So much of our perspective is shaped by our own story. What we embrace, what we reject, what we believe are a response to the good or a reaction to the bad that we ourselves have experienced in life.

One of the great shaping influences in my own life is being the middle-big sister to two brothers--my brother Matt, 14 months younger--and my brother Steve, who joined our family in 1983, when I was seven and he was a toddler. He was adopted into our military family, the beloved caboose in our sibling group. He was born in South Korea, he spent his early months in an orphanage. My parents both named him and gave him a birthday, a poignant reminder of the traumatic circumstances that wipe the slate clean and give you an entirely different identity.

Being the middle-big let me not have to bear the weight of the oldest sibling and all the co-parenting that my big sister, Jen, inevitably commanded, but still let me have some authority and a chance to work out all my leadership skills while “delegating” aka bossing my brothers around. When you have a family that looks atypical --that anyone, anywhere can look at and deem “different”--you get pretty sensitive to the reality of differences in the world. Add to that being a military family, moving every couple of years, always being the “new kids” and being stationed in a few places where there were little to no Asian populations--and you’ll develop a pretty keen radar for those who fear, mock, or exploit differences. My big sister radar was constantly working overtime, ready to protect my little brother in any way that I could. Our sibling group was the built-in friends, the cohort, the coworkers surviving a tough world together, no matter the cost.

Given the story, it’s no surprise that the actions of ICE in my own community and the violence in Minnesota have caused deep grief, confusion, sadness, and concern. And so, regardless of your politics before this week in our country, I’d like to invite you to respond from the human side with me for one moment.

My little brother has struggled in various ways over the years, but he’s overcome even more. He’s employed at a grocery store, a place where he has structure and consistency, but life has not always been easy and he’s been through more than most. I have this recurring thought, a movie reel that runs through my brain. Imagine it with me. Imagine that your own brother is South Korean, or Ethiopian, or Somalian. Imagine your own brother is a US citizen, has no other “home” other than the US, has an identity squarely as a patriotic American (it doesn’t get more patriotic than being raised in a Christian military home in the 1980s).

Imagine then, your brother being accosted at his workplace, perhaps roughly. Imagine wondering how he would respond if someone put a gun to his face, or handcuffed him. Imagine wondering what it would be like to be taken away from your job and detained, even with identification; maybe even held overnight or longer. This is not just a big sister, bleeding heart nightmare-this is real. Approximately 70% of detainees of ICE have no criminal background. [ICE reports it here] In addition, recent ICE detentions include lawfully present refugees, our neighbors, our sisters and brothers: [read about Operation Parris here]. It’s not just our neighbors (and brothers) that have a different skin tone or an accent.

This also isn’t about one act of aggression or a “bad apple in the bunch”--but about policies that allow for intimidation, discrimination, even aggression--policies that go against the very fabric of what it means to be a good neighbor as defined by Christ.

This is not a story about the left or the right. This is just a human side, and the human side is asking, is this what we want for our communities? For our country? Are we becoming so polarized, so confused, so overwhelmed by violent talk and action that we cannot just ask the human questions?

So here’s the human question: do you want to imagine how your little brother would react to a masked individual demanding, detaining, pushing, or holding a gun to his face, in his own community, in our country, a place that I’ve, perhaps naively thought this could not, would not happen? When our point of view on policies and behaviors become personal, that’s when we know the human story. I appreciate what my friend Ashley Abercrombie says so well in her own post today,

So if you evaluate your circle and honestly assess that is true for you, then let me be your friend with a non-white brother. Let me be the friend with a personal story, beyond the rhetoric and the fear-mongering that we find everywhere we turn. Yes, this is a confusing time. Yes, there are narratives that differ greatly from one to the next. And I’ll be the first to raise my hand and say that it’s easy to let this all feel “far away” from us. It’s easy to tap out of this conversation because it’s not in your neighborhood or family. It’s easy to feel so completely overwhelmed by it all that you just stop looking, stop caring, turn it off.

Because after all, it’s not your little brother.

But here’s where our faith demands our highest allegiance. God calls us into a family that is no longer defined by tribe or tongue, not defined by denomination or political party or even by affinity. This radical call of the faith is to God’s side of the story--defined by a sacrificial ethic of love, of mercy, or radical justice that comes at a cost to our own tribal allegiances and comfortable definitions of right and wrong. The Christian is not just about personal sin, but about systemic sin: Isaiah 10:1-2 says “woe to those who make unjust laws, those who issue oppressive decrees…” that’s a reality that applies to the left and to the right. It’s a human side.

This Christian ethic is not fair, either. It’s not a system that says you repay violence for violence, but violence with love. It’s not a system that says you get what you earn--but that you give away what you’ve been given. It’s a system that says we will put extra emphasis on the vulnerable, the poor, the foreigner, the widow and the orphan because it’s a system that uses love to right the scales of justice, to loosen the cords of oppression that exist on the kingdom of earth, which prioritize individual power by any means necessary and convenient truth that continues to tip the scales toward those who hold that power.

Jesus himself ties together love for God with love for our neighbor--and it’s a knot that can’t be undone. He even says our eternal life is about not just how we worship him but how we love our neighbor, and just in case we get confused about who our neighbor is, he told a piercing story about a traveler who was beaten and left for dead, and about the religious people who were too busy, too important, or too scared to actually take care of the person. It was the Samaritan--the despised people group that the Jews avoided and hated--that actually was the only righteous one in the story.

Like it or not, God says your active, sacrificial, costly love for people unlike you, particularly the vulnerable, the foreigner, the widow, the orphan-- that is the measure of worship. The words Jesus needed to say then are the same ones he still says now-- in what ways are you willing to extend yourself?

Marginalized groups in America know that the tactics used right now by ICE are not new--but perhaps, those in the majority, like myself, are seeing them in a new light. I’ve been so overwhelmed by it all that I’ve found myself just dissociating--just slogging along in my own fear, anxiety and hopelessness. But that’s the diabolical tactic of El Diablo--the devil, the one who desires to sow fear, discord, violence, hatred, and “otherness” among us all, right, left, or otherwise. So what’s the solution to all of this?

There is not one…but doing anything is better than doing nothing. So I can only offer you what I’ve done in the past few days to overcome the overwhelm. I once heard Andy Stanley say “do for one what you wish you could do for everyone”--so instead of doing nothing, here’s what I’ve done:

Read from Christian agencies and leaders who’s been operating in this space long before the recent ICE raids, who are offering thought leadership on the Christian response to the immigrant:

• ​World Relief​
• ​Women of Welcome​
• ​Paul Calvin, Anglican Rector of Church of the Redeemer in St. Paul, MN​
• ​Why Christians Ignore what the bible says about Immigrants​

Volunteer and/or Donate with local agencies in your area to provide refugee support. If you are unsure how to find an organization, consider asking a church that supports a refugee population or congregation in your area for recommendations.

For my Richmond folks [and a starting point for others]:

• The International Rescue Committee has multiple virtual volunteer options.
• ​Reestablish Richmond: volunteer as an english tutor, provide local transportation, administrative support.
• ​Sacred Heart Center: local support for the Hispanic population.

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​Call your state representatives --you can find them here--and express your opinion. If you’ve never been an active constituent, now is the time. You can find scripts in a million places to help you know what you want to say and address current legislation that’s moving through the Senate.

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​Pray for God’s kingdom to come, his will to be done. Pray for those who are navigating these difficulties and complexities personally. Pray for our lawmakers to rise above party lines and respond with the human side. Pray with all your heart, like you mean it, like you believe prayer works, because it does.

God, let your kingdom come today in our hearts, on our streets, in our communities, and in our love for our neighbors of every kind.