New Opportunities

I’ve been procrastinating on writing this blog, hoping that some inspiration would hit me and I would punch out a message that would lift you up and fuel your desire to care for God’s world and its’ people. Usually it comes. 

A few years ago I joined some members of my church to think together about mass incarceration. One of the participants in our group was a returning citizen, a man who had served time and was trying to re-establish himself in the community. I asked him about the greatest challenge he faced when he got out of prison, fully expecting that he’d point to finding employment, housing, or another specific need – and indeed those were real challenges for him.

This is the first installment in the blog series "Seeing Beyond Immigration Rhetoric"

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News broke this week of an unplanned inspection of an El Paso detention center that incarcerates immigrants and the shocking disclosure of its abusive and inhumane conditions. It’s overwhelming.

Christ is risen from the dead,

and creation celebrates!

Have you ever thought about what Easter means for the created world? Have you ever thought about why it matters that Christ’s resurrected body was in a physical form? Christ’s body was recognizable by its scars. It could be touched. Christ’s resurrected body has implications for the creation around us, because matter, the things of this earth, matter to God. They will be changed, renewed, restored, but still recognizable, scars and all.

Political pundits and partisans often use the annual budget announcement as an opportunity to evaluate a government – to sing its virtues or to decry its follies. Many civil society organizations, like the Christian Reformed Centre for Public Dialogue and our partners, also watch the budget announcement closely to evaluate progress on justice priorities. Budgets are moral documents, after all, revealing the priorities of our nation and our leaders.

From the very beginning of God’s walk with his people, the blessings they enjoyed because of their relationship with God were meant to overflow. “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you,” God promised Abraham.

The challenges people face became real to me as a child through my parents’ work—my Dad worked as a foundry manager and my Mom as an advocate for at-risk families at the public school. At an early age, I understood the strain and trauma of poverty from their work.

The challenges people face communally and globally are broad and complicated. Young people learn by example, just as I witnessed my parents engaging injustice.

It has been a chaotic couple months for our government and the entire U.S. As negotiations continue for the federal government to be funded beyond February 15, we as people of faith must hold fast to that which we know to be true about our identity and calling.

One of the most important tools that advocates have up their sleeves is storytelling. Stories have the ability to inform, inspire, and incite action.

I’m always wrestling with the ethical questions around storytelling.

Whenever I speak or write about human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, I rely on stories that try to capture all three of these elements:

“It has been 1,606 days since Flint has had clean water,” declared Flint Rising director Nayyirah Shiriff after introducing herself to me and a group of about 30 other “Healing Waters” retreat participants in the last days of summer 2018 at the Colombiere retreat center in Clarkston, Michigan. Nayyirah’s statement brought a silent wave of grief over the room.