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

S and I have had quite the adventure. In the last month, we've encountered two people, both with small children, leaving or considering leaving abusive relationships who needed places to stay during the discernment phase (neither of whom we could help, besides offering a space to listen). We've temporarily housed a friend who was grief-stricken after the loss of her sister. We've temporarily cared for two little girls from our church who are in a most difficult situation on two weekends. And, we've figured out a way to ensure that a trans friend whose health fell apart partly due to his hormone dosages was able to make rent rather than losing his home (thanks to the help of many generous friends with more financial resources than we have). Clearly, God is trying to tell us something. These incidents--and others like them, like the time we had a new mother and her infant living on our couch, or the time a friend struggling with an eating disorder showed up night after ...

When we visited Detroit when I was a kid, my mother was totally in her element, practically glowing with laughter, and my father was less angry and frustrated, both of them full of talk of the complicated politics of the 70s and early 80s mixed with memories from the old days. The grown-ups gathered around a long table beneath a thick cloud of smoke and spoke in rapidfire Greek or slow English with long vowels and harsh, sputtering consonants. There would be an endless parade of mousaka and baklava, kourambiethes, retsina, and strong Greek coffee. We would be allowed to stay up late and dance with the teenagers and adults to music blaring from a spinning record player or small stereo, depending on the year. The next morning, my sister and I, the youngest of the Manolis’ in those days, would play on the sidewalk beneath a giant maple whose seeds looked like Ikaros’ wings. We knew the story of Ikaros well. Our family was from Ikaria, the island named for the winged boy who collapsed in...