{"id":3417,"date":"2022-04-04T11:06:23","date_gmt":"2022-04-04T16:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/?p=3417"},"modified":"2022-04-04T12:51:35","modified_gmt":"2022-04-04T17:51:35","slug":"no-matter-what-the-world-hands-us-we-give-back-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/2022\/04\/no-matter-what-the-world-hands-us-we-give-back-love\/","title":{"rendered":"No matter what the world hands us we give back love"},"content":{"rendered":"

A reflection from our dean, Emilie M. Townes, for April 2022:<\/em><\/p>\n

So much troubling stuff has become a part of our everydayness.\u00a0 From the Russian war against Ukraine to the troubling confirmation hearings of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to some of our denominations struggling to survive disagreements and divisions on a host of issues that can involve race, sexuality-gender-sexual orientation, ecclesiology, and sheer mulishness; we have much on our plates if we are caring folk who want to help build a world that truly respects and cherishes life\u2026somehow.<\/p>\n

As we turn into the home stretch of this academic year and beyond, I offer these words from the close of a sermon I preached last month on holding on and living life to its fullest and deepen our care for others and our world:<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s stand with the righteous who are standing with the least of these no matter what they say about whether you are married, divorced, single, straight, trans, gay, lesbian, intersex, or more.\u00a0 No matter what they say about how well you dress and how well behaved your spouse, your partner, and children are.\u00a0 No matter what they say about your voice being too high a pitch or too low a pitch.\u00a0 No matter where you come from in life and where you hope to go in this life and beyond.\u00a0 No matter what color you are or where your people come from. No matter how many times you are called too tender-hearted or too concerned about \u201cthose people.\u201d No matter how many times politicians and public figures and other alleged<\/em> Christians pick up the Bible to abuse it and then use it to ratify their personal wickedness.<\/p>\n

Somehow,<\/p>\n

no matter what the world hands us we give back love<\/p>\n

we stand for goodness<\/p>\n

we live our faith<\/p>\n

we live with integrity<\/p>\n

we live God\u2019s grace large<\/p>\n

we stand with the least of these<\/p>\n

we build bridges of salvation, liberation, justice, joy, and deep spirit that can carry the depth and breadth of humanity over them.<\/p>\n

We cannot do this work alone\u2014we must do this work together and welcome others to join us in the struggle.\u00a0 In every day of your living, lean on God’s somehow.<\/p>\n

How?, you may ask…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Somehow, no matter what the world hands us we give back love, we stand for goodness, we live our faith, we live with integrity. we live God\u2019s grace large, we stand with the least of these, we build bridges of salvation, liberation, justice, joy, and deep spirit that can carry the depth and breadth of humanity over them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9344,"featured_media":3419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1064,1,1069],"tags":[1121,10,1126,1113,1125,1123,1122,1124],"class_list":["post-3417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dean-townes","category-news","category-spirituality","tag-bridges","tag-dean-emilie-townes","tag-ketanji-brown-jackson","tag-reflection","tag-russia","tag-struggle","tag-together","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9344"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3417"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3418,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417\/revisions\/3418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltdivinity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}