gentleness and grace

How can you model and live into the peaceful, noncarceral world you want to live in today?

Hosea 11:4

I led them with cords of human kindness,

with bands of love.

I was to them like those

who lift infants to their cheeks.

I bent down to them and fed them.

Sometimes, I adore the idea of a vengeful, vindictive, punishing God, who will come and smite people for being bad. Because I‘m hurt and I want people to STOP and just DO BETTER already.

I love that this portrayal of God is soft.

Do you know how we create a gentle culture? Turns out, we cannot discipline and control people into gentleness and grace. How wildly terrifying.

In this scary time, as I face people who seek to erase me, my family, and my people, I am asking myself daily, “How can I be more gentle? How can I lift them like infants and kiss those red and angry cheeks? How can I feed them so many good things that they realize they are not hungry for the blood of my community?”

Because, truly, what we need right now is not for a culture that is not more punishing, we need people who are more empathetic, more soft.

How can you model and live into the peaceful, noncarceral world you want to live in today?

—Theo Isoz