Celebrate Recovery
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Do This in Remembrance of Me
There were some who could eat right at the altar of sacrifice and restoration with hearts so hard that they would deny food to their own brothers and sisters in community because “well, if they wanted to eat, they should have brought their own.”
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Bullhorns and Butterflies
If you want to build your faith up so that you honor Jesus and you draw people to Jesus in your lives, might I suggest you do it the way that Jesus did?
- American Exceptionalism, Black Lives Matter, Celebrate Recovery, history, justice, Life Recovery Skills, racism
Not Your Place, Not Your Time
White people, do not go into Black spaces to help change the conversation or add your very important opinion. It is just not the time and place for that.
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Making Good in Trouble
“Making good trouble” means stirring things up so that we do not become complacent about our situation and resigned to injustice
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Wyte Innocence
Wyte people can’t be accused of bias or wrong unless there is exceedingly overwhelming “proof,” and even then we will go down fighting and insisting that we were not wrong
- American Exceptionalism, Black Lives Matter, Celebrate Recovery, faith, history, justice, Life Recovery Skills, racism
Jesus as Emperor
The vision of Jesus for empire Christianity in our Sunday Schools and sermons and theologies is really an irrelevant Jesus who does not match the Jesus of the texts.
- American Exceptionalism, Black Lives Matter, Celebrate Recovery, faith, family, history, justice, Life Recovery Skills, racism, remodeling
On Deconstruction
For the vast, vast majority of people, “deconstruction” is a good thing. Deconstruction can result in something far different and, in my opinion, far better than, white Evangelical Christianity.
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When Our Bibles Get It Wrong
The history of the church is our confidence in rightly understanding until we realize how terribly wrong we’ve misunderstood everything.
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Making the Past the Past
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” ~ Wm. Faulkner It is a difficult thing to think that one’s own faith might itself be in need of redemption. While I got “saved” into the Christian faith during the Jesus Movement, I still found the Billy Graham Crusades to be helpful. Yet it felt funny to see BG side with Republicans. It was discomforting to see how little BG dealt with the racism of the church—even when I wasn’t aware of what was going on, really, I remember thinking it odd that BG would be so, so careful on how he handled MLK, Jr. and his memory. I found…
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REVIEW: So You Want to Talk about Race
So you want to write a review . . . I was initially reluctant to read this book by Ijeoma Uluo. I had heard it was “hard” to read. But I had purchased it, and had it sitting on my desk for a few months. “I’ll get to it.” One day. Just not today. So then I was challenged by a friend to read it. I did—and found out that my fears were unfounded. This is a deep, rich, emotionally transparent book about race and even . . . how to talk about race. I need to be absolutely clear here, as absolutely clear as Oluo is in her own…
- #WakingUpWhite, American Exceptionalism, Celebrate Recovery, faith, history, justice, Life Recovery Skills, racism
#WakingUpWhite Chapter 46: Whole Again
I’ve been blogging with friends as I read through “Waking Up White,” by Debby Irving. We’re committed to reading, thinking, and then writing about our thoughts. For a complete list of posts from my own journey, see https://stephenmatlock.com/category/writing/wakingupwhite/ Quote from Ms. Irving’s book appear using a format to distinguish them from my own words in response. Race is not a cause, it’s a part of becoming fully human. —Billie Mayo Goodness. Interesting and provocative! One of the great temptations of white people when confronting racism is to wish earnestly that it would go away as a difficult and troubling topic. And yet—here it is. I write and edit for Our…
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Words of Apology
One of the most critical things I’m learning is that a conditional apology is worthless. An apology leading with an “if” is nothing at all. It is words that afford us no responsibility to understand or change, and we can offer such an “apology” with no sense of insight about the person who we are. Instead, this “apology” pushes the offense to the victim of the offense. “I wasn’t clear. You didn’t understand. You’re too sensitive. I didn’t mean that.” Love is at stake here. The meaning, the purpose, the expression. We might think we “love” people, and we might think we really mean it. (“I feel so sincere!”) But…
- #WakingUpWhite, American Exceptionalism, Celebrate Recovery, faith, history, justice, Life Recovery Skills, racism
#WakingUpWhite Chapter 45: Normalizing Race Talk
Blogging with friends as I read “Waking Up White” by Debby Irving, committed to read and think and write about our thoughts. For the complete list of posts from my own journey, see https://stephenmatlock.com/category/writing/wakingupwhite/ Quotes from the book appear using a different style from my reactions. Using the topic of race as a relationship builder, not buster. I still find it to be uncanny that as I read this book, pause, and then blog about it, that what I read in the book seems to be in parallel to what I’m currently experiencing or thinking. I’m thinking right now about how to talk about race that is normative and informative…
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#WakingUpWhite Chapter 44: Listening
Still blogging with my friends as I read “Waking Up White” by Debby Irving, committing ourselves to read and think and write about our thoughts. For the complete list of posts from my own journey, see https://stephenmatlock.com/category/writing/wakingupwhite/ Quotes from the book appear using a different style from my reactions. “You know what we need? We need a listening revolution.” I’m friends with a few people, some of them exceedingly gracious to me. The ones whom I learn the most from are the ones I listen the most to. Listening runs counter to my character of having to know everything and to try everything and to be assertive and confident and…
- #WakingUpWhite, American Exceptionalism, Celebrate Recovery, faith, history, Life Recovery Skills, racism, writing
#WakingUpWhite Chapter 41: From Bystander to Ally
Still reading chapters from Waking Up White, by Debbie Irving, and blogging my responses as I read. Quotes are from the book, and my responses follow. I’ve been doing some thinking lately about all this. And by “all this” I mean “all the stuff I read and write and think and say,” because I don’t know if—beyond confirming with others who are already convinced—I’m doing anything effective. And to be as blunt as possible about this: I’m not sure, not at all sure, that what I’m doing is doing anything for me or in me or to me. I’m not sure that I’ve done anything beyond becoming more informed and…
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#WakingUpWhite Chapter 40: Bull in a China Shop
I’m reading chapters from Waking Up White, by Debbie Irving, and blogging my responses. Quotes are from the book, and my responses follow. How habits that seem so innocuous to me can alienate people of color. What is unbelievable is how timely this is for today, for right now, for this moment. I’m sure it’s no secret that I an consciously engaging in communities that are not like my default white community, for reasons that have to do with my own understanding, to repent of my selfish self-centered ways, to become a genuine human being, to learn about the lives of other people, and to see their value—and ultimately to…
- #WakingUpWhite, American Exceptionalism, Celebrate Recovery, faith, history, Life Recovery Skills, racism, writing
#WakingUpWhite Chapter 38: The Rugged Individual
I’m blogging my way through Waking Up White, by Debbie Irving. Along with a few other writers, we’re reading and commenting as we go. See the end of this post for more information. Learning to value both independence and interdependence. I am intrigued by this already. My predisposition is that independence is valuable in itself, and that is what I focus on. Gotta be honest, this was drilled into me in my formation. I can’t think of any one thing that led to this, but the entire period of my childhood and youth was that I had to go it alone, do it my way, follow my own path, build…
- #WakingUpWhite, American Exceptionalism, Celebrate Recovery, faith, justice, Life Recovery Skills, racism
#WakingUpWhite Chapter 31: Courageous Conversations
Learning to listen and speak across differences Before I start into this chapter, I wanted to update this series on something that is related to this journey. I took part in some conversations this week, and one of them highlighted something that I may have heard before, but it resonated this time: We are not trying to be good white people, but safe white people. There’s a lot to unpack here for me, but I can say that part of my struggle is attempting to deal with what I think and feel, which then becomes what I do and say. I struggle with all the nonsense that it in me,…
- American Exceptionalism, Celebrate Recovery, essays, faith, justice, Life Recovery Skills, musings, racism, writing
What Is the Home That Shuts Its Doors to You?
ETA: I misnamed Ms. Ally Henny in this article & have corrected it. My apologies for misnaming her. I follow people in social media, and try hard to follow people who give me insight into their worlds that I don’t see. I follow people all over the world, mostly English speakers (but I throw in other languages and attempt to puzzle out their meaning with translation tools). Most of the people I follow are here in North America, specifically in the United States of America, and one them recently posted a blog entry about “Leaving Home.” (You can read it here: https://thearmchaircommentary.com/2019/09/22/leaving-home/) It is the story of Ally Henny and…
- American Exceptionalism, Celebrate Recovery, Contests, essays, faith, flash fiction, justice, Life Recovery Skills, musings, writing
When You Fall
I write and edit for a living, and I write for fun. I have a few novels in progress, with one released (so far); I write short stories and poems; I develop short screenplays and radio scripts, some which have been performed. That’s an incredibly heady feeling—to see your words expressed through actors on a stage or from a microphone! Often my stories and scripts come from a prompt as part of a competition. The poems are just extra—no one wants to read my poetry which is their sad loss. I try to be authentic and real, and I work hard—danged hard!—on creating characters who ring true, who speak like…
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Lenten Lamentations
I don’t usually participate in Lent, the season marking the weeks before Jesus’ last days. It’s kinda “churchy” and I don’t do churchy. But this site and this blog and this entry hit me in all the feels right now, and I cannot express to you how apt this is: “We lament because paradoxically, the cure for the pain is in our engagement of it.” I am lamenting some poor choices I’ve made very recently. I’ll confess I’ve had two sleepless nights so far as I consider over and over what I did, and how I broke my own principles and my own values. I lament that with all my…
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Getting From A to B
It was a hard day today. I spent much of it reflecting upon the journey and upon my words and my deeds. I wrote earlier about words and deeds, and as karma and God would have it, the lesson bounced back to me to learn. It is hard, damned hard, to make yourself fit into your own moral principles. You discover that what you think are your principles are really your presumptions, that you think are “good” and all you need to do is to be bold and act rightly. That’s when you find out that the real you is quite alive, and is ready to sabotage and reveal itself.…
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I’m Just Here to Dance
I had an interesting question the other day: are Christians good? The subject came up because there is a defense offered by some Christians (and some people outside the faith, I imagine) that we Christians are “good” by dint of the Savior redeeming us from sin. We are given a new, God-inspired and -directed nature. Our sins and our past are washed way into the sea of forgiveness. We have God’s very Spirit in us to remind us and prompt us and even empower us. We can move through love into the Kingdom… All the theology comes to mind, and I could write like this for a long time without…
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In the Fields of the Lord
I guess I’m on a kick of listening to acoustic, and finding intriguing (for me) albums that have that just-right touch of delicacy and strength. The album Work Songs by The Porter’s Gate is giving me much rest right now even as I consider the work to be done. I’m energized by the idea that the gospel means something, and that meaning is more than a theological nicety. Now don’t get me wrong. Theology is a noble art and field of study. I absolutely do not mock it or think it powerless. Honest. At one point I thought my love for the study of God and the things of God…
- #WakingUpWhite, Books, Celebrate Recovery, challenges, history, justice, Life Recovery Skills, racism
If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see
James Baldwin* said this, I’m told: “If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.” I can’t find the source of this quote, but it is widely attributed to him, and as I see no one protesting that these are not his words, I’m gonna go with it. Which leads me to the main purpose of this post: to introduce you to a new project I’ll be undertaking with a few friends, a journey to read the book “Waking Up White: and Finding Myself in the Story of Race,” by Debby Irving. I’ve not read this before, so the plan is for each…
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Jesus of the Scars–Edward Shillito
Today’s blog entry is just the poetry from Edward Shillito “Jesus of the Scars” by Edward Shillito If we have never sought, we seek Thee now; Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars; We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow, We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars. The heavens frighten us; they are too calm; In all the universe we have no place. Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm? Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars, we claim Thy grace. If, when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near, Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine; We know to-day what wounds are,…
- American Exceptionalism, Celebrate Recovery, faith, family, history, justice, Life Recovery Skills, questions, racism
What Would You Do If You Could Bring Conciliation?
This is a review of the book “The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism” The key issue that continues to break America’s soul is racism. Full stop. One hundred fifty years before Yorktown there was Jamestown. 1619 was the arrival of captive slaves of African descent, sold to English settlers and colonists looking for cheap labor that could be used for profit and personal success. By 1667 Virginia had passed a law perpetuating the eternal status of chattel slaves; in the last half of the 18th century the same people who held self-evident truths of liberty also held black humans as property to be…
