As a young married couple, we have several friends who are still single and many who are in relationships wanting to be married. Many of our friends ask us for advice on their relationships. How do you know when your significant other is the right one? How do you move forward from single, to engaged, to married? What is your advice for the difference? How do you navigate your relationship in healthy ways? We don’t have all the answers, no couple does. Each relationship is unique. But we agree one of the most important skills and principles we think is core to marriage is adaptability. When we get married, we must adapt in ways we are often not taught prior to being married. Here are 4 ways we see adaptation as key to moving from relationship to marriage for those who want to be married.
1. Your mindset must adapt
From the time most children can reason they are being shaped with expectations for what romantic relationships should be. Parents, peers, and popular culture shape our mindsets for better or worse. Many of those mindsets are unrealistic and toxic. When we have serious relationships as adults, we do not have a sense of what marriage is really like or what it should be like. Many of us expect our spouse to do what we want, agree with us about big and small plans, be present with us for everything we find important, and generally not exhibit any human flaws. Moreover, we expect them to think like us. And this is a big area of necessary adaptation. It does not matter how much or how well you communicate (and most of us don’t do that well), your partner is an entirely separate person from you who will think differently than you. You must adapt your expectations with humility and grace to thrive in sustainable ways. For example, you know that people should ask if you are hungry when they get something to eat. You believe that is what loving spouses do. But your partner may have been raised to believe you speak up if you want someone to get you something to eat. You can avoid a lot of arguments by first discussing this difference and then allowing that each person will not get the action “asking if you are hungry” right even if you talk about it 10 times. It may take two conversations for them. It may take 27. It doesn’t make them bad spouses. It doesn’t make them uncaring. They may get better in the future. They may not. In either case, they will think the way they think, not the way you think.
2. Your heart must adapt
Opening our hearts is a challenging task. It was much easier when we were younger, just venturing into the world, filled with enthusiasm to embrace everything life offered. During our adolescent and young adult years, navigating through life seemed effortless. We were influenced by social media, television shows, and the experiences of our elders and communities, all guiding us on how to coexist with our significant others or what society deemed as finding a “successful” partner. We internalized notions about the ideal height of our spouses, the number of children they should have, and the careers they should pursue. We even hesitated to consider anyone who didn’t meet these expectations. Consequently, societal influences and challenges compelled us to guard our hearts, never settle, and cling tightly to our preconceived ideas of the perfect spouse. Now, understand me; having personal boundaries and standards is healthy. However, the problem arises when our expectations become unrealistic and hinder our ability to form deep connections and intimacy with our partners. Some of us may find ourselves grieving over unmet expectations that arose when we initially began dating, got engaged, or entered marriage. Our partners may face career setbacks that limit our financial freedom, or one partner may not share the same desire for the number of children they may have together. Reality may not align with the idealized image we envisioned in our minds and hearts. This fear can cause us to retreat inwardly, creating a sense of distance from one another. However, when we choose to let go, we open space for love to find its way into our lives. Letting go involves recognizing our agency, embracing vulnerability, and granting ourselves the opportunity to receive love, even when it may bring difficulty. Opening our hearts to the intricate complexities of marriage can be terrifying, but relinquishing unrealistic expectations is essential for growth in our relationships. It demands intentional effort from both partners and a willingness to release our fears, allowing genuine and unfiltered love to flourish. Let go of the burden of expectations and embrace one another for who you are, remembering that love can overcome fear.
3. Your behavior must adapt
We behave in ways that are consistent with our context. Our behavior is one of the most adaptable things about us as human beings. We are very good at adapting our behavior to new schools, new jobs, new organizations, new friends, and new situations but sometimes we have a hard time adapting to our romantic relationships. We feel like we shouldn’t have to adapt to our spouse. They should accept us for who we are. But as followers of Jesus, we should be willing to change how we behave as an act of love. If we know our spouse is allergic to a certain food, we wouldn’t cook it for them just because we like it. We might make a separate version for ourselves or make something entirely different. Adapting what we would normally do to show care for our partner is an act of grace. This does not mean we need to conform to all our partner’s desires. They won’t conform to ours either. But if we yell to express our anger because that’s the way we were raised, and our partner hates yelling because they grew up in an abusive house, we should find a way to express ourselves without yelling. We can always change our behavior and our spouse can work on changing theirs. We can only work on ourselves they must work on themselves.
4. Your plans must adapt
The concept of sacrifice in relationships often triggers resistance. It brings to mind feelings of pain and discomfort, especially when we have meticulously planned our lives through spreadsheets, vision boards, and journals, envisioning how they should unfold in the coming years or even decades. But what happens when those carefully constructed plans are unexpectedly threatened or fall apart? How do we navigate the decision to uproot our lives or relocate across the country for the sake of our spouses or families when we are happy, successful, and settled? Or how do we cope when an unforeseen injury or illness disrupts our envisioned future for our families? In such moments, whether to embrace or reject the idea of sacrifice becomes increasingly crucial. Sacrifice is undeniably challenging; it may be one of life’s most difficult lessons and being in a relationship can make this concept even more difficult. Most would likely choose the former if given a choice between experiencing life without pain, challenges, and uncertainties or enduring a painful journey with inevitable bumps and bruises. However, the truth is that without sacrifice, joy cannot fully exist in our relationships. During those difficult moments of sacrifice, the presence of joy serves as the adhesive that holds our relationships together. Maintaining open and honest communication during the process is crucial, as it keeps both partners informed about each other’s feelings and helps them adapt to the changed plans. Engaging in weekly check-ins with your spouse can be particularly helpful, as they allow each person to express their emotions and articulate their needs without the fear of judgment. By fostering a safe space for open dialogue, couples can navigate the challenges of sacrifice while maintaining a solid and connected relationship. We are each responsible for our own feelings, not our spouse’s feelings. But being aware of how our partner is coping during challenging transitions enables us to meet each other’s needs in healthy ways and intentionally throughout the week. Consistently practicing this awareness and consideration is crucial in building connection and intimacy, particularly during difficult moments faced together. By actively supporting and understanding one another, a solid foundation is created, and bonds are strengthened while navigating the ups and downs of life as a team.
Ms. Julieanna Richardson went from broadcast and television executive to the founder of an organization dedicated to preserving Black History. She now runs one of the largest organizations dedicated to the location and preservation of African American historical archives, stories, and history: The History Makers. UrbanFaith contributor Maina Mwaura sat down with her to learn about the Historymakers and get her insight on our world and history today.
A photo of the many hands involved in the making of Jack Daniel’s Whiskey, including George Green, the son of Uncle Nearest, circa 1904. (Photo provided/Newfields)
The following interview is with Fawn Weaver, Founder of Uncle Nearest and UrbanFaith Contributor Maina Mwaura, about her new book Love & Whiskey. The views expressed here are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect those of UrbanFaith.
Maina: Why did you decide to write the book?
Fawn: The book is the reason I came to Lynchburg, Tennessee, in the first place. The story of Nearest Green and Jack Daniel is one of the greatest American stories the world needs to know, and it’s my great honor to have been able to tell it.
Maina: What did you learn that you didn’t already know about Nearest Green?
Fawn: When I first encountered this story, like most people, I knew absolutely nothing about Nearest Green. However, through my research, I’ve since discovered that he is the world’s first known African American master distiller, the teacher and mentor of Jack Daniel, and the only known master distiller for Jack Daniel Distillery No. 7.
Maina: What was the bond between Nearest Green and Jack Daniel?
Fawn: Jack was a young, white orphan who was mentored by and grew up learning from Nearest Green. When Jack was old enough to own his own business, he asked his mentor to be his first master distiller. I believe this to be one of the earliest examples of business allyship in America, a bond that continued for generations between the descendants of Nearest and Jack. Genuine backstories drive the American whiskey business, and it’s always about heritage.
Maina: Why do you think Uncle Nearest has resonated with its customers?
Fawn: Uncle Nearest was the first truly inclusive bourbon brand. Until our debut in 2017, bourbon marketing typically focused on one or two demographic groups. But we decided to tap into the ties that bind all humans: love, honor, and respect. When you look at our marketing and hear our team speak about our brand, those three words come up repeatedly. It turns out that if you bring together a marketing team that represents the full diversity of America and then market to all of America, it resonates. And, of course, we have the best story the bourbon world has ever known.
Maina: What one thing do you think will surprise readers about the book?
Fawn: Readers may be surprised by how openly I share about building Uncle Nearest and how my background and upbringing equipped me to face the onslaught of challenges in this industry. I’m very transparent about what it has taken to become who I am today and to build the company I’m known for now.
Maina: How did the book-writing process make you a better leader?
Fawn: I can’t say the book-writing process made me a better leader. What has made me a better leader is learning what my team needs and leaning into that as much as possible. However, the book has greatly inspired our team overall and serves as a constant reminder of our “why” today and moving forward.
Maina: What was Nearest Green’s spiritual background?
Fawn: We don’t know for certain. That said, his children and grandchildren attended Christian churches, so if they inherited their faith from Nearest, we can assume he was also Christian.
Maina: Did you say everything you wanted to in the book?
Fawn: Yes, I put everything into Love & Whiskey, so nothing remains untold. Anything new that I’ve learned since its publication will be included in an extended paperback version down the road.
Fawn Weaver 2021 – Photo Credit – Eric Ryan Anderson
Recently, I began reading the book Christmas is not Your Birthday by Mike Slaughter, lead pastor of Ginghamsburg Church, as a part of an Advent small group series hosted by Impact Church in Atlanta, Georgia. The five-chapter book explores the idea of shifting the focus of Christmas from a me-me-me experience to one that gives-gives-gives to those who are in need. I could run the list of great points Pastor Slaughter presents about the commercialization of Christmas, but this blog is about something much more important.
The “cleaning up of Christmas,” or as Mike Slaughter puts it, “sanitizing” Christmas takes a look at our insatiable need to recreate the Christmas story into something it was not. This idea of sanitizing Christmas runs the gamut of images, new and old: there’s this peaceful, purified nativity scene, equipped with a modestly dressed Mary, an ever-loving Joseph, and a manger, though full of animals, cleaned, sterilized, and fit for a king. What the book suggests, however, is that there was nothing clean or neat about the birth of Christ.
Just think: Mary and Joseph had traveled for days to get to Bethlehem from Nazareth — no bathing, probably limited rest, and by the time they reached Bethlehem, Mary may have been in full-blown labor! (Have you ever seen a woman in labor? There’s nothing cute about that!)
We all know the story: there was no room in the inn for them to stay so they end up in a stable where animals lived. Animals, y’all. The hay that would eventually cushion Jesus’ manger (the trough from which livestock ate their food!) was the bed for sheep and goats, horses and donkeys. It was probably also their makeshift bathroom, too.
There was nothing clean or pretty about Jesus’ birth.
But we’ve spent centuries cleaning up this story to make it appear better than it really was. We’ve neatly tucked away the realities of the Christmas story, dressed it up, made it look and smell better because I mean honestly, who wants to worship a King born in the feces of barn animals? Who wants to admit that their savior found residence in the lowest of low places — a manger — surrounded by tired, weary parents who had spent days traveling to Bethlehem with nowhere to rest once they arrived?
So we clean it up! We dress Mary in her blue and white headdress, skin a-glow, hair perfectly coiffed. Joseph, in his humble attire, looks longingly at the baby resting in the feeding trough. We strategically place each lowly lamb and honorable horse at the feet of a pristine, babbling Messiah, pushing away the idea that someone who came to save the world in so much power and grandeur could be born in such a despicable and dishonorable way. And let us not forget the white-washing of the Christmas story; remember a few years ago when former FOX News commentator Megyn Kelly declared that Jesus was a white man, drudging up the age-old process of blotting out the color (read: melanin infused color) of the Jesus story. Not only have we had difficulty accepting Jesus as one who was born in the recesses of society, but we’ve also had a problem accepting Jesus, His parents, and the entire community from which he was born and lived as a people of color.
Mike Slaughter suggests that we read the Christmas story through a sanitized lens because we know what is going to happen in the end; This baby will grow up to become the Messiah, our Redeemer who spends the last three years of His life as a rabble-rouser. Because we often view Jesus from the other end of calvary, it becomes easy to retell His story in a way that is more aesthetically pleasing for us. It’s easy to make the ugliness of our stories appear beautiful when we are confident that the end will be favorable; but what happens to the story when you are not as sure?
From Mary and Joseph’s perspective, they were not sure how this birthing-the-Messiah thing would work out. The angel Gabriel brings this bazar message, and though both Mary and Joseph have some hesitation over it (depending on which of the Gospels you’re reading), they accept the Word of the Lord which results in them facing ridicule and shame for nine months. What a challenge of their faith! Remember: Mary and Joseph had not yet the privilege of knowing Jesus as risen savior as we do; their understanding of the birth of Jesus is not through the lens of Calvary. They were living in the moment! This experience, as I’ve suggested, was ugly, smelly, and quite oxymoronic considering the child being born would reign as king one day.
But, don’t we do this in our lives as well? Don’t we take the ugliest parts of ourselves and sanitize it, make it cleaner and more presentable to the public so that our story is better received? We shove down the shame, hide the hideous, remove the regretful to allow a more socially acceptable story to shine through — in hopes that those around us will accept us the way we’ve presented it. We dress up the lies, twist how the story really went so that those around us will feel better about their own stories of fear, shame, and doubt. We reframe the circumstances behind an unexpected pregnancy to appease these social pressures of single parenthood. We reshape the story to explain how a divorce shattered a seemingly picture-perfect family. We reconstruct the tale we tell about a sudden foreclosure on a sprawling mansion after keeping up with the Jones’ became just too much.
We are meticulous in repainting the picture to make it look presentable to the world. How useful could someone who has been rejected, broken, and born into a manger really be?
I think the Christmas story answers this lingering question — how useful can someone with a not-so-spectacular story be used to do great things? When we consider the realness of how Jesus was born, it allows for us to take a step back and consider the power of His birth. Jesus’ birth story was not one of pristine privilege or dressed up dramatics. It was of some young and in love folks agreeing to say “yes” to something beyond their understanding. It was a total commitment to follow through on their beliefs despite facing ridicule and having to birth their promise on top of hay full of animal crap. And despite all of those not-so-pleasurable things, Jesus’ story lives on in the annals of history. And ours will too.
What stories have you sanitized to make others (or even yourself) feel better about? This Christmas, consider removing the rose-tinted glasses from your story — share it! I’m challenging myself to be and remain transparent, to tell my story as-is, no cleaning it up. The Christmas story is much more than gift-giving and receiving — it is an opportunity for us to dig deeper into the realities of our story and use them to share the miracles in our own lives!
Sunday marks the beginning of Advent, the liturgical season observed by many Christians as a period of waiting and preparation for the Nativity of Jesus. This season begins four Sundays before Christmas and concludes on Christmas. The hanging of greens, adorning sanctuaries and wearing vestments of purple, and lighting the Advent wreath candles in order to move from darkness to light are key components in Advent observation. All of this is in anticipation of the celebration of the birth of Jesus, a birth that people anxiously awaited then and a symbolic birth we should anxiously await now. But some may ask, “Why must we wait for something that has already happened? Why exist in symbolic darkness for a time in order to celebrate that which was revealed some 2000 years ago? Why is this relevant to our time?” I suggest that we must wait in order to reclaim the wonder of the light that was brought into this world.
Earlier this year, during an Ash Wednesday service at a large Baptist church, I looked forward to ushering in the season of penitence with somber worship and a penitent message. Ash Wednesday is supposed to remind us of our finitude and it plunges us into a season of penitence, and the journey into the wilderness with Christ. But as I sat in that Ash Wednesday service, I was jolted from somber reflection with songs of joy and a sermon celebrating victory. Not a moment in the service–besides the impartation of ashes which concluded the service–was spent ushering people into the dry season ahead of them because the church couldn’t not praise. On one hand I understood the church’s inability to squelch their praise. It’s a church that has seen many trials and tribulation and its membership are a part of the resilient race in this country who can’t not praise because of how far they’ve come by faith. Why would they want to launch themselves into a period solemnity? But on the other hand, I desired for this congregation to withhold their praise and shouts of victory in order to rightfully claim it at the end of the Lenten season. In doing this, they would truly walk with their redeemer and taste the sweetness of victory because they had made the journey by way of symbolically situating themselves on Ash Wednesday as sojourners with Jesus. This too is our call during the season of Advent except that we are not sojourners with Jesus this time around but sojourners with a generation of people who were awaiting his arrival. People who heard a particular prophecy about the coming of Jesus and who were waiting and preparing for his arrival. People who didn’t have Christmas gift shopping, parties to attend, and a plethora of “holiday” distractions, but who were watching and waiting for him. I imagine that their wait was one of wonder mixed with skepticism fueled by the rumors of Mary, a virgin, who was impregnated by the Holy Spirit with the son of God. How unbelievable that had to be then and how unbelievable we should consider it now in order to rekindle the wonder of it all. Awesome wonder is what this season is about.
Yesterday in church I was reminded of how in danger we are of losing that wonder because we are so familiar with the stories that tell of the coming of Jesus. Some of us know it like the back of our hands and it has become so commonplace that the narrative of a young virgin impregnated by the Holy Spirit and giving birth to the son of God seems just as plausible as a man getting pregnant and giving birth. Some of us are no longer moved by the story because we’ve spent years with it in our churches, in our seminaries and Bible colleges, and in our homes, but we force ourselves to be moved just a few days before Christmas because that’s what we’ve been trained most to do. Many wind down and reflect as they start to wrap up their Christmas shopping, place the last few gifts under the tree, and bake the last batch of cookies. A reflection on the true significance of this moment on the Christian liturgical calendar is sometimes left as an afterthought to what is given top billing on the calendar of capitalism. But we must wait, and wait longer than a few days, to acclimate ourselves to the coming of Jesus. When we take hold of the season of waiting that Advent is, we give ourselves the opportunity to experience the wonder of every occasion that lead up to the birth of Jesus.
When we read the Gospel narratives that foretell of Jesus’ birth, of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, of the Magnificat, we must stop ourselves from breezing through it quickly because we’ve heard it all before. Instead we should be held captive by every word as if we were hearing it for the first time and as if we may never hear it again. When we repeat the refrain, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear,” we are implicating ourselves as those in captivity in need of a release from our self-imposed exile. Given the capitalism and consumerism that has marked this season—and the violence it has wrought—we are now, more than ever, in the need of the discipline of waiting. We must wait in order to restore the wonder of this blessed season we are in, a season that shines light into dark places and gives many hope. We must wait, not only for ourselves but for every person who has yet to experience the great hope that many of us know so well. We must wait so that we refresh ourselves in the wondrous love to come over receiving it as an entitlement that we might take for granted. We must wait, because in waiting we are forced to slow down, and in slowing down we gain perspective on the significance of this season which brings us back to wonder. The awesome wonder of the coming of Jesus is what this season is about, just wait for it.
Man, one of my favorite authors, I mean, I just want to be blunt with you. Every time I see you on Meet the Press, Eddie, I’m always like, he is dead on about something. I don’t know where it comes from. So where were you when you said to yourself, “Self, I need to write a book [like] We Are The Leaders that We’ve been Looking For?”
Dr. Glaude
You know, this book is based on a set of lectures I delivered like in 2011. And I was so angry at that moment. Everybody was excited about the Obama presidency. And I was angry in some ways, doc, that people were reading Obama’s presidency as the fulfillment of the black freedom struggle. That that’s what the object of all that sacrifice was for, was to get a black man in the White House. And I just thought, that’s not true. What happened to love, what happened to justice, what happened to the moral dimension of the movement? I wanted to think through that. I wanted to figure out what were we relinquishing, what were we giving up in that moment. And then fast forward, all these years later, I returned to those lectures. And I returned to them because in some ways I had lost my footing. I was trying to figure things out because COVID had disrupted so much, I had lost two partners. I felt like I was unmoored, untethered as it were. And I knew these lectures were a moment when I was trying to usher in a new way of being for myself, a new way of thinking for myself, a new way of writing for myself. So I wanted to go back to that moment. And lo and behold, I saw what I was trying to do differently. So all of this happened in the summer of 2023. And I got to work. And then I submitted the manuscript to the editor at Harvard University Press and they were like, OMG, let’s get this out as soon as we can.
Maina
What would you say to people who feel the disillusionment of people who are going, “I don’t want to be the leader?”
Dr. Glaude
I think part of what I’m trying to argue is that when we outsource our responsibility for the house [of this country], when we say, well, I don’t want to pay the mortgage then we know what’s going to happen. And so we cannot outsource our responsibility for democracy any longer to so called prophets, to so called heroes, to politicians. We have to understand this is where Ella Baker, Miss Baker, is so important that we are our salvation in this instanc. Of course, that that doesn’t disregard one’s faith claims, but it’s what we do.And there’s a somewhat cliche at the heart of the book. And that is that if we are the leaders we’ve been looking for, then we got to become better people. We got to reach for higher forms of excellence. James Baldwin used to put it this way, the messiness of the world is often a reflection of the messiness of our interior lives. So if we don’t begin to do that hard work on becoming better people, then we can’t be the source of significant change. But I also should say this, doing the hard work of becoming a better human being must take place alongside of [and] within our ongoing effort to make a more just world. Because the world as it currently is organized gets in the way of us becoming better people. It’s almost like you’re rewarded to be selfish, you’re rewarded to be greedy, you’re rewarded to be mean spirited, you’re rewarded to be self-regarded. You’re not rewarded if you’re other regarded, if you’re not regarded if you have an I, thou relationship [with others as non-objects], you’re not regarded if you’re committed to justice, if you’re committed to the least of these, you see what I mean? If you’re maladjusted to an unjust world, you’re not rewarded. So we got to do the hard work of self-cultivation in pursuit of a more just world. That’s the heart of the book.
Maina
Which one of these people did you fall in love with the most? You’re taking some of the very, very best and you’re dropping them right in front of us and there are nuggets right in front of us. Which one did you go, “I am more in line with this leader.”
Dr. Glaude
It depends on what age you ask me. So when I was a young kid growing up in Mississippi, Dr. King meant everything. I remember checking out the album, show you how old I am. It was the vinyl of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. It was the March on Washington. And I remember stopping it and learning it by memory from Mrs. Mitchell’s eighth grade history class. And Dr. King was so important to how I imagined myself. When I got to Morehouse, you’re baptized in King’s thought. You got the statue of him looking at you. And so King was so important for me at a young age. But then when I got to Morehouse, Malcolm became my guy. And I have my goatee to this day. I will never cut it off as kind of testimony from my first conversion experience, reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X. So here I am excited to be at King’s Alma Mater and my freshman year, this guy walks up to me and said, “You’re like a hand without a thumb. You don’t know who you are.” And he gave me Malcolm X’s autobiography. And I read it that night. And I found the language for my father’s anger. I found the language for how to imagine myself as a man, given the fact that I was so afraid because my father scared me to death. Malcolm became this hero of mine that I cut my political teeth on. And now here I am in my fifties. And Miss Baker is all up in me. It’s a more mature voice, I suppose, but we wouldn’t have a black freedom struggle of the 20th century if it wasn’t for her. And the way in which she has that wonderful line, “A strong people doesn’t need a strong leader.” And I said this once, I was speaking, I think it was in Chicago. I was like, “What happens when you have fans in the pews and a celebrity in the pulpit?” The church is dead. It’s done. I think we’re seeing a lot of that right now. What happens when you outsource your faith journey to someone else? And so part of what I’ve been trying to do is to live Miss Baker’s edict. Because the title of the book comes from her. We are the leaders we have been looking for. She says, “We have to convince people that their salvation is in their hands.” What we choose to do. Not what the preacher chooses to do, not what the politician chooses to do. So not what Malcolm inspired me to do, not what King leads me to do, but what’s coming from inside of my heart in light of the exemplars of excellence and love that inform and shape my own voice as I understand it. And that’s what I’m writing towards in the book.
Maina
You keep talking to me. So last question. Sure. Your spiritual faith journey, did that come into play in this book at all?
Dr. Glaude
It’s at work in all of my texts. To be honest with you, it’s me trying to understand what does it what does it mean to be decent and loving? What does it mean to exemplify the ministry of Jesus without it being overlaid with dogma and an institutional constraint. So when I call for a coalition of the decent, animated by the power of love, that is the exacting power of love. That is that is at the heart of my religious Christian witness, as it were. And there’s a moment in the book near the end where I’m going to invoke Jimmy Baldwin again. He has this extraordinary essay that is published after his after his death is entitled “To Crush A Serpent.” And in this in this essay, he is relentless in his critique of the Fallwells and the moral majority and the like. But he talks about what salvation involves, what it entails. And it’s an echo of an earlier essay, a talk that he gave at Kalamazoo in 1961, entitled “In Search For A Majority.” And he says salvation is found in effect in “the going towards.” Salvation is found in the going towards in some ways. And I want to suggest that salvation is found in the going towards and love is its carriage. So the short answer to the question is, is yes, me trying to figure all of this out, indebted to the Christian tradition, but not limited by it. Those lectures produced an uncommon faith. So the short answer is yes, all my books are or attempts to make sense of this complex journey that I’m making in terms of my faith.