I want to explain to her about work, about how I feel and experience value. I want to tell her how deeply I love my kids and how working isn’t a reje… - Lyz Lenz

Women are taught that it is noble to lose themselves inside their marriage. To give up everything for home and children, even themselves. I often wonder how many stories, how many scientific breakthroughs, how many plays, musical scores, and innovations, have been tossed onto the pyre of human marriage.

The store beneath is a kind of junk store — the windows are filled with plastic dolls, a wooden chair draped with beads and a large Confederate flag hanging in the background. Illinois, billed “the Land of Lincoln,” was firmly in the Union during the Civil War. That flag is not there for even superficial history reasons. It’s there as a symbol.

Everything is political. Our wounds and our worship. We want our faith to transcend the political, but we can only do that when we exist in sameness. When barriers collapse, our wounds are revealed, and wounds are political because they involve pain.