Where Hannah Writes

With Christmas quickly approaching, the familiar tunes of a baby sleeping away in a manger on a silent night while angels we have heard on high proclaim joy to the world in the little town of Bethlehem echo all around us. I like many of these songs. Many of them capture a part of the story of the Creator of the universe becoming an infant and coming to be with us. But the very first Christmas song was quite different from the ones that resound in our churches and department stores this year. The first Christmas song ever recorded in history was a revolutionary and subversive song sung by a pregnant, unwed teenager named Mary not long after she received a message that the Son of God was in her womb. Mary's song has made people in power so uncomfortable that it has been banned in multiple countries over the past 100 years because of its message of revolutionary reversals. Our Christmas songs about a cute baby often fail to capture what Mary expresses in the first Christmas song ev...

August 2021 marked the beginning of my ninth school year as a high school teacher, but this August felt different than previous Augusts. Usually, by the time August rolls around, I start to feel ready for school to start. I have new ideas that I want to try out. I get excited to meet my students. I plan the first few weeks of class and include new lessons that I think will be relevant and engaging. But not this year. This year, August hit, but the inspiration did not. I looked forward to the first week of school like I look forward to getting a root canal. I stepped into my classroom a few days before the first day of school, and I still felt drained from the Zoom classes that defined the school year that ended a few short months earlier. I wasn't done recovering yet. There were some beautiful moments during the 2020-2021 school year, and I am very grateful for the way our district leadership navigated, but the exhaustion of teaching through 2020 and 2021 was unlike any other exhau...

Zacchaeus was a tax collector, he was very wealthy, and he was short. In  Luke 19:1-10 , we read about his encounter with Jesus Christ and his decision to make amends for the wrong that he had done. He promises to pay back the people that he had cheated and to give away half of his possessions in order to fix the harm that he had caus ed to his community by amassing wealth at their expense. Essentially, Zacchaeus chose to pay reparations. He chose to repair the wrong that he had done by paying money to the wronged parties. That is reparations. Though repentance, transformation, and love for our neighbor are all important aspects of the Christian faith and one could argue that reparations are closely tied to all three of those, reparations remain a controversial - and highly avoided - topic in many churches. But I think we need to talk about it, and I think that as white Christians, we should consider paying reparations. A (very) brief review of history and an invitation Human being...

Today is Monday. I wake up and take a mere 14 minutes to get out of bed. After a quick shower, I put on my work pants (they're actually pajama pants with alpacas on them, but I wear them for work) with a nice sweater that does not in any way match with my work pants. But no one else knows that. After making coffee and breakfast, I carefully balance my water bottle and coffee mug in one hand while I hold my breakfast sandwich in the other hand and try not to spill as I climb the stairs to my office, located directly above my bedroom. My first task of the day involves responding to emails from students. Some have questions about grades and others want to know about an assignment that is due this week. A few students have turned in an assignment late, so I grade them and enter them into the grade book. Another student has sent me an email containing an apology that they had missed part of Friday's lesson because they were helping their little sister adjust the microphone on her la...

The 2020 presidential elections are one month away. As a white, home owning, middle class, employed, English speaking citizen of the United States, it is possible that the outcome of this election may not have a huge impact on my personal life. However, I have neighbors that I know and that I do not know whose safety, security, and well-being is hanging on this election. Their future is on the ballot, and I am voting. As I read the Bible, I see a recurring theme of caring for the vulnerable and the marginalized. Repeatedly, God's word reminds us to care for the poor, for orphans, for widows, and for sojourners, or immigrants ( James 1:27 , Exodus 23:9 , Deuteronomy 24:19 , Deuteronomy 27:19 , Zechariah 7:9-10 , Jeremiah 7:5-7 , Malachi 3:5 ). One way to care for the marginalized in my current context is to vote for candidates and policies that will serve these people by protecting them and promoting their inherent human dignity. When I vote, I want to remember that everyone on eart...

You wrote a post for social media. You went to a protest. You made a sign. You posted your protest photos on social media. You shared. You retweeted. You liked. And now you want to know if that was enough. You want to know if there is anything else you should do. Signs and protests and social media posts are fine, but I believe the work that we as white people in the United States must do is deeper than attending a protest and retweeting a hashtag. Protests are very good for demanding legislation or specific change and spreading awareness, but protests cannot dismantle white supremacy in our hearts. In order to do this heart level work of dismantling white supremacy, I suggest starting here: We must recognize white supremacy in us. It is easy for us to point out white supremacy in profane language about people of color, in confederate flags, and in the KKK and other hate groups. It is easy to bring attention towards their racism, but it is much more difficult to recognize ...

This list of resources for learning about and fighting against racism, injustice, and white supremacy is not exhaustive and will be continually updated, so check back later to see what else has been added. Books to read: The Color of Compromise , by Jemar Tisby I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness , by Austin Channing Brown Divided by Faith , by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith Just Mercy , by Bryan Stevenson White Awake , by Daniel Hill From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century , by William A. Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America , by Ibram X. Kendi Podcasts and video web series to listen to: Pass the Mic We Talk Different Truth's Table Footnotes with Jemar Jude 3 Project Seeing White The Next Question Reclaiming my Theology YouTube videos to watch: Deconstructing White Privilege with Dr. Robin DiAngelo Race, Trauma, and th...