Everybody's Glowing: A Different View of Everyone and Everything
My new project, what we're doing here, and what's to come.
My whole life I’ve struggled to be present to the world around me.
Has a friend ever called you because they saw you in public, and said you wouldn’t turn to look at them no matter how much they waved and shouted your name? Just me? Sure, I may be neurodivergent (what of it?), but I’ve spent a lot of my life living in my own head. And I’ve missed out because of that. But over the years I’ve gotten a lot better.
This new project you’re reading right now is a result of that growth.
I’m a writer, and I write about faith, culture, and liberation. I also wrote a book called The God Who Riots: Taking Back the Radical Jesus (Broadleaf Books, 2022), and I’m working on another book now.
I publish a lot of videos online (check out my Youtube and Instagram), but lately I’ve wanted a different format where I can just write. So I made a Substack.
Is this a newsletter? A blog? A paid subscription? Substack is basically all those things in one, which is why I’m interested in writing on here. Having a place just for writing allows me to explore new ways of doing my work.
But if I’m doing this then I want to be intentional. This isn’t a place for my random thoughts. I have a journal for that (and the Close Friends feature on IG). I want to use this platform to teach and inspire because that’s what I do. Thank you for being here, friends.
I want to use this newsletter to turn your attention to the world with a new sense of wonder. I strive for what Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel called “radical amazement”, where we learn to look at the world with such awe that “one cannot help but do one’s part to make it the best it can be.”
This newsletter is about a different way of viewing the world.
Everybody’s glowing.
Why?
Because every individual matters. We can see God in each other because everybody looks like God. And everybody equally deserves love and justice.
I’m inspired by Namsoon Kang’s Cosmopolitan Theology, which “affirms and radicalizes the belief that the Divine creates each and every human being as equal to every one else as a citizen-of-the-cosmos [Cosmopolitan comes from kosmos (world) and polites (citizen)] and that no one is either superior or inferior to the other.” This isn’t an abstract over-generalization of our similarities, however. “Cosmopolitanism,” Kang explains, “starts from the singular individual rather than the faceless collective.” When we start there, you’re bound to notice everybody in a new light.
Have you ever been at Food 4 Less and been so overwhelmed by the thought that all the people pictured on the packages are real people with friends who love them? Just me? And then you turn to escape the over-stimulation, only to be confronted by an abnormally giant picture of the employee of the month, and all you can think is “Dang, this guy has a family”. Still just me? Anyway, the best version of spirituality for me is one that increases my compassion, and causes me to notice people in new ways every day.
My parents started going to church when I was 2 and I was raised a Christian.
Besides some trauma it was cool I guess.
But I remain a Christian because of the way of Jesus. Again and again, Jesus gives special attention those who society neglects. He favored for the poor, hungry, and weeping while everyone else looked past them. That compassion is the way of life I aspire to, and I write to help others live out that compassion too.
But our beliefs about our interconnectedness must move beyond an abstract idea. They must lead to solidarity, so we can build a world where we’re all free. This requires radical imagination.
And I write this newsletter to cultivate that imagination.
I’m thankful to the people who have expanded my imagination and I write so I can do the same for everyone reading this. This newsletter is like the deep conversations you have with a friend over coffee where you talk about all the radical ideas you rarely share with others. You can get this newsletter sent directly to your inbox every time I post by entering your email address below.
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Thank you for reading the very first edition EVERYBODY’S GLOWING! For real, yell that shit.
Here’s a playlist. I’ll add to it as time goes on.
P.S. If you’re reading this from your email and you don’t remember subscribing on substack it’s because you signed up for my mailing list on my website, and I’ve moved that list over to substack and will be posting updates from here too.
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