We will achieve victory if we embrace the work. Beloved circle, feel the weight of the systems in your bones—the settler residue, the privilege unchecked, the carbon sins we’ve all carried. The earth is crying, the marginalized are waiting. Beloved circle, are you ready to wake up? Will you embrace the work?
And let the circle say, “We are waking up! We embrace the work!“
“Will you confess your complicity, unpack the knapsack, center the voices long silenced?”
And let the circle say, “We will center them!“
“Will you divest from the extractive machine, amplify the frontline, hold space for tears and accountability?”
And let the circle say, “We will divest! We will amplify! We will hold space!“
The work isn’t easy—it’s lifelong, it’s messy, it’s radical love in action. But it’s the only path to true kinship with this land and each other. Who will step forward?
And let the circle say, “We are here for it! We embrace the work!“
Affirmations
Affirmation of Complicity
“Circle, let us affirm our complicity in the systems that oppress those less fortunate. Speak your truth so we may hold you accountable. We lift up the endemic and systemic racism, sexism, settler-colonial residue, and unchecked privilege.”
And let the circle say, “We affirm your awakening. We lift you up as you embrace the work and continue to center the marginalized.“
Affirmation of Fragility
“Circle, let us affirm our fragility in the face of the dry winds that blow unchecked from outside. Name the ways your whiteness, your cisness, your able-bodiedness, or your economic comfort has shielded you from harm. We lift up the microaggressions embedded in everyday language, the inherited advantages that feel normal to you, and the emotional labor others must perform on your behalf.”
And let the circle say, “We affirm your fragility as part of the awakening and we await your willingness center the most impacted voices.“
Affirmation of Divestment
“Circle, let us affirm our divestment from the extractive systems that sustain harm. Declare the ways you have profited from capitalism, fossil fuels, fast fashion, or colonial supply chains. Speak your truth so we may support your transition and hold you accountable to change. We lift up the carbon sins in your lifestyle, the investments that quietly fund oppression, and the consumer choices that perpetuate injustice across borders and generations.”
And let the circle say, “We affirm your divestment as sacred commitment. We stand with you in the lifelong labor of alignment, and we honor your steps to embrace the work while continuing to amplify frontline communities and decolonized futures.“
You Are Known, You are Heard
The circle needs every day to be zero day. History can’t exist. No one knows the trouble they’ve seen. Well . . . we do know you and have heard you. Grievance culture is at least a century old, maybe older. Sin? Sin is as old as the world. Our hunger for a sin free world is as old as us. Everything we’ve done to get people to come correct has worked for most of us. It’s the few who can’t or won’t come correct that still bedevil us.
A little Christian doctrine for you: you can never embrace the work enough, improve yourself enough, to measure up. You are irredeemable, full stop. Get used to it. So . . . just eat worms and die? Please no. There are better answers.
Let me introduce you to the scolds. The intrinsically aggrieved zealots who judge you. You are breathing wrong. Your heart beats to an apostate beat. Even your nicely showered and scrubbed head stinks of *ists and *isms. Plain white t-shirt, button fly jeans and Converse All Stars? Unbelievably heretical. Take that shit off NOW!
Grace, Grace, God’s Grace
I can’t do what the scolds do. If you know me, you know my story and why I need Jesus. So I do church and that’s what keeps me on track. I’m sixty something. I am known. I have history.
For the scolds, no history exists. Nothing has ever been done—no progress, no reform, no prior sacrifice, no incremental win counts. The opposition is perpetually ignorant, blind, complicit, unaware of “this issue” or “their pain.” Yesterday’s acknowledgments evaporate; today’s outrage resets the clock to day zero. The slate is wiped clean each morning, and the cycle restarts with fresh urgency: “This time it’s different. This is new, worse, more existential than all the rest.”
The scolds need zero day because history would force accountability: “We heard you last time—what changed?” “We addressed that grievance—why does it still feel like day one?” Acknowledging progress would puncture the bubble, force gratitude instead of outrage, replace endless striving with rest. But rest is suspect; it’s privilege, complacency, erasure of pain. So every day reboots as ground zero—newer pain, deeper complicity, louder calls to “embrace the work.”
Embrace the Work—We Did
For as many times as the fever rises and our neighborhoods absorb the punishment, it isn’t enough. Every day is still Zero Day. We can’t struggle, confess, prostrate ourselves with enough fervor. The scarlett stain of sin is laid before us again. There is no redemption. You were born this way.
It’s a three letter word—sin. Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Was it Eve’s fault? Maybe. She had reasons. Anyway . . . whatever. We are here, the world is both light and dark, full of grace and sin, yin and yang.
One creation story telling says that sin entered God’s creation once Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The capacity to understand sin doesn’t obviate the possibility of sinning. Adam could, and did, do sinful things while ignorant of the impact on Eve and whether his behavior was sinful.
Everything changes on the cross. Christ dies and takes sin and death with him to Hell. Thousands of years of recorded history, of mankind doing a suboptimal job of following God’s law, become a debt paid for in blood. The most existential, apostate, heretical claim ever or since: Christ died to pay an unpayable debt for our sins. We are forgiven and that must not be so.
Embrace the Work of Anti-Heresy
Invocation for Clarity
Circle, let us center ourselves in the present moment. Open our hearts and minds to the truths that have been silenced. May we see the systems clearly, name the complicity without flinching, and commit anew to the work that never ends. Speak through the voices that know the margins, that we may listen without defense.
First Reading
Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility (2018)—”White fragility is not weakness per se. In fact, it is a powerful means of white racial control and the protection of white advantage… The smallest amount of racial stress is intolerable—the mere suggestion that being white has meaning often triggers a range of defensive responses. These include emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and withdrawal… These responses work to reinstate white equilibrium as they repel the challenge, return our racial comfort, and maintain our dominance within the racial hierarchy.”
Second Reading
Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist (2019)—”The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination… To be antiracist is to think nothing is behavior-based, everything is policy-based. To be antiracist is to deracialize behavior, to culturalize behavior, to behavioralize culture… A racist is what a racist policy does, and what a racist policy does is produce racial inequity.”
Third Reading
Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color” (1991)—”Intersectionality is a framework for understanding how aspects of a person’s social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege… Because the intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated.”
Exhortation to Embrace the Work
Circle, hear these words as the true life of our time. The first reading reveals how whiteness shields itself through fragility—deflection, silence, withdrawal—preserving dominance without even trying. The second declares that racism is not personal failing but policy outcome; to end it, we must actively discriminate in the opposite direction, forever vigilant, because neutrality is complicity. The third reminds us that oppressions layer and compound; no single lens suffices, only the intersectional gaze from the margins can see clearly.
Circle, the readings are marching orders for the campaign that leads to victory. Rise now from passive listening to active alignment. Name one specific act of complicity you will confront this week—whether a conversation you’ve avoided, a donation you’ll redirect, a policy you’ll challenge, or a privilege you’ll publicly unpack. Commit it aloud or in writing to this circle so we may witness and hold you to it. Amplify a marginalized voice today without centering yourself. Divest from one comfort that sustains harm. Center the most impacted in every decision, every space, every scroll. Step forward, speak your commitment, and let the circle affirm it as the next necessary stride on the path. Embrace the work. Now.
The work is lifelong, systemic, policy-deep. The systems must be dismantled piece by piece, day by zero day. This is our our call. Let it convict without comfort, demand without end. Full stop!
Would You Rather
One way is a grind and you will die unfinished. Every zero day you are still a bougie, sin-sick, evil, shit. You are welcome. In the circle, every day reboots as zero day. History evaporates; no reform counts, no apology sticks, no progress registers. The opposition is eternally ignorant, blind to “your pain,” clueless about “this issue.” The loop iterates: this outrage is newer, deeper, more urgent than the last—perpetual confession without pardon, striving without rest. Can we get a witness?
Let the circle say, “Here for it. Preach. Periodt.”
Then there is The Way, the Truth, and the Life Everlasting—Christ Jesus of Nazareth. This troublemaker from Nazareth, this no account wise-assed self-appointed Rabbi, so completely threatened the establishment, that his own faith demanded he be crucified by the Romans. That’s it? Roll credits, let the misery roll on? Nope. Four hundred years later, Constantine prayed a bargain with God that if he won the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on 10-12, 312AD, he’d become Christian. Big Whoop, am I right? Constantine was Emperor of Rome. So goes He, so goes the Empire.
Rome is gone. The last bit of the Empire fell in 1453 when the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople after a 53-day siege. We still have the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church. Jesus lives.
So, last question, would you rather die judged sinful or live redeemed? Pretty much everwhere in the world on Sunday morning you can find us. We would love to have you.