After a few days of research, I excavated census data from 1830–1850 confirming the households of my family included enslaved persons. I unearthed a bill of sale in the handwriting of my fourth great-grandfather paying for the enslavement of a five-year old boy named James Walker.

Conceiving of the church as a “body” transforms the quality of our relationships. Being a “body” renders every conversation, disagreement, and mutual discernment potentially sacred. Being a “body” together transforms occasions of conflict into opportunities to listen to one another and enter into spiritual discernment together.

Trust is a neurobiological phenomenon that helps us regulate our stress. When we are experiencing trust, then we will be better able to regulate our nervous system and retain access to the upper neural pathways in our brain. Those upper pathways are what we need to utilize to think flexibly, systemically, and creatively about how to reverse the climate crisis.

One afternoon when my daughter was eleven, we were running errands and talking. She mentioned a recent fight she’d had with a family member, and I shared a story of a time I’d reconnected with someone after a conflict. Then I said something that—until it came out of my mouth—I didn’t know I thought: “That’s what it means to trust someone: you know conflict won’t destroy the relationship.”