Uncommon Unity

In June of 2021, my wife and I retreated to the mountains of Georgia to celebrate our eighth wedding anniversary. But this was unlike any other trip we had taken as a couple. This was a business trip.

For the first time in our marriage, we finally felt a sense of being settled. The first three years of our marriage were spent with one or the other in graduate school. My two years as a full-time graduate student meant that we were living on one income. We spent 40 months trying to have a child that included losing a pregnancy, processing the idea of infertility, considering adoption, and ultimately diving headfirst into three rounds of IVF that eventually brought us our first daughter. I spent four years in a job that I hated and knew was not my longtime career path. We walked together through a global pandemic with a toddler and an entire second pregnancy.

So when our second daughter was born in February of 2021, and I subsequently landed a job that aligned with my calling in April, we knew it was time to formally lay out a vision and mission for our lives going forward. We took a weekend to talk about the things that inspire us, the things that anger us, what we want most, and how we are going to get there. We walked away from that weekend with a family mission statement and six foundational core values that we want to build our family upon.

Our mission is simple, “to live out and share with others our unique story.” And the very first value for our family is that “Kindness is our default disposition. We will cultivate relationships through friendship and love.”

Ever since our youngest daughter was born, we have sought to teach her kindness. Over the last few years, we have felt an increasing burden for promoting kindness both within our family, and to those we encounter. We are heartbroken over the division in our world. The big question for us is what can we do about it.

First, we realize that we can only control what we can control. We are not trying to strongarm anyone around us into a certain set of beliefs or actions. We believe that if we are living our lives the way we desire, that will attractive to those around us.

Second, we strive to maintain a healthy curiosity about ourselves. We realize that much of what we believe has been learned. But, we also want to be open to new information, differing perspectives, and personal growth and allow those things to change us as needed.

I have grown up as a white male in the south. I have heard so many things over the course of my life from people that I love and respect; from family even. Prejudicial things. Racist things. I can even reflect on my own life and realize that I have been prejudicial to people for a variety of terrible reasons, racial and otherwise. A big part of this kindness journey for me has been recognizing and confronting those places in my heart.

As a family we are striving to find a place of uncommon unity with everyone we encounter. I believe that is what Dr. King was dreaming about when he made that famous speech. As people of faith, we look to Jesus as our example of how to live. And what I find is someone who broke bread with the “least of these,” and those on the outskirts. There was a level of intentional discomfort that he called his followers into.

So, as a family in 2022, we are striving to serve together, shoulder to shoulder, in uncomfortable places. We want to be intentional about the media we consume, the people we interact with, and the things we talk about as a family. In order to break the ancestral pattern of prejudice, we must uproot and replant our family tree into a soil more conducive to the world we desire for our children. We can only control what we can control. And the world I want for my children will be shaped in part by the values and beliefs that I help to teach them.