Writing, Parenting, and Working in the Mess: Authentic Spirituality and Social Justice

Dear students, I have been trying to write you a letter for almost a month, and have discarded every draft so far. But tomorrow I’ll be busy grading your final projects, and I’ll be out of time! So, here is the letter I’ve been trying to write. Read it whenever you need a study break or have some time. It's long, and maybe a little convoluted! Sorry/not sorry! I want to thank you, first of all, for your work this semester. I hope you know it matters. You did 20-30 hours of volunteer work, showed up to class, read some essays and a pretty boring/dense textbook, wrote some stuff. It may not feel like much, but even if you can’t see it now, some of what you did mattered or will matter in ways you can’t see yet. Please know that I want to be a part of your support system as you continue to dedicate your lives to making the world a better place. (Am I being presumptuous? Maybe. But I believe you signed up for this class for some reason, and I’m hoping you have even more...

I let class out 40 minutes early on Wednesday after the election and told my students they could stay if they wanted to talk about campus climate, about the election, about anything that was on their minds. About 1/3 of them stayed. Here are just some of the things my students told me today in that conversation, or privately before or after, as close to their words as I can get with my less-than-stellar memory (with some minor changes to respect privacy--this is tough, because I feel I need to share this, but also want to hold sacred what they said): "My family had a meeting. We've figured out we're not welcome here anymore. We're going back to Mexico as soon as the semester is over." "We're all conservative where I come from. But then I see what the College Republicans are doing on campus, I hear some of the things Trump says. But if I say that I don't agree with everything the liberal students do, then I'm the bad one, the stupid ...