Using My Voice, Owning My Privilege, Refusing to Look Away

This is not a declaration of arrival. It is a declaration of pursuit.

What follows is not doctrine. It is a dynamic framework—a manifesto of motion, crafted through years of service, inquiry, rupture, and resurrection. I do not claim final truth. I claim the burden—and the joy—of seeking it, always with love, always in tension, always unfinished.

I’m sharing this not as a finished product but as an evolving compass—one that guides my voice, shapes my posts, fuels my discomfort, and grounds my refusal to look away.

I. On Knowing: Through the Fog, Toward the Real

My epistemology begins with a paradox: I believe truth exists, but we are wounded in our seeing.

I am a critical realist—a thinker who believes in an objective reality shaped by forces beyond our comprehension, yet only accessible through subjective filters: culture, trauma, upbringing, power. Our knowing is partial. But that does not make it meaningless. It makes it sacred.

Plato’s allegory of the cave echoes often in my mind—not as metaphor, but as memory. I’ve walked out of caves, only to find new ones waiting. I’ve held beliefs I thought unshakeable, only to watch them dissolve under better questions. And still, I believe.

From Aristotle, I take the belief that the examined life is the only one worthy of our humanity. From Aquinas, the harmony of faith and reason—though unlike the saint, I see faith not as the foundation but as one possible outcome of deep inquiry. From Kierkegaard, I embrace the leap—but not blindly. From bell hooks and Cornel West, I understand that love is a political act. From Audre Lorde, that silence will never protect us.

Knowledge must serve liberation. Otherwise, it serves oppression.

II. The Tension in Religion: Communion and Cement

My relationship with religion is a wound and a wonder.

My first communion was magical. I was a second grader in a white shirt and clip-on tie, surrounded by family, ritual, and warmth. It felt sacred.

Six months later, a teacher told us that God once turned disobedient boys into cement, and their parents couldn’t close the casket. That felt sacred, too—but in the worst kind of way. Terrifying. Conditional. Violent.

That paradox defined my spiritual life: the longing for transcendence colliding with the trauma of control. Years later, in a college Classics course, a professor said, “I wonder what the Greeks would think of your God.” That single sentence cracked open a decades-old certainty.

I began to see the echoes: Horus, Mithras, Dionysus, Krishna—virgin births, miracle workers, sacrifices, and resurrection. These weren’t unique stories. They were human stories.

That didn’t make me lose faith. It made me seek deeper faith—faith tested by reason, shaped by love, and never wielded to dominate.

It took years to admit, but I still follow Jesus. Just not the Jesus of megachurch marketing and cultural warfare. Not the Jesus of curated social media prayers or hands raised toward personal fortune.

I follow the Jesus who walked with the outcast, who interrupted stonings, who flipped tables in the face of corruption and hierarchy.

The Jesus who healed without preconditions.

The rebel. The disrupter. The embodiment of radical love.

Not submission—solidarity.

Not obedience—liberation.

Not fear—courageous compassion.

III. Society in Regression: The Lie of Progress

We love to talk about progress—but we’re not progressing. We’re backsliding. Morally. Politically. Spiritually.

Books are banned. Women’s rights are being rolled back. Trans children are being erased by legislation. Queer families are being targeted. Black and brown communities are being silenced—or only heard when they make others comfortable.

We are not watching the evolution of democracy. We are watching its erosion under the weight of performative patriotism and weaponized nostalgia.

This isn’t theoretical for me.

I’ve been in rooms where trauma was ignored for convenience. I once stood between a young military trainee—sexually assaulted by her recruiter—and a chain of command that wanted to push a chaplain on her, despite her being Wiccan.

She asked for a victim advocate.

The commander smirked and said, “Great. We can convert her while we counsel her.”

That moment broke something in me. And built something better.

Because help that ignores someone’s humanity is not help.

It’s violence wearing virtue as a mask.

IV. My Responsibility: The Scholar, the Servant, the Disrupter

I am a white man in America.

That means I carry privilege—unearned, often invisible, and deeply consequential. I’ve benefited from systems I now feel called to disrupt. My voice is heard in rooms where others are silenced. That isn’t about guilt.

It’s about responsibility.

I won’t be silent.

I won’t play safe.

I don’t post to go viral.

I post to call myself—and others—higher.

I’ve had things said to me. I know even more has been said about me. I’ve lost invitations and opportunities for naming hard truths. But I’ve gained clarity. Peace. Alignment with who I really am.

Because this isn’t about me feeling good. It’s about doing good, especially when it’s uncomfortable.

We must take public steps, not just harbor private beliefs.

We must name what we see, not just nod in agreement.

We must be willing to sit in our own discomfort, especially when that discomfort is a reflection of privilege.

Comfort is the currency of complicity. I won’t spend mine while others pay in silence.

V. Integration Was Never the Goal—Harmony Is

We are told to “balance” who we are—faith and reason, work and rest, leadership and vulnerability. I no longer believe in balance. I believe in harmony.

Heraclitus said, “The road up and the road down are one and the same.”

I no longer segment my faith from my intellect, my service from my pain, or my leadership from my anger. I bring them all to the table.

My trauma.

My questions.

My compassion.

My family.

My years in uniform.

My years in therapy.

My tears and my truths.

They’re not contradictions. They’re chords. I’m still learning how to play them.

VI. The Work Ahead: Living as an Open Question

This is not the end of something. This is the threshold of a new way of being.

• I believe in truth, even when it’s inconvenient.

• I believe in justice, especially when it disrupts comfort.

• I believe in love, not as softness, but as action.

• I believe in leadership, not as position, but as responsibility.

• I believe in scholarship, not as elitism, but as empathy in motion.

This document—this blog—is a living thing. I will revise it as I grow. But the core won’t change.

Final Word: Begin With Me or Unfollow Now

If you’ve made it this far, thank you. You now know why I post what I post. Why I speak out. Why I won’t stop.

If you came here for comfort, curated inspiration, or filtered performance, this might be the wrong feed.

If you’re ready for questions, tension, accountability, action, and the kind of love that flips tables before it hugs—welcome.

Either way:

I’m not here to be liked. I’m here to be real.

And maybe, just maybe, help others find the courage to be real, too.

Let’s begin.