My dear friend Preston Yancey is neck-deep in book stuff right now, so he’s hosting a guest post series on his blog about formative meals. I am so honored to be a part of this series.

The meal I’m writing about today happened a few years ago, but it’s still one that I think about with much fondness. I was in a not-great place, and this time with my friends was a balm to my soul. I’m so grateful that I have this memory, and people in my life who are there in the dark times.

I’d love it if you’d head over to Preston’s place to give this a read.

Who am I?

I know who people tell me to be.
The smokin’ hott wife.
The Pinterest perfect mom.
The articulate writer.
The long-suffering friend.

But much of the time,
I am not.

“Conform to this political ideology.”
“Believe this particularly theology.”

No matter what I choose,
it’s wrong,
at least according to someone.

So I ask again,
Who am I?

I am
created in the image of the One
who is
I Am.

So perhaps,
instead of searching for who I should be,
I need to remember
who I Am.

Happy Sunday! I hope everyone had a great week. Now, on to my favorites from this week!

• John Blase is one of the most gorgeous writers that I read. This post that he wrote for A Deeper Church resonated so hard with me this week. I am so right here.
• I’ve gone through bad writing seasons. This post by Billy Coffey was a good one for me to read, because his novels are so beautiful and it’s hard to imagine that he could ever had a bad writing day. Be sure to check out his newest novel, When Mockingbirds Sing.
• And while you’re reading writing advice (I’m gearing up to really work on my book, does it show?), I love this piece from Andi Cumbo about writing what makes you feel. Sometimes we have to write things that we have to write, but it’s important to do this as well.
• This snapshot of grief by Sarah Bessey is just gut-wrenching truth.
• I loved this guest post that Rachel Evans wrote for Tony Jones about being the voice for women. But really, we need to remember that no matter who we look at, we’re looking at THEM.
• I’m pretty sure I had cakes for Mother’s Day. Now it’s your turn, dads.
• And in a “I promise I won’t do this often, but I kind of need to for a second” move, my agent will be pitching my book at the end of this week to a few editors. They will be asking for my social media stats, so if you haven’t followed me on Twitter or liked my Facebook page, I would love it if you would do that. Also, feel free to pass on all of your good thoughts that, as Rachelle said, the editors don’t run screaming from the room. 

What have you read/written/watched/listened to this week that moved you? Link it up in the comments!

Often we hear from people who have had someone else move away from the faith they grew up with, but today, Natalie shares about how her faith changed and evolved, and how she moved from a Protestant belief system to embrace Catholicism, while still remaining married to a Protestant. I’m grateful for her words today in this space. If you’d like to contribute, check out the details here.

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Dear Readers,

I didn’t want to write you this letter. I thought I possessed enough humility and grace to never need to write a letter of this sort. Then, I realized that what was actually in my possession was a stowaway bag of pride. I don’t want to travel with it anymore. So, here I am to write you these words, which I do not free from my heart begrudgingly, but with a hope that you’ll hear me and perhaps even forgive me.

You may know me, you may not. You may be reading me for the first time. Whether you know me or not shouldn’t matter too much. I’m sure you’ve met someone like me, someone who at one time or another become so zealous in their beliefs that it wounded you or people you love; you might not hear an apology from them, but today, you’re hearing one from me.

I’ve recently become a faithful convert to the Mother Church; I found her or she found me or the Holy Spirit set us up, either way, we are joined. I’m filled to the brink with love for the Catholic Church- and this passion has spilled over from time to time. Actually, it has not only been an innocent spill here and there. If I am going to be honest, there have been times when I have bumped into you, on purpose, and carelessly let my cup fall, and maybe I’ve even left a stain. And sometimes, like in my relationship with my Protestant husband, I’ve watched my passion for faith turn into a passion of ego, and the stain of ego all over someone you love is an ugly one.

Yet, I can be all too quick to claim innocence or ignorance (or both) when I misuse my passion to wound others.

But it was love! I poured out my love, and it should have been warmly received and comforting and true!

Those are the words I cry inside my heart as I watch you grow silent or walk away or change the subject, ready to escape the topic of my faith.

I have lifted my voice in various ways to say that I wanted you to see the light. I wanted your voice to join with mine in the chorus of the faithful. I want you to sing my song. Kneeling and standing and confessions and professions; these rituals feed me now, and I’ve been afraid that you’re starving.

And I don’t understand why you shrug your shoulders as I ask if you will join me at mass or even in conversation. I’m not sure why you aren’t interested in how I practice my faith. I wonder why you don’t want to know what God looks like to me. I’m not sure why you hold so fast to your beliefs, and don’t crack the door open for mine.

It’s in my own moments of confusion or frustration that I need to look at my motivations. The truth is that sometimes my motivations in faith conversations are not kind or loving or honest.

It’s easy enough to claim that I don’t want to convert you, except for when I do.

It’s easy enough for me to cry out, “Unity! All I want is unity!” when in fact, my actions indicate that I’ll ignore you, dismiss your values, and belittle your personhood because I can’t quite take the fact that we may never agree.

Readers, for this I am so sorry.

I may still long to share the same faith tradition with you, and this is not wrong. It is good to desire. But it is wrong when desire becomes lord over love. First, I must love, and this is so hard for me sometimes.

So please, as we navigate topics of faith as Catholics, Mormons, Buddhists, Universalists, Muslims, Protestants, Atheists and more, know that today I am vowing to write love on my heels, love on my hands, and love on my lips because above all I want you to see that Love, and only Love, spills from my heart.

In Process of Learning to Love Better,

Natalie

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Natalie is a lover of Chinese food, independent films, and toffee flavored lattes. She’s trying to maintain an anti-Kindle position, and frequents independent bookstores. She is currently spending the next couple months finishing up her memoir, Stranger in My Bed: A Story Sexual Addiction and Betrayal. Natalie writes about faith and suffering over at natalietrust.com and you can find her on twitter at @NatalieTrust.

I’m honored to once again be guest posting for my friend Hemant Mehta. Last September I had the opportunity to stay with him when I went to STORY. We had dinner together and I even got to see his chlamydia. So it was a pretty good visit.

Today I’m at his place, writing about the yearly tradition of Christian students standing up to the “radical minority” of atheists and agnostics by praying at their high school graduations and why I don’t think that’s a good representation of the Christian faith.

I’d love it if you’d head over to his place and give it a read. And if you’re visiting from Hemant’s, welcome! Be sure to check out The Christian Guide to Atheists series and look me up on Facebook and Twitter.

Myth: Atheists think they sin too much to be accepted by God

Last time, I examined the idea that atheists don’t think they sin at all. This week, I want to examine the other side of that, which is that atheists thing that they are so sinful that they can’t be accepted by God.

There are a couple of reasons why this particular line of thinking doesn’t work. As we said in the last piece, the atheist notion of sin is, generally speaking, far different from the Christian idea of sin. Additionally, since atheists don’t believe in God, the idea of needing to please this being is somewhat nonsensical. So when you suggest that an atheist is concerned that they are a sinner unworthy of God’s love, the language alone is likely off-putting enough to shut down much further conversation.

But even if everyone is tracking with the language, even if there is disagreement, the statement still can be problematic, because it suggests a judgment being made about the person’s morality.

The idea of total depravity is one that runs through much of Christian theology. We are born into original sin and even if people never do anything really bad, no one is worthy of salvation. This teaching doesn’t mean that Christians believe that people are incapable of doing good, but rather that the image of God in each of us has been distorted in some way and regardless of our good works, we are still in danger of hell. So even a well-behaved Christian will often see themselves as a sinner deserving of punishment. For some, the idea that we’re all innately sinful means that there’s a barrier between us and God and the assumption can be that everyone sees it the same way.

Additionally, many people who became Christians later in life often have conversion experiences borne out of some negative life circumstances or lots of negative life decisions. Because of these poor choices, they may have experienced negativity from the Church when they were still outside of the Church themselves, and that may have caused them to be wary of Christianity for a season. The unworthiness that other people of faith dredged up in them translated to a lack of love from God. Because we often look for our own experiences in other people, people who came to faith as adults may assume that this separation that they experienced is the same thing that is keeping others from finding comfort in Christianity.

While I want to acknowledge that there are some who feel differently, I do not think that everyone who speaks this myth believes that people outside of Christianity are bad people. Since most people know someone who is not a person of faith, they also understand that people without faith can still be good. So I don’t think that it’s intended as a slight about the morality of the person of no faith.

However, I think that we need to be careful about what our words communicate, and this can be a phrase that makes assumptions about others, even if that is not the intention. When we start talking about why someone else is not a Christian, rather than asking them why they are not, we are making judgments about the other person. We are saying that we know better than they do about their own mind and emotions and few of us are okay with others doing that to us.

We are all complicated people, and our belief systems and morality are part of that complexity. When we try to use simple statements to explain why someone does or doesn’t believe something, we deny their humanity. But when we ask questions and seek to get to know individuals, we invite them into our lives and it makes all of us more human.

Next week: Atheism is a religion

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Alise’s Disclaimer:

• I’m one Christian and my pool of atheist friends is not vast. If you want to know about what an atheist believes, ask them. Daniel at The Barking Atheist will be co-blogging with me for this series and he is as committed as I am to having a good conversation between Christians and atheists. Stop by his place for additional thoughts on each of these topics!

Guidelines for Commenting:

• Assume the best of the other commenters. Someone might say something that isn’t worded well. Rather than assuming that they meant it to be hurtful, please assume that they just didn’t know better.
• Questions are good. If you see something that doesn’t seem right, ask for clarification. As much as I say this is a guide, what I really want to do is to open up a discussion.
• No proselytizing. We’re here to talk. Not to make people think the same way that we think.
• Full comment policy available here.

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email in which I was called a gross, disgusting name. I deleted the email almost immediately, but something like that doesn’t delete from your mind very quickly. Or ever, I expect.

It was awful because I ceased to feel like a person in that moment, instead I was just a body part. I wasn’t someone who had feelings that could be hurt by name-calling, I was a symbol of something that had hurt this person in the past and I became an easy target for that anger.

On reflection, I can recognize this. I can see that this person also had scars. They had been wounded and they were responding out of that painful emotion.

But that day I just felt terrible, and when I told my husband about it, I said, “Some people are just assholes.”

With that statement, I did the exact same thing that they did to me.

I spoke out of anger and hurt and reduced them to an unflattering body part. I didn’t think about the whole of them, I just looked at one action and judged them as bad. Unworthy of my respect. Less than. “Just.”

I hate when I see any of my friends stuck receiving piles of negative feedback, particularly when I believe that it is undeserved. It’s easy to rush to their defense and suggest that the people who are pushing back are “just haters” or “just d-bags” or “just jerks” or “just bullies.”

There may be a small element of truth in that. Some of the behavior is bad. It is hurtful and hateful and bullying. Sometimes it comes from people whose words have a lot of clout. It comes from influential ministers in the church. It comes from bloggers with large platforms. It comes from people who should know better.

Often times it comes at the expense of someone who is not in a position of power or privilege. The push-back can be against someone who has a minority status or who is being a voice with those who are in an oppressed group. Someone who is speaking for people who have limited ability to speak for themselves. People step up to defend those who are dehumanized and end up on the receiving end of that same behavior.

We are not obligated to sit idly by when someone treats others as less that human. It is absolutely appropriate to address hurtful behavior. It’s okay to express pain when someone’s behavior affects you. Acknowledging our wounds is one of the first ways that we can begin to heal from them. We don’t have to be friends with people who habitually hurt others or who regularly engage in destructive behavior.

But when I look at those who do the dehumanizing and I turn and do the same thing right back to them, I am not making things better for those who are marginalized or for me. Creating a system where more people become a “just” reinforces the idea that people aren’t holistic beings.

I am not “just” the name that I was called. The person who wrote that is not “just” the name that I called them in return. When I remember that something as simple as the Golden Rule applies to people who I like as well as people who I don’t like as much, I help break the cycle of dehumanizing behavior.

I help all of us become more than “just.”

This was the first week that my kids were home for the summer, so it was nice to spend some time catching up with them. Thanks to those of you who offered your prayers and kind words about my mom on Tuesday. They are all appreciated. And now to some of my favorite things from around the internet this week!

• Jamie Wright always impresses me with her writing, and this post about sanctuary was no exception. When we stop thinking in terms of salvation and start thinking about sanctuary, it can change us profoundly.
• David Henson wrote a fantastic post this week about the Lenten practice that he started with his kids of talking about the saints. How this related to the Easter story moved me deeply.
• My friend Elora suffered a loss this week. I am so moved by her honest writing here.
• Preston Yancey speaks my language here. I love blogging that edifies rather than tears down and I’m so grateful for the way that he is embracing this.
• I’m so looking forward to meeting Kimberly Knight in August at Wild Goose. This post about getting to know people rather than worrying about issues is part of why I’m anxious to talk to her in person.
• A few months ago, Nathan Bransford had a post about getting published in gif form. Now he tells us how to know if we’re writers, also in gif form. Awesome.
• Last week at Mountain Stage, I got to see JOHNNYSWIM perform. If you’re a fan of The Civil Wars, you absolutely must check out their music. I can’t wait until their next EP drops, but in the meantime, check out the music they have available so far. It is amazing. I don’t have enough good things to say about them.

What have you read/written/watched/listened to this week that moved you? Link it up in the comments!

I have led a fairly charmed life in these (almost) thirty-nine years.

I’ve spent 16 of them married to my best friend. I’ve given birth to four healthy, smart, funny kids. I’ve never wanted for food or clean water. I’ve always had a roof over my head, shoes on my feet, and clothes for my body. I’ve had educational opportunities.

But so many do not have the same experience that I have had. Many are lucky to make it to celebrate a 39th birthday, and if they do, they face struggles for food, clean water, and education. 

Nuru International is helping to change that. 

By giving people loans to purchase grain and teaching them better farming techniques, they have increased their maize yield 123%. With this, farmers were able to repay their loans (they have a 100% repayment rate this year for the first quarter), feed their families, and still have crops left to sell at a profit. Nuru has been in Kenya for five years, and this year they started a project in Ethiopia as well.

Additionally, they are offering help with healthcare and education. And they are doing all of this with the people who live there. Men and women are leading their communities and are making them a better place for those who live there with them.

Nuru is just a few years away from proof of concept, at which point they will make their system open source and give it away to any NGO that wants to help. 

I want them to SPRINT across that finish line because what they are doing works.

In order to help them do this, I would like to invite you to help me raise $500 to support Nuru. 

If you click this link, you can go to my birthday page and make a donation to Nuru. When you’re there, please share the link on Facebook or Twitter. You can blog about it or share this post. Get together with friends and do a yard sale and donate a portion of the money toward it. Instead of buying me a new Threadless t-shirt, donate that $20 to help someone feed their family. Whatever you do, get involved. My birthday is in three weeks and I’d love to see is hit the goal of $500. It doesn’t take a huge donation, just lots of small ones.

For more information about how Nuru works, check out this video.

Now, go make a donation. We can end extreme poverty in our lifetime. We just have to agree that we’re going to do it.

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It was just me and Mr. Darcy for a long time.  The two of us, girl and dog, figuring out life’s beautiful mess together.  He was alongside me in every significant moment, working or resting or vacationing.  He was my other, my companion.

And then, as often happens to dogs, a man entered the picture – and by sacred utterance of the words, “I do,” we became a family of three, all under one roof.

It was altogether lovely: but even with husband beside and Mr. Darcy at foot, newness surrounded me, seeming to define every area of my life.  Four months into wedded bliss, I broke down: I was lonely and yearned for community.  I craved Everyday Friends, people whom I didn’t have to book out three weeks in advance.  Walking the dog in and out of the neighborhood’s streets, I hated the very nature of our isolated suburban community: parking in the garage and entering a house without ever having to utter a hello to the person who lived next door.

Understandably, my friendship with Neighbor Mark was then as unexpected as it was real.

I’d seen him around the cul-de-sac, tossing the ball with his scruffy little mutt, offering friendly waves to cars that passed by.  As dog owners often do, we too followed the rules of brief, cordial greetings with benevolently vacant smiles.

I figured we too would go on that way, friendly, dog-loving neighbors, each in our separate boxes.  I’m so glad we didn’t.

His eyes amusedly affixed on my canine companion, he officially welcomed me to the neighborhood.  When the conversation staled and silence ensued, I thought it’d help to remind him who I was: “I’m Cara – I married James. We live at the end of the block.”

“Oh yeah, I know, he’s the…” And he stopped mid-sentence.

It was obvious I needed to finish his thought – after all, this kind of thing happens a lot when you are a pale white girl and you marry a black man.   People don’t exactly know what Politically Correct term they’re supposed to use, so I often feel the need to – you know – help them out.

“…black guy?”  I finished for him.

“Oh no, Hunny Bunny,” and he started laughing.  “You’ve got me wrong: I was going to say hot guy.”

He went on to tell me how he and his partner, Steve, and the other gay men in the neighborhood, all thought my husband was quite the catch.  Standing in the middle of the cul-de-sac, a friendship was birthed and I’d been christened “Hunny Bunny” by a gay man 20 years my elder.

Soon, I knew I could count on Mark to show up every morning to throw the balls with our dogs, and our conversation turned beyond the obvious canine-filled dialogue.  An interior designer, he balked upon first glance of our living room, instructing me to “…for the love of all that is holy, please do something about those curtains that hang four inches above the floor” – while begging me to tell stories about the high school kids I worked with in the next breath.

I was in full-time ministry at the time, serving with an outreach organization that walked alongside middle school and high school students.

“Is it Christian?” he asked.  I nodded my head in assent.

“Oh, that’s trouble.”

Having grown up in the church, he understood theology, through and through; but like many in the gay community, he’d been rejected by the people who claimed to love him the most. So he left. Finding solace outside the boundaries of religion, he was embraced by other gay men who accepted him for his sexuality, not in spite of it.

But Jesus was a different matter altogether.

“Hunny Bunny,” he said to me once, “there’s nothing that’s going to stop Jesus from loving me.  That’s his job.”

And it became Mark’s job as well: loving me when I needed it the most.

Time passed, and eventually we found out I was pregnant with a little one.  Even when I was bone-tired, Mark remained, steady and consistent, still knocking on my door every morning at 8:30, coffee in hand, circling dog at his feet.  Together, our pace slowed as my waddle progressed and the belly grew, but his determined efforts at making me laugh never waned.

“Oh come on, Hunny Bunny, why can’t you name him Justin Case or Justin Time?  How about Robin Banks?  Ugh.  It’d be so much easier if you were having a girl; the name options are endless,” and he’d wink, mouth agape, waiting for my own laughing acknowledgment.

But he didn’t just provide laughter and the occasional snort – his was a shoulder I came to rely on.

Mr. Darcy’s aggression had begun to rear its ugly head, and try as we might, with a baby in tow, we realized the heartbreaking inevitable: we had to say goodbye to our beloved pup.

This time, with three-layer chocolate cake and bottle of wine in hand, Neighbor Mark was the first to arrive on our doorstep, mourning alongside us and retelling favorite stories and offering hope that another family with a big, big field with lots of room to run around in would adopt him.  How we’d all loved that damn dog!

Five weeks later our baby was born, and Mark celebrated with us, exclamation points heavily marking his cheerful, exuberant texts.  Arriving this time with Mr. Pickle’s sandwiches, he was one of the few we invited to stand beside us in the NICU after our son was born.  I coveted his calm and soothing presence in the midst of miniature IV lines that just don’t belong in a baby’s body.

“Oh, Hunny Bunny, this too shall pass,” he reminded me, when again my eyes filled with tears of the unknown.

A mere 48 hours later, in the sweet peace of a clean bill of health, our family of three went home.  But before we left, in the sterile, cold cubicle of the hospital, I was reminded of the extension of family Mark had become: my neighbor had become my friend, my confidant and a source of steady Hope when I’d needed him most.  He, who had felt disposed off by the very people who signed my paycheck each month, had become my person.  It wasn’t about him being gay, and me being a Christian, but it was simply about us – actually being neighbors and loving each other as we should have been doing all along.

Neighbor Mark had become a real, fleshy Jesus to me.

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Former high school English teacher turned youth minister, Cara is now learning what it means to BE as a full-time mama and writer.  She loves pretending to be a foodie, being outdoors and trying to read seven books at a time (although never very successfully).  She and her husband, James, live in San Francisco with their 10-month old son, Canon.   Find her on Twitter (@caramac54) or on her blog, carameredith.com.