their home values. The hypocrisy is crystal clear. As progressives, we believe in equity until it hits our wallets - then our philosophical positions change quickly.

Apply this to Gaza, and you see the exact same pattern. Progressives want the war to end and blame tax dollars and representatives for funding it. I won't dispute that Trump and Biden enabled this war - though true democracy is hard to find anywhere. The US operates as a democracy with heavy meritocratic influence. Yes, our political system bears responsibility, but the real money comes from personal investments. When I ran a theoretical model, I wasn't surprised to discover that people with 401Ks spend seven times more on the Gaza war through investments than through tax dollars.

I was explaining to a close friend that I can't discuss Gaza without conversations immediately turning to Trump, tax dollars, and the need for public statements. I told her I have no idea how to explain that the average American is equally responsible but unwilling to give up comfort and profit. As Dr. Bettina Love puts it, they're unwilling to move from ally to co-conspirator. An ally speaks out and loses some status; a co-conspirator loses comfort and wealth. The average American posting "Free Palestine" is likely sipping a latte funded by their personal investments - blood money.

The examples are endless. I see Dutch friends protesting American involvement in Gaza while staying silent about their country's support for the war in West Papua. I see people supporting BDS to target companies making bombs for Gaza without understanding that their very existence needs boycotting, not just Intel or Palantir. (And if you don't know who Palantir is but have "Free Palestine" in your IG bio, shame on you.)

This pattern extends beyond politically sensitive topics. It's people saying "I don't order from Amazon" without understanding that a single mom with three jobs has no choice but to order from Amazon because she lives in a food desert. It's people saying "Taylor Swift flies too much" while eating meat daily and actively participating in global warming, since the meat industry causes 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It's people buying wood products that promise to plant trees, even though studies show that simply planting trees can increase greenhouse emissions.

So yes, I'm frustrated by people who say "Free Palestine" but never check their investment portfolios. It's easy to blame others when we are the problem.

• Absolute Pacifism - Complete rejection of all violence and war under any circumstances, often rooted in religious convictions that violence is inherently wrong and contradicts divine will.

• Conditional/Pragmatic Pacifism - Opposition to war based on practical considerations such as the devastating consequences of modern warfare, but may allow for violence in extreme circumstances like immediate self-defense.

• Nuclear Pacifism - Specific opposition to nuclear weapons and nuclear warfare while potentially accepting conventional military action, based on the unique and catastrophic nature of nuclear destruction.

• Just War Theory - Not pacifism but a framework for determining when war might be morally justified, requiring criteria like just cause, legitimate authority, right intention, last resort, and proportionality of response.

• Selective Pacifism - Opposition to particular wars or types of warfare deemed unjust while accepting that some military actions might be morally defensible under specific circumstances.

• Christian Pacifism - Rejection of violence based on Jesus's teachings about nonresistance, loving enemies, and turning the other cheek, viewing nonviolence as central to Christian discipleship.

• Nonviolent Resistance - Active opposition to injustice through peaceful means such as civil disobedience, protests, and economic boycotts, as practiced by figures like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

The Crust of the Matter

Friday's exploration of Mark 5's healing stories has been resonating differently after our pause in scheduling. All three healings in that chapter involve boundary crossing - Jesus going to Gentile territory, allowing touch from an unclean woman, entering a house of death.

This week, as our family crossed our own boundaries of comfort and routine, I kept thinking about how healing often requires leaving familiar territory. The Gerasene demoniac couldn't be healed in his usual environment - Jesus had to cross the sea to reach him. The woman with chronic bleeding had to risk social violation to access the healing she needed.

Our scheduling break was obviously much less dramatic, but the principle holds. Sometimes restoration requires disrupting normal patterns, crossing boundaries we've established for safety or comfort, and trusting that the risk of discomfort might lead to unexpected grace.

The break healed things in our family relationships that I didn't even know needed healing. We discovered new ways of being together, new appreciations for each other's strengths, new confidence in our ability to handle challenges. None of that could have happened within our usual routines and environments.

Jesus's healing ministry consistently moves toward the margins - geographically, socially, ritually. Our little break was a tiny version of that same movement toward spaces outside our normal boundaries, and the restoration we found there feels like a small taste of kingdom power.

Pie To Go

🎸 Three demo songs have been recorded. Keep an eye out on IG to see when the new Lana Brown page goes up and will have links to our Soundcloud account.

🏋🏻‍♀️ I only worked out twice last week womp womp. But my body NEEDED it. I had three good nights of sleep and I’m still tired.

👩🏻‍💻 I’ve been building a small consulting firm called Equilux (yes that’s the previous name of my current firm). It’s my version of fighting AI injustice. In a similar manner to the topic of “this week’s special” the AI revolution IS happening and I’m worried that small, and especially marginalized, business owners will fall behind. So I want to give them super powers as well while at the same time strategizing how we can legislate and defund energy mismanagement. I’m doing some three free gigs this summer (one has already been taken) to build a clientele and get some reviews so if you’re company is struggling with anything operations related, chances are high that I can save you a lot of time and money by helping you optimize repeating tasks within project management, book keeping, HR, and policy development. HMU!

👩🏻‍💼 Speaking of new businesses. I’ve been brainstorming a non-profit called “I Am The Problem” that seeks to educate Americans about their unrecognized individual contributions to problems they oppose through community-driven, scholarly research that redirects focus from external blame to personal agency If “this week’s special” touched your heart - I don’t want to do this alone. Please join me as co-founders.

Thanks for being here, friends. If you made it this far after my unfiltered rant, THANK YOU even more.

With love,

Miche

Welcome back, dear ones. I'm so grateful you're joining me for this journey through Mark's Gospel. Today we're diving into Mark 5, where the parabolic mysteries of chapter 4 give way to concrete demonstrations of kingdom power. Three healing stories dominate this chapter, each one challenging different assumptions about who deserves restoration and how divine power operates in the world.

Healing happens in marginalized communities - often outside traditional institutional structures, frequently through touch and presence rather than formal procedures, and almost always involving some disruption of established boundaries about who gets access to care. Are you ready for this?

Mark 5: Healing at the Margins

Mark 5 presents us with three interconnected healing narratives that escalate in intensity and intimacy. Each story involves someone society has written off, each requires crossing cultural boundaries, and each demonstrates that God's restorative power operates most freely among those pushed to the edges of respectable community.

Restoration Beyond Recognition (5:1-20)

The chapter opens with one of Mark's most dramatic healing stories. Jesus and his disciples cross the Sea of Galilee into Gentile territory, where they encounter a man possessed by demons. Mark's description is pretty bleak: the man lives among tombs, cannot be restrained even with chains, and spends his time "howling and bruising himself with stones" (5:5).

This is someone the community has given up on. He exists in the space between life and death, human and animal, sacred and profane. The tombs where he lives represent the ultimate boundary of ritual purity - contact with the dead rendered one unclean and excluded from community participation.

When Jesus asks the demons their name, they reply "Legion; for we are many" (5:9). This isn't just about quantity - "legion" was the term for a Roman military unit of about 6,000 soldiers. The naming suggests this man's torment is connected to imperial occupation and violence. His demons bear the name of Rome's oppressive military force.

The demons' request to enter a herd of pigs introduces dark comedy into the narrative. Pigs were considered unclean animals, forbidden to Jewish dietary law but essential to Gentile economic life. When the demons enter the swine and the herd rushes into the sea, it's both cosmic justice and economic disruption - the unclean spirits find their proper home in unclean animals, but the local economy suffers significant loss ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

From an intersectional perspective, this story speaks powerfully to communities dealing with complex trauma.

1. The man's self-harm, social isolation, and inability to be "restrained" by conventional interventions resonates with experiences of PTSD, addiction, and other conditions that push people beyond the reach of standard community support systems.

2. The restoration is as dramatic as the possession. When the townspeople find the formerly demon-possessed man "sitting there, clothed and in his right mind" (5:15), their response isn't celebration but fear. They beg Jesus to leave their region. Sometimes healing threatens established systems more than sickness does.

The man's request to follow Jesus receives an unexpected response. Instead of joining the traveling community, Jesus tells him: "Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you" (5:19). The man becomes the first missionary to the Gentiles, sharing his testimony throughout the Decapolis.

This detail is often overlooked but theologically significant. The man's healing doesn't require him to abandon his cultural context or join a different religious community. His restoration includes reclaiming his place in his own society, transformed but not displaced.

Intersecting Healings (5:21-43)

Mark's second healing story actually contains two interconnected narratives - a literary technique called "intercalation" or "sandwich construction." The story of Jairus's dying daughter frames the healing of a woman with chronic bleeding, and the two stories illuminate each other in profound ways.

Jairus represents religious respectability - he's a synagogue leader with social standing and community connections. When his twelve-year-old daughter becomes critically ill, he has the privilege of direct access to Jesus. He can approach publicly, make his request openly, and expect a response.

The woman with the hemorrhage represents the opposite social location. Her condition renders her ritually unclean, excluded from community worship and normal social interaction. Mark tells us she has "endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had" (5:26) - a description that resonates painfully with contemporary experiences of chronic illness and medical bankruptcy.

A pet peeve. The reason why I don’t like to engage on whether or not Leviticus is calling homosexuality an abomination is specifically because of the above statement. Leviticus 18:19 states “You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness” and Leviticus 18 ends with calling everything in this chapter “abominations.” So it’s categorically incorrect to state that Leviticus 18:22 homosexuality is an abomination. Because for the writer of Leviticus whether you sleep with a woman on her period or sleep with a man because of hegemony - it’s an abomination.

Her approach to Jesus breaks multiple social boundaries. As a ritually unclean woman, she shouldn't be in the crowd at all. Her plan to touch Jesus's garment without permission violates protocols about contamination and consent. Her condition makes her anonymous - Mark doesn't even give us her name.

The healing happens through touch, but not the kind of touch Jesus usually initiates. She "came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, 'If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well'" (5:27-28). The healing is immediate, but Jesus recognizes that power has gone out from him and demands to know who touched him.

The disciples' response reveals their misunderstanding: "You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, 'Who touched me?'" (5:31). They cannot distinguish between the casual contact of crowding and the desperate reach of faith. Jesus can feel the difference.

When the woman realizes she cannot remain hidden, she comes forward "in fear and trembling" and tells "the whole truth" (5:33). Jesus's response transforms her from anonymous desperate patient to recognized community member: "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease" (5:34).

The word "daughter" is particularly powerful here. This woman, excluded from family and community life for twelve years, is claimed as family by Jesus. Her healing isn't just physical but social and spiritual - she's restored to full community participation.

Meanwhile, during this interaction, messengers arrive to tell Jairus that his daughter has died and he should no longer trouble Jesus. The contrast is striking: while the hemorrhaging woman is restored to life and community, Jairus's daughter slips away from both.

Jesus's response to Jairus - "Do not fear, only believe" (5:36) - echoes his earlier words to the woman. Faith, not social location, determines access to healing power. The synagogue leader's privilege cannot prevent death, and the excluded woman's marginalization cannot block restoration.

At Jairus's house, Jesus encounters professional mourners already lamenting the child's death. When he says "The child is not dead but sleeping" (5:39), they ridicule him. Death seems final, especially to those whose job it is to ritualize endings.

Jesus excludes the mourners and takes only Peter, James, John, and the child's parents into the room. The healing happens in intimate space, witnessed only by those who love the child most deeply. Taking her hand, Jesus speaks in Aramaic: "Talitha kum," which Mark translates as "Little girl, get up!" (5:41).

The detail that Jesus spoke in Aramaic, his native language, suggests the intimacy of the moment. This is the tender address of someone who cares deeply. The child rises and walks and eats - signs of complete restoration to normal life.

Contemporary Applications: Healthcare, Touch, and Social Restoration

Mark 5's healing narratives speak directly to contemporary struggles around healthcare access, social inclusion, and the ways marginalized bodies are treated in our society. Each story challenges different assumptions about who deserves care and how healing happens.

The Gerasene demoniac's story resonates with communities dealing with mental health crises, addiction, and complex trauma. Like the man among the tombs, people dealing with these conditions often find themselves excluded from normal community life, unable to be helped by conventional interventions, and written off as beyond hope.

The story suggests that healing for the most marginalized requires going to where they are, rather than expecting them to come to traditional care centers. Jesus crosses geographical, cultural, and religious boundaries to reach someone everyone else has abandoned. The restoration includes individual healing but also economic disruption - the pigs rushing into the sea represent the cost of prioritizing human dignity over financial profit.

The woman with the hemorrhage speaks directly to experiences of chronic illness, particularly conditions that affect women's bodies and reproductive health. Her story of medical bankruptcy, social isolation, and desperate care seeking mirrors contemporary experiences of navigating healthcare systems that often fail those who need them most.

Her healing through unauthorized touch challenges medical models that require formal procedures, professional mediation, and institutional approval. Sometimes healing happens through community care, mutual aid, and direct action rather than through proper channels.

The transformation of her status from unnamed, unclean patient to recognized "daughter" reflects the social dimension of healing. True restoration includes not just physical improvement but full community belonging.

Jairus's daughter's story demonstrates that even privilege cannot guarantee protection from loss, but it also shows how grief and restoration can coexist. The child's death and resurrection happen within loving family community, witnessed by those who care most deeply.

The progression from public healing (the demoniac's community-wide impact) to semi-public healing (the woman's recognition before the crowd) to private healing (the child's intimate family setting) suggests that divine power operates across all social contexts, but different situations require different approaches to restoration.

Intersectional Implications: Power, Access, and Transformation

Mark 5's healing stories reveal how social position affects access to care, but they also demonstrate that God's restorative power operates most freely among the marginalized. The most dramatic healings happen with those society has written off - the demon-possessed man, the ritually unclean woman, the dead child.

Each healing involves boundary crossing. Jesus enters Gentile territory for the demoniac, allows himself to be touched by an unclean woman, and enters a house of death for the child. Divine power seems to require boundary transgression rather than boundary maintenance.

The stories also reveal how healing disrupts existing systems. The townspeople fear the restored demoniac and ask Jesus to leave. The crowd cannot understand the difference between casual contact and desperate faith. The professional mourners ridicule the possibility of resurrection.

These dynamics mirror contemporary resistance to LGBTQ+ affirmation, healthcare justice, and other movements that challenge established systems. When marginalized people experience healing, restoration, and full community inclusion, it often threatens those whose power depends on maintaining exclusionary boundaries.

The progression of the chapter suggests that healing work starts with the most marginalized and moves toward centers of power. Jesus begins with the demon-possessed man in Gentile territory, continues with the excluded woman in a Jewish crowd, and concludes with the synagogue leader's family. God's restorative work moves from margins to center, not the reverse.

Questions for Reflection

As we continue through Mark's Gospel, these healing stories invite us to examine our own assumptions about healthcare, social inclusion, and divine power:

• Where do you see contemporary communities writing off people as beyond help or hope?

• How do different forms of social privilege affect access to healing and care?

• What boundaries might God be calling you to cross in order to reach those who need restoration?

• How does your faith community respond when marginalized people experience healing and claim their place in the community?

Next week, we'll explore Mark 6 and its stories of rejection, mission, and the challenges of faithful witness in hostile environments. The themes of boundary crossing and social restoration will continue to evolve as Jesus faces increasing opposition while expanding his ministry reach. Until then, may you find yourself both receiving and offering the healing touch that restores bodies, communities, and hope.

Good morning, beautiful humans! My kitchen counter (where I write these posts) is stuffed with microphones, a guitar, and a midi keyboard because I was recording some songs yesterday all while my coffee is dripping and my kids are cutely playing together. Summer Sunday mornings have their own special rhythm, don't they? Grab whatever caffeinated beverage brings you joy and settle in.

Family Slice

Last week we talked about Kim’s pet peeves, here are her words on the issue:

There’s a funny thing that happens when you’re raised the way most girls are in the US. Sometimes it’s through intention and sometimes it is the natural byproduct of what we’re surrounded with but we are given a story that we’re told is ours. It happened to me- “One day, you’ll meet a boy. He’ll ask permission to marry you, you’ll buy a house, and have babies.” The story was encouraged everywhere I looked, since it was the story of all my family members and most Disney channel movies of the week.

It’s important to say that the story is not bad. For many, that is exactly what they want. And I often find myself grateful for how my life unfolded because I wouldn’t have ended up where I am without it. But about a year ago a sweet person sent me a New York Times article that perfectly explains where I find myself these days. Thirteen years ago did I picture being married to a trans woman and proudly telling people that I am queer? Definitely not. And yet here I am, actively choosing this life and, unlike what some people may think, not being held hostage to it.

There is a grief that exists that my childhood stories are not reality. How much “easier” would it be to walk around as a family if more people saw us as ‘acceptable’? How many emotional, challenging conversations could we have been spared if Lana hadn’t confronted parts of herself that she’d neglected? And yet through all that I can see the better story emerge. One where our kids as well as Lana and myself can watch movies and meet friends that prove all types of families, all types of stories, are worth choosing.

This Week's Special

Richmond had another brutal temperature cycle this week, and it's got me thinking about climate change in very immediate, practical terms. When you're planning outdoor activities with kids and checking heat indices every morning, climate reality stops being abstract policy and becomes daily decision-making.

We've had to completely restructure our summer routines around the heat. Pool trips happen early in the morning or later in the evening. Playground visits are off the table during peak hours. Even our camping plans needed adjustment because sleeping in a tent when overnight temperatures don't drop below 80 degrees is its own special kind of misery.

What strikes me most is how climate change impacts different families unequally. We have air conditioning, flexible schedules, and the resources to adjust our plans around weather. We can afford to drive to indoor activities when it's too hot for outdoor ones. We have the privilege of choices that many families don't have.

But when I think about families without reliable cooling, parents working outdoor jobs with no flexibility, kids in schools without adequate air conditioning, the heat becomes a justice issue rather than just an inconvenience. Climate change isn't just an environmental problem - it's a deepening of existing inequalities.

The urgency feels different when you're the parent trying to keep kids safe and entertained while the world literally heats up around you. This isn't a problem for future generations to solve - it's the reality we're navigating right now, today, this summer.

The Crust of the Matter

Last Friday I continued my deep dive into Mark 4. I’ve been thinking a lot about the parable of the secretly growing seed and how transformation happens beneath the surface, in ways we cannot see or control. This week, watching my identity questions percolate without forcing resolution (as you’ll read in Momhood below), I'm seeing how that parable applies to personal growth.

We want change to be visible, measurable, dramatic. We want to plant seeds and see immediate sprouting. But the most significant transformations often happen underground, through processes we don't understand, on timelines we cannot control.

I think about how my understanding of myself as a woman, as a mother, as a minister has evolved over years of small, invisible shifts. Each day I woke up a little more myself than the day before, but the change was so gradual I couldn't see it happening. Only looking back can I see the growth that was occurring all along.

The farmer in Jesus's parable "sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows, he does not know how." There's deep comfort in that not knowing. Sometimes our job is simply to plant seeds of love, justice, and authenticity, then trust the slow work of transformation to unfold in its own time.

Momhood

I don’t think I know who I am. SO much has changed in just the last 5 years and I’m quite overwhelmed at the moment. Yes, it is pretty logical that after transitioning, ASD awareness, and a whole professional stir-up I am overwhelmed but I feel like I’m renegotiating who I am and how I want to show up for the world.

To be honest, I feel fulfilled but I’m not quite sure how to define myself. I’m a mom for sure and I have very much enjoyed hanging with the kids this summer. But I don’t know who I am.

A concrete example is the eternal journey of womanhood. Looking at early transition photos I was so dead-set on looking as feminine as possible and to an extent I still enjoy that but I defiantly identify more futch than before.

One thing is certain, I’m becoming more confident than I ever was before and I’m trying out more new and healthy things than ever before. This extends to all the fields of my life and I reckon I’m practicing what I’m preaching and try to be as present as possible in the ambiguity and give up on the human desire to achieve certainty. There is no certainty to be had and there is no other goal in life than today. And today, I’m a pretty cool mom.

Pie To Go

🚴🏼‍♀️ I joined my first group bike ride with RambleRVA of the year! So much FUN! Richmond is surprisingly bikable, especially if you can avoid all the hills. I’m looking forward to the next one.

🎸 This Tuesday I’m going to Three Notched for an open mic. If you’re around, you should come by. I’ll be singing some originals that have never seen the light of day 😬

🎭 Speaking of cringy moments. I’m also going to a stand up open mic this week 😳 I always hear that I look so comfortable when I’m on stage but the reality is that I’m SUPER nervous. One day I checked out an open mic with my bestie and I saw so many people bomb and it was no big deal at all. So I’m doing this as exposure therapy and teaching my body it’s ok to be in uncomfortable places.

Thanks for being here, friends. Your presence in this space makes every week feel a little more connected.

Welcome back, dear ones! I'm so grateful you're joining me on this rainy evening (at least in Richmond) in this deep dive through Mark's Gospel. If you have missed previous version you can find the first one here. Today we're exploring Mark 4, where Jesus shifts into parable mode and everything becomes more mysterious rather than clearer. This chapter forces us to wrestle with uncomfortable questions about understanding, hiddenness, and who gets access to divine truth.

I'm specifically thinking about how marginalized communities have always communicated in coded language - from spirituals during slavery to drag culture to the ways LGBTQ+ people have historically signaled recognition and safety to each other. There's something profound about truth that reveals itself to some while remaining hidden from others, and Mark 4 suggests this dynamic is central to how God's kingdom operates.

Mark 4: The Subversive Power of Hidden Meanings

Mark 4 represents a turning point in Jesus's ministry. After facing escalating opposition from religious authorities and even his own family, Jesus adopts a new communication strategy: parables. Deliberately complex narratives that simultaneously reveal and conceal, depending on who's listening and how they're positioned to hear.

Ground Truth (4:1-20)

Jesus begins with what might be his most famous parable, though its familiarity can mask its radical implications. The story seems straightforward: a sower scatters seed on different types of ground with varying results. But the interpretation Jesus provides to his inner circle reveals layers of meaning about receptivity, persecution, and the competing demands of wealth and worry.

What strikes me most is how this parable decentralizes human agency in spiritual transformation. The sower's job is simply to scatter seed everywhere, without discriminating between promising and unpromising ground. The transformative power lies in the seed itself rather than in the sower's strategic targeting or the hearer's initial worthiness.

This has profound implications for how we understand evangelism and spiritual community. Rather than screening people for readiness or trying to determine who's "good soil," the parable suggests our role is generous scattering of seeds of love, justice, and inclusion. Some will take root immediately, others will struggle against hostile conditions, and still others will be choked out by competing priorities. Our job isn't to control the outcomes but to keep sowing.

I know that there are other interpretations of this passage. Like the sower being Jesus or a direct link to predestination. It is not my intention to portray this as the only way to approach scripture. This is an intersectional approach.

From an intersectional perspective, this parable speaks to the reality that marginalized people often face multiple obstacles to spiritual flourishing. The "thorns" of economic pressure, family rejection, and social hostility can make it difficult for LGBTQ+ people, people of color, and other marginalized groups to find space for spiritual growth within traditional religious contexts. The parable doesn't blame the ground for being rocky or thorn-infested - it acknowledges that external conditions profoundly shape spiritual possibilities.

Insiders and Outsiders (4:10-12)

Mark includes a passage that has troubled interpreters for centuries. When asked about the parables privately, Jesus tells his disciples: "To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables, in order that 'they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven'" (4:11-12).

This seems to suggest that Jesus deliberately obscures truth to prevent certain people from understanding and receiving forgiveness. Many interpretations try to soften this apparent harshness, but I think we need to sit with the discomfort it creates and consider what it reveals about how truth functions in contexts of power and oppression.

Parables weren't designed to make truth more accessible to everyone - they were designed to make truth recognizable to those who needed it most while remaining opaque to those who might use it for harmful purposes. Like coded language in oppressed communities, parables protected dangerous truths from being co-opted or weaponized by those in power.

The "hardness of heart" that prevents understanding isn't intellectual inability but moral positioning. Those who benefit from systems of exclusion and domination cannot hear parables about God's inclusive kingdom because accepting that truth would require dismantling their privileged position. The hiddenness isn't arbitrary but protective.

Consider how this dynamic operates today. When LGBTQ+ people share stories about finding God's love and acceptance, those stories are "parables" that speak directly to other marginalized people while often remaining incomprehensible to religious conservatives. The truth isn't hidden because God wants to exclude anyone, but because some people's investment in exclusionary systems makes them unable to hear inclusive truth. But also can you see how this works with privilege today? If you don’t need something with life threatening urgency, it’s likely that you won’t recognize it.

Eventually Revealed (4:21-25)

Jesus follows his explanation of parabolic hiddenness with a seemingly contradictory teaching about lamps and revelation: "Is a lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket, or under the bed, and not on the lampstand? For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come to light" (4:21-22).

This creates tension with the previous passage about deliberate concealment. But perhaps, and hear me out here, the tension is the point. Truth is both hidden and revealed, depending on timing, context, and the readiness of those who encounter it. The lamp will eventually be placed on the lampstand, but not necessarily immediately or for everyone simultaneously.

The warning about "the measure you give will be the measure you get" (4:24) reinforces this dynamic. Those who approach with openness, humility, and genuine seeking will receive understanding in abundance. Those who approach with hardened hearts and predetermined conclusions will find their capacity for understanding diminished.

For marginalized communities, this passage offers both hope and strategy. The truths about God's radical inclusion that religious institutions often suppress will eventually come to light. The love that LGBTQ+ people experience in their relationships will eventually be recognized as divine gift rather than demonic deception. But the timing of that revelation depends partly on how we measure out grace, truth, and justice in our own communities.

Patient Transformation (4:26-29)

The brief parable of the seed growing secretly emphasizes the mysterious, gradual nature of God's kingdom work. The farmer "sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows, he does not know how" (4:27). The earth produces fruit "automatically" - the Greek word is "automatos," suggesting divine agency working independently of human effort or understanding.

This parable offers profound comfort for those working for justice and inclusion. Change often happens beneath the surface, in ways we cannot see or control. The farmer's job is to plant and harvest, but the growth itself happens through processes beyond human management.

I think about this when progress on LGBTQ+ acceptance feels impossibly slow, when legislative setbacks make it seem like we're moving backward, when individual families seem locked in patterns of rejection. The parable suggests that seeds of love and truth are growing in places we cannot see, through mechanisms we don't understand, on timelines we cannot control.

The harvest will come, but it comes in God's timing rather than ours. Our job is faithful planting and patient waiting, trusting that the seeds of justice we scatter today are taking root in ways that will become visible when the time is right.

Humble Beginnings (4:30-32)

The final parable of the chapter compares God's kingdom to a mustard seed - "the smallest of all the seeds on earth" that grows into a shrub large enough for birds to nest in its shade (4:31-32). This image would have been both familiar and subversive to Jesus's first-century audience.

Mustard was considered a weed in first-century Palestine - invasive, difficult to control, spreading rapidly once established. By comparing God's kingdom to a mustard plant rather than a majestic cedar, Jesus suggests that divine transformation often begins with what seems insignificant, unimpressive, or even unwanted.

The detail about birds nesting in its branches evokes prophetic imagery about great empires providing shelter for the nations. But Jesus relocates this imperial metaphor to a humble garden weed, suggesting that God's kingdom operates through different values and power dynamics than human empires.

For marginalized communities, this parable is both promise and strategy. The small acts of love, the quiet resistance, the everyday choices to affirm dignity and worth - these seemingly insignificant seeds contain the potential for transformation that can shelter multitudes. LGBTQ+ affirmation began with individual people finding courage to live authentically, with small communities choosing inclusion over conformity, with humble acts of love that seemed tiny but proved unstoppable.

Authority Over Chaos (4:35-41)

Mark concludes the chapter with Jesus calming a storm, demonstrating the same authority over natural chaos that his parables exercise over social and spiritual chaos. When the disciples cry out in fear, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" (4:38), they're asking the same question marginalized people ask when religious and political storms threaten to overwhelm them.

Jesus's response - "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" (4:40) - isn't dismissive but educational. Faith isn't the absence of fear during storms but trust in divine presence and power even when circumstances seem hopeless. The wind and waves obey Jesus's voice, suggesting that the same word that teaches in parables has authority over the forces that threaten to destroy.

Coded Truth and Patient Growth

Mark 4's parable collection speaks directly to how marginalized communities navigate hostile environments while nurturing transformative truth. The parables model a communication strategy that protects dangerous truths while making them available to those who need them most.

Contemporary LGBTQ+ Christian discourse often operates in parabolic mode. When we talk about "radical hospitality" or "the wideness of God's mercy," we're using coded language that speaks clearly to those seeking inclusion while remaining non-threatening to those not ready for explicit affirmation. When we share stories about finding God in unexpected places or experiencing divine love in non-traditional relationships, we're speaking in parables that reveal truth to those with ears to hear.

The chapter's emphasis on patient, hidden growth offers hope for long-term transformation. The seeds of acceptance planted in individual hearts, families, and communities may take years or decades to bear visible fruit. But the parable of the secretly growing seed reminds us that God's kingdom work continues even when we cannot see immediate results.

The mustard seed parable particularly speaks to the power of small-scale justice work. Individual acts of affirmation, local church declarations of inclusion, regional policy changes - these may seem insignificant compared to national legislative battles or denominational debates. But Jesus suggests that the kingdom spreads through humble beginnings that eventually provide shelter for multitudes.

Questions for Reflection

These parables invite us to examine our own relationships to truth, understanding, and transformation:

• How do you see parabolic communication operating in contemporary marginalized communities?

• Where have you experienced the patient, hidden growth that Jesus describes in the seed parables?

• What "mustard seed" movements in your community contain the potential for broader transformation?

• How do you maintain faith during storms of opposition or setback?

Next week, we'll explore Mark 5 and its collection of healing stories that demonstrate the kingdom power Jesus has been describing in parables. The themes of hidden truth and patient transformation will take concrete form as we see God's inclusive love embodied in encounters with those society has written off. Until then, may you find yourself both sowing seeds generously and trusting the slow work of divine transformation.