It doesn’t matter where you fall on the political spectrum or even how your congregation shakes out politically. If you’re leading a group of people these days, you are feeling the added stress of this moment in our corporate life.

I don’t recognize the America in which I live now. Maybe we can become again who we were. It’s just a matter of deciding who we are going to be.

Grief is simultaneously a raw, hurt-filled terrain of the heart, and, as the calendar pages flip, its occasional infliction of breath-sucking pain becomes the only tangible connection you have to the one you’ve lost. This is neither good nor bad, as my spiritual director would say. It just is.

Dealing with sexual harassment and abuse in the church is hard, and I remember almost every day that I don’t have all the answers. But I do know that we have to do better than we have done. And that starts by being willing to talk openly and honestly, and to act with courage to make sure the church is a place of safety and flourishing for everyone.

I’ve been pondering the cost of being a leader who has the courage and tenacity to tell the truth. We can all agree that we need leaders who do, but how exactly do we sell the vocation of truth-telling when our own human story makes it pretty likely that if you tell a hard truth long enough you will lose your life?

After 2017, we now see more clearly the critical work ahead of us, and each of us has a decision to make about what will happen in 2018.