2020 was a hard year for all of us. Yet if there’s anything the year taught me, it was to hold space for it all. To sit with the ways that light is woven together with the darkness. And in order to reckon with the darkness of the world, I need to reckon with the darkness inside of me.

The bridge from helplessness to allyship isn’t perfection. It’s humility. You already have within you what you need to get started. Just show up. Just try. Just be.

As a white person myself, I don’t have all the answers or a fix-all solution. But I do think white people—myself included—need to start with doing the active, continuous, and often hard work within ourselves so that we can root out our own racism and judgement, fear and hatred. When we do our own inner work alongside engaging in activism advocacy, we are unstoppable.

There is no irony in the fact the Liberty Bell cracked on its first ring. Because there are deep cracks in our Westernized notion of freedom and justice.

We live in a culture where limits exist to be pushed. We love stories about heroes who never once quit despite the odds. And I was always one of those people—until I realized how those kinds of messages can be taken to an unhealthy extreme.

We don’t all sit on the same side of the political, moral, gender identity, and theological continuum. But that’s exactly why we need empathy—because it cuts through our differences and hones in on the one thing we have in common: our humanity.

Dear Hurting America: As you observe Independence Day, I know it may seem inauthentic to celebrate. But despite all of the darkness, I know there is plenty of good, too.

Fifty years after the death of Martin Luther King Jr, how far have we really come? What would MLK Jr. think of his America if he were still alive today?

Working for justice doesn’t mean we’ll always get it right, but we need to make the effort to maintain some sort of consistency. If you’re working to end human trafficking, you probably shouldn’t be buying slave-made chocolate or clothes. If you support women’s rights, you shouldn’t sexually exploit women and girls.