When the Sirens Keep Singing: A Reflection on School Shootings and the Ache for Peace

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Another school.
Another shooting.
Another place of learning and laughter turned into a scene of chaos and grief.
This week, it was Florida State University. But it could have been anywhere. And that’s what breaks us open again and again.

We weren’t made for this.
Our hearts weren’t meant to learn how to read the signs, rehearse lockdown drills, or scan a classroom for the safest hiding spot. Our children weren’t created to carry the weight of wondering if their school might be next. And yet, here we are—again.

There’s a particular ache that comes with these headlines. A kind of spiritual nausea. Because how many more? How many times can we offer thoughts and prayers while holding the staggering reality that the world feels increasingly unsafe—and seemingly unchanged?

As people of faith, we believe in a God who sees. Who hears the blood of Abel still crying from the ground. Who weeps with us in the hallways of our grief. And still, we wrestle: What do we do when prayers feel powerless and action feels paralyzed?

Here are a few reflections I’m sitting with this week:

1. Grief Is a Holy Response

Lament is not weakness—it is worship. Scripture is filled with cries of “How long, O Lord?” and “Why have You forsaken me?” We are invited to bring our sorrow before the throne of grace, not sanitize it. We don’t need to rush past our heartbreak. Jesus Himself wept over death. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. And we are never more like Him than when we grieve with those who grieve.

2. Proximity Matters

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the scale of the problem and retreat into helplessness. But love calls us to proximity. To see the people in our immediate circles who are afraid, angry, or numb. To check on the teachers, students, parents, and first responders. To be present in the long aftermath, not just the news cycle. This is how we become the hands and feet of Christ—by moving toward pain, not away from it.

3. Peacemaking Is Not Passive

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” not the peacekeepers. Making peace requires courage. It demands we enter the mess and do the hard, often unseen work of healing. That might mean advocacy. It might mean deeper conversations about mental health, gun violence, access to care, or the spiritual formation of our communities. It might mean raising our voices in love, even when it’s uncomfortable. The Gospel does not call us to comfort—it calls us to cross-bearing.

4. Resurrection Is Our Anchor

The cross tells us that evil is real. But the empty tomb tells us it doesn’t get the final word. As Christians, we hold a dual citizenship—one foot in a broken world, the other in the unshakable Kingdom of God. We mourn the present pain, but we do not despair. Because we know the arc of history bends toward redemption. Because even in the valley of the shadow, we are not alone.

So, what do we do?

We pray.
We grieve.
We show up.
We listen.
We advocate.
We hold tight to hope.

Not a shallow, sugarcoated hope—but a gritty, resurrection-shaped hope that refuses to give up on a world that God still so deeply loves.

And maybe, in the face of so much senseless violence, we take up a different kind of weapon:
Kindness that disrupts hate.
Courage that interrupts apathy.
Faith that insists light is still stronger than darkness.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Make us instruments of Your peace.

The Silence Between the Thorns and the Triumph

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Today is the in-between.

Good Friday has passed—the sky has darkened, the curtain torn, and the world has exhaled a gasp of grief. The cross still casts its shadow over the earth, and the tomb is sealed tight.

And yet, resurrection has not yet dawned.

This is Holy Saturday.
The day of waiting.
The day of not knowing.
The day of silence.

Scripture is quiet about this day. The Gospels, which paint with vivid color the pain of Friday and the victory of Sunday, go nearly still when it comes to Saturday. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe Holy Saturday was never meant to be explained—but felt.

It is the space between sorrow and joy, between the breaking and the mending, between “It is finished” and “He is risen.”

And in that space… is where we live more often than we like to admit.

Because for so many of us, life feels like Holy Saturday.

We know the promise, but we haven’t yet seen the fulfillment.
We’ve buried our hope, but haven’t yet heard it call our name.
We trust that God is good, but the grave still looks like it won.

We live in the tension of what was and what will be.
And today, God does not rush us out of it.

He lets us linger here.
In the hush.
In the waiting.
In the ache.

And maybe that’s a holy thing too.

Because here—where all seems lost and nothing seems certain—faith breathes its truest breath.
Here is where we say: “I still believe.”
Here is where we whisper: “Even now, You are near.”
Here is where hope is no longer a feeling but a fierce decision.

And make no mistake—He is still working.

Even when it looks like nothing is happening.
Even when the tomb is closed and the silence is thick.
Even when the sky feels empty and our prayers feel unanswered.

Jesus descended into the depths—not just to fulfill prophecy, but to make sure no place is beyond His reach. Not even death. Not even despair. Not even the long, quiet waiting of Holy Saturday.

So today, we wait.

But not as those without hope.

We wait with tear-streaked cheeks and hearts that refuse to stop hoping.
We wait with the trust that Sunday is coming.
We wait, not because we are forgotten—but because God is not finished.

And oh, friend—when He moves the stone… it will all make sense.

Until then, we wait. Together.
In silence.
In trust.
In hope.

It Is Finished: Love Poured Out and the Life That Follows

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Good Friday is the day love broke open.

It is the day blood and mercy mingled. The day silence hung heavy in the air as the Son of God breathed His last. And the day that, paradoxically, the greatest victory the world has ever known was won through what looked like utter defeat.

We remember the Cross today—not just as a symbol of suffering, but as the greatest expression of love the world has ever known.

“It is finished.”

Three words spoken not in despair, but in triumph. Not in resignation, but in radiant completion. Jesus’ cry from the Cross was not a whisper of defeat, but a roar of redemption. It was a declaration that the debt had been paid, the veil torn, and the chasm between us and God bridged once and for all.

He gave up His life willingly. Not taken, but given. Not demanded, but offered.

In that moment, love was no longer theoretical or conditional. It became flesh and bone, pierced and poured out. It looked like forgiveness for those who mocked Him. It looked like hope offered to the criminal beside Him. It looked like the Lamb, spotless and surrendered, taking on the weight of all our sin and shame.

And in the shadow of that Cross, in the radiance of that love, I ask myself: How then shall I live?

What kind of life rises from such love?

It cannot be a life of self-preservation. It cannot be a life of bitterness or revenge. It cannot be a life lived for comfort alone. Love like that—love that suffers, that forgives, that lays itself down—calls me to more.

It calls me to open my hands when I want to cling. To forgive when I’d rather fold my arms. To listen when I’m tempted to turn away. To see the dignity in every human soul—because Christ died for them too.

It calls me to live not from scarcity, but from the fullness of grace that has been lavished on me.

The Cross redefines love—not as sentiment, but as sacrifice. Not as a feeling, but as a fierce, unrelenting choice. And in the light of that, I am invited to live a cruciform life. One shaped by His love. One poured out in response.

This is not easy love. But it is holy love. It is the love that interrupts cycles of hate. The love that shows up in the grief, in the mess, in the margins. The love that says, “Not my will, but Yours.”

And so, on this Good Friday, I do not look away from the suffering. I do not rush ahead to Sunday. I sit at the foot of the Cross and let that victorious cry echo through every part of me.

It is finished.

So let the striving cease. Let the shame fall away. Let the walls we’ve built crumble. And let love remake us—again and again.

May I live today, and every day, as one who has been loved like that.

The Hue of the Soul

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— On Thoughts That Tint Us, and the God Who Renews Our Minds

There is a quiet truth tucked inside this ancient wisdom:
“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” —Marcus Aurelius

Not splashed.
Not stained.
But dyed.

As if slowly lowered into a basin of hue, thread by thread, breath by breath. As if we are steeped—over time—until the very fiber of our being holds the echo of our inner dialogue.

Scripture reminds us, too, that “as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” (Proverbs 23:7)
What we dwell on shapes us. The voice we listen to becomes the compass of our soul.
And the beauty—and weight—of this truth is that we are invited to participate in the formation of our own hearts by what we meditate on.

If the soul is a tapestry, then every thought is a thread.
And what we think—again and again—becomes the palette we wear from within.

Hope tints the soul with heaven’s glow.
Gratitude, with the soft greens of new creation.
But fear can draw in ash-grey shadows.
And shame? Shame dyes the soul in a slow-dripping indigo, heavy and silent, that can begin to feel permanent.

But nothing is too permanent for the Redeemer.
God, the Weaver of our being, invites us into renewal—again and again.

“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind,” Paul writes in Romans 12:2.
Because the world will try to paint us in its own palette—fear, scarcity, comparison.
But God dips our hearts in mercy. In truth. In light.
And when we return to Him, He restores the color of joy, the vibrancy of peace, the radiance of love.

We cannot always choose our first thoughts—those flash floods of fear or reflexive self-criticism.
But we can choose which ones we steep in.
Which ones we stir.
Which ones we invite God to sift and sanctify.

Pain has its own sacred pigment.
Even Jesus wept. Even Jesus bled.
But even pain, when placed in His hands, can be turned into a palette of redemption—not bitterness.

So today, I will pause.
I will ask myself gently: What color are my thoughts?
And if they are dark and heavy, I will not hide them.
I will bring them to the One who dyed the sky with sunrise and washed feet in humility.

Because even one drop of grace,
One whisper of truth,
One glance from the God who sees us—
Can begin to shift the hue of a weary soul.

And friend, He is still in the business of renewal.
Still in the habit of taking gray and turning it into gold.

They Will Know Us by Our Love: A Lament and a Calling

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Lately, it seems the air is thick with suspicion. The headlines, the conversations at gas stations, the whispers in pews and the shouting in comment sections—so much of it is steeped in fear, in “us” versus “them,” in a kind of cold certainty that forgets the imago Dei in each face.

I find myself grieving.

Grieving the ways we have othered each other.

Grieving the ways God’s name is used like a weapon instead of a refuge.

Grieving the steady drumbeat of dehumanization that masquerades as conviction.

We are naming enemies where there are neighbors. We are calling strangers dangerous before we’ve ever shared a meal or heard their story. We are painting entire people groups with broad, fearful strokes and then calling it holy.

But it isn’t holy.
It isn’t even human.

When we strip someone of their dignity because of where they were born, who they love, the color of their skin, the questions they carry, the clothes they wear, the God they pray to (or don’t), we are not being faithful. We are being forgetful.

We have forgotten the way Jesus knelt—not stood tall—beside the hurting.
We have forgotten how He touched the unclean, dined with the scandalous, defended the accused, wept with the grieving, and silenced the mob.

We have forgotten the tenderness that scandalized the religious elite.
We have forgotten that the distinguishing mark of His followers is not correct doctrine, sharp arguments, or moral superiority.

It’s love.
“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” — John 13:35

Not love in theory.
Not love in the abstract.
Not love only for those who look like us, think like us, worship like us.

But a love that crosses borders.
A love that pauses to listen.
A love that disarms instead of dominates.
A love that says, “I see God’s fingerprint on your life, even if I don’t understand your path.”

And yet here we are, in a time when suspicion is baptized and hate is dressed in church clothes. We hear that defending “truth” justifies cruelty, that purity demands exclusion, that God needs our outrage more than our compassion.

No.
That is not the Gospel.

The Gospel is the good news that God moved toward us in our brokenness.
And now we are to move toward others in theirs.

This kind of love does not mean the absence of boundaries or the approval of harm. But it does mean we resist the easy narratives that flatten people into caricatures. It means we tell the truth, yes—but with tears in our eyes, not venom in our voice.

It means when we speak of judgment, it is not with glee.
It is not with gloating.
It is not with gnarled fingers pointing outward, but with trembling hands open in repentance.

Because all of us—all of us—have fallen short.

And still, grace runs toward us like the father of the prodigal.
Still, mercy makes room at the table.
Still, we are being shaped by a God whose justice always partners with compassion.

So today, I pray we soften.
That we listen more than we speak.
That we lean in instead of turning away.

And that the world might begin to recognize us again—
not by the sharpness of our opinions,
not by the people we fear,
not by the lines we draw—
but by the unmistakable, tender, audacious love that looks like Jesus.

The Kind of Difference We Make

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“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” — Jane Goodall

It’s easy to believe that our lives are small. That our choices slip quietly through the cracks of the day, unnoticed and unseen. But Jane Goodall’s words call us back to something truer: whether we intend to or not, we leave a mark. Every day. Every one of us.

That mark might look like the smile we offer a stranger—or the one we withhold. It could be the gentle way we greet our children, or the edge in our tone when we feel overwhelmed and under-slept. It might show up in the way we speak about people who are different than us, the way we show up (or don’t) for those on the margins, the way we care for creation, or the way we care for ourselves.

We’re always in motion, always rippling outward.

Some days, I find that thought heavy—like the weight of responsibility is too much. Other days, it feels like a gift: the holy reminder that my life is not meaningless. That even the unseen moments, the quiet kindnesses, the small repairs I offer in my relationships, matter.

We all shape the world with our presence. With our purchases. With our posts. With our prayers. With our patterns.

And if we’re going to make a difference anyway—why not choose the kind that leans toward healing?

What if we asked ourselves at the start of each day:

  • What kind of difference do I want to make today?
  • What would it look like to leave people more whole, not less?
  • How can I be part of mending what’s been broken—whether in my family, my community, or my own heart?

We don’t need a grand platform or a perfect plan. Just the willingness to be intentional. To be kind when it costs something. To be present when it would be easier to disengage. To be a little braver, a little softer, a little more loving.

This isn’t about perfection. It’s about participation.

You matter. You always have.
And today—like every day—you’re already making a difference.
May it be the kind that brings a bit more light into the world.

The Delight of Difference

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“If a man is to survive, he will learn to take delight in the essential differences between cultures. To learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life’s exciting variety, not something to fear.” — Gene Roddenberry

There’s a quiet bravery in choosing wonder over fear.

In a world that often encourages sameness, where algorithms feed us familiar content and news cycles reinforce our own perspectives, it can be easy to forget that difference is not a threat. It’s a gift. The kind that challenges us, invites us into growth, and expands the landscape of our humanity.

Roddenberry, the mind behind Star Trek, knew this deeply. He imagined worlds where beings from different galaxies didn’t just coexist—they learned from one another. They didn’t simply tolerate difference; they delighted in it.

What if we did the same?

What if we looked at unfamiliar customs not with suspicion, but with sacred curiosity? What if we heard a foreign accent and leaned in with interest, rather than pulling back with discomfort? What if opposing ideas didn’t threaten our identity, but instead deepened it by helping us refine what we truly believe?

To take delight in difference is not to abandon conviction—it’s to understand that our conviction grows stronger when it has been tested, stretched, and refined by perspective. That our identity becomes more whole when it’s informed by stories not our own.

Survival, as Roddenberry puts it, hinges not on domination or isolation, but on connection. A connection that makes space for paradox, for nuance, for the vibrancy of lives lived differently than our own.

As someone who walks alongside trauma survivors, travelers, students, and seekers of all kinds, I’ve seen how healing often begins the moment we are seen and honored—not in spite of our differences, but because of them. There is something deeply sacred about being received in our particularity.

The invitation, then, is not just to tolerate one another, but to celebrate the mosaic of cultures, beliefs, values, and expressions that make up this human experience.

Because when we delight in difference, we aren’t just surviving—we’re becoming more fully alive.

Helping the Household of Faith

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“So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” – Galatians 6:10

In a world where suffering rarely takes a break, we are called to lean in—not turn away.

I think often of that verse in Galatians. It’s tucked gently into the end of Paul’s letter, a reminder that our faith doesn’t float in abstraction. It moves. It acts. It crosses borders, kneels low, and brings bread to the hungry and comfort to the grieving. It reaches for those in the thick of battle—not just metaphorically, but sometimes quite literally.

When war breaks out—whether across oceans or in the quiet tremors of someone’s soul—our first response isn’t to ask, is it safe? It’s to ask, is it faithful?

Because the Church is not confined to comfort.

The Church—the household of faith—is a global, breathing Body. And when one part suffers, we all suffer. When our brothers and sisters are displaced, bombed, starved, or isolated, we cannot simply offer prayers from the sidelines and call it enough.

We’re meant to embody the prayers we pray.

Helping the household of faith in war zones means listening when the rest of the world forgets. It means supporting local churches and pastors who stay behind to care for the broken. It means resourcing trauma care for the weary, showing up with blankets and bread, and reminding the faithful in hiding that they are not forgotten by the family of God.

It’s easy to romanticize suffering from afar. But real help is not romantic—it is rugged. It’s sending supplies in the mud. It’s finding ways to translate truth across language and pain. It’s navigating checkpoints and curfews and trauma triggers to sit with the grieving and to whisper, You’re not alone. The Church sees you. God sees you.

Helping the household of faith in war zones also means refusing to let global conflict numb us into inaction. It means choosing proximity. Choosing presence. Choosing to let our comfort be disrupted by the discomfort of others—because that is what love does.

And sometimes… it simply means showing up with loaves and fishes, trusting that God still multiplies.

This is our moment to be the Church—not just in sanctuary, but in the rubble.

May we carry each other across borders and battle lines. May we see beyond headlines into homes and hearts. And may we never forget that the household of faith is bigger than the pew beside us.

It stretches across oceans.

It bleeds and weeps and prays in the trenches.

And it waits for us—not just to care, but to come.

When One Part Suffers: Showing Up for the Household of Faith

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“If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” – 1 Corinthians 12:26-27

The Church—the household of faith—is a global, breathing Body.
And when one part suffers, we all suffer.
When our brothers and sisters are displaced, bombed, starved, or isolated, we cannot simply offer prayers from the sidelines and call it enough.

Prayer is powerful—but so is presence.
And presence, when partnered with compassion, looks like action.

In a world filled with war zones, both visible and hidden, our calling doesn’t shift to self-protection. It leans harder into love. The body of Christ is not a metaphorical ideal we reference in Sunday sermons. It is a living, aching, Spirit-filled truth. And when that Body bleeds in one place, it throbs in another—if we’re paying attention.

We’re invited, not just to feel, but to move.

To send resources.
To amplify stories.
To wrap arms around refugees.
To train counselors.
To support pastors.
To keep showing up in the tension between despair and hope.

Because this is the mystery and miracle of the gospel—that God entered into our suffering, and now calls us to do the same.

When we lift up those in war zones—the widowed, the weary, the ones rebuilding churches from rubble—we aren’t reaching down. We’re reaching across. We’re strengthening our own frame by holding theirs.

And we must not grow weary in doing good.

To be the Church in a world of conflict means we choose proximity over comfort. Compassion over complacency. It means we remember that when a sister is sleeping in a train station or a brother is holding worship in a basement by candlelight, they are still Church—as much as we are.

Maybe more so.

Let’s not settle for soft sympathy when God invites us into fierce, embodied love. Let’s step beyond safe prayers and into sacred solidarity.

Because when one part suffers, we all suffer.
And when one part hopes, we all rise.

When the Flag Becomes an Idol: The Idolatry of Christian Nationalism

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There is a growing movement—loud in voice and powerful in influence—that insists the only faithful Christian is a patriotic one. That to follow Jesus is to defend a particular nation, political agenda, or cultural dominance. It wraps crosses in flags and confuses political power with spiritual authority.

This is the doctrine of Christian nationalism.
And make no mistake: it is not the Gospel.
It is not faithfulness. It is idolatry.

What Is Christian Nationalism?

Christian nationalism is the belief that a nation—most often the United States—is specially chosen by God and should be governed by Christian values as interpreted through a particular political lens. It often suggests that to be a “true” American is to be a Christian, and to be a “true” Christian is to align with specific nationalistic or partisan views.

But this isn’t just about personal belief. It’s about systems, power, and control. It seeks to conflate God’s Kingdom with earthly rule, to wield Scripture as a weapon for dominance, and to reshape civic life around a narrow religious identity.

The Dominionist Roots

Christian nationalism is deeply influenced by dominionism—a theological movement that emerged in the late 20th century, especially among some charismatic and evangelical circles. Dominion theology teaches that Christians are meant to “take dominion” over the Earth by influencing or controlling the “seven mountains” of culture: government, media, education, business, family, religion, and the arts.

While rooted in a misinterpretation of Genesis 1:28 (“have dominion over the earth”), dominionism distorts this call to stewardship into a call for control—as if Jesus came to install a theocracy rather than to redeem hearts.

This ideology reimagines the Great Commission not as a call to make disciples of all nations through love, presence, and truth—but as a mandate to seize political power and enforce religious conformity. That is not biblical. That is empire-building.

Why This Grieves God

Jesus refused political power. When offered all the kingdoms of the world, He said no. When pressured to become a military leader, He withdrew. When questioned about allegiance, He said, “My Kingdom is not of this world.”

God does not need a flag to move His Spirit. He does not bless power grabs, fear tactics, or supremacy cloaked in religious language. In fact, He consistently speaks against them.

The prophets condemned Israel not for a lack of nationalism, but for a lack of justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Jesus rebuked the religious elite not for failing to enforce purity laws, but for neglecting the weightier matters of the law—justice and compassion. The early church grew not by wielding power but by laying it down.

Christian nationalism attempts to force what Jesus invites us to freely receive—the transformation of hearts and the ushering in of God’s Kingdom, not by law, but by love.

The Danger of Idolatry

Idolatry is not just bowing down to golden calves. It’s trusting in anything other than God for our identity, security, or salvation.
Christian nationalism turns the nation into a god.
It turns political leaders into messiahs.
It turns allegiance to a country into a test of faith.

And that, friend, is dangerous ground.

Whenever faith is fused with political identity, the Gospel gets distorted. It stops being good news for the poor, the refugee, the oppressed—and becomes a tool to preserve privilege and power.

Faithful Resistance

Following Jesus means resisting the pull of empire. It means remembering that the Kingdom of God is not built through elections or policy platforms, but through love, sacrifice, humility, and truth.

It means seeing our neighbors as image-bearers, not enemies. It means standing against systems that oppress, even when those systems benefit us. It means refusing to baptize nationalism as Christianity—and instead proclaiming a Gospel big enough for every tribe, tongue, and nation.

A Better Allegiance

Our ultimate allegiance is not to a country, a party, or a flag.
It is to a King who rode in on a donkey, not a warhorse.
Who wore a crown of thorns, not one of gold.
Who conquered not with violence, but with self-giving love.

To follow Him is to live in a way that confronts injustice, welcomes the outsider, and tells the truth—even when it costs us.

So may we repent of the idols we’ve made. May we resist the temptation to confuse patriotism with discipleship. And may we remember:
The Gospel does not need a flag to be powerful.
It only needs a willing heart and an open hand.