Hey folks,

Today’s newsletter was going to be ‘normal’; but while I was driving home from a photography collaboration I got word that there was another US Citizen killed by an immigration officer in Minneapolis and, um, that’s not normal.

I don’t have anything to say that hasn’t been said, and long ago we chose our ‘sides’, so I’m not going to try to sway opinions/be an echo chamber. I just need you to know that as I write this, I am sad and angry and worried that the ‘side’ of the current administration is getting more and more comfortable with engaging in-and justifying- violence against people that disagree with them. There’s been no effort to calm fears or turn the temperature down; rather, the administration ‘memes’ and mocks and belittles and gaslights and calls protest ‘domestic terrorism’ and good golly there I go trying to sway opinions/be an echo chamber.

Deep breath. Let’s try this again.

I am a follower of Jesus-at least, I try to be. I’m not saying that out of a sense of false humility, I genuinely believe I suck at it most days. But even poorly being a follower of Jesus has profoundly shaped the way I view the world. I believe that there are only two commandments to follow, and one of them is to love my neighbor as much as I love myself. I believe in forgiveness- in my favorite Bible passage, Jesus tells a thief who has been condemned to death ‘today you will be with me in paradise’. And I am always-always- going to be on the side of the outcast, even (especially) if those outcasts are being targeted by power.

Because that’s what Jesus would do.

Jason