Are we responding to cries that #BlackLivesMatter with choruses of #AllLivesMatter without considering how our words can burn and harm and pour salt on open wounds? Are we simply spitting out the latest factoid that we heard on NPR or FOX or our favorite podcast instead of sitting and listening in order to hear and understand? Are we making sure to have our quiet time and perfectly arrange everything so that it will look great in our Snapchat or Instagram story instead of reaching out to those in our lives to see how they are doing?

I don’t have many answers, and the ones that I do have are uncomfortable ones! But I think we the way forward is in listening, not in arguing; in lending our voice to the voiceless, not in parroting the talking heads on the news; in pursuing our own holiness but also in fighting for the wholeness of the downtrodden.  Food for thought (most of all for myself!) as we continue to engage with a hurting and broken world peopled with hurting and broken friends, neighbors, and families.