First I Need to Talk About My Feelings About Talking About My Feelings

I wanted to be a Basic White Girl Stay-at-Home Mom. I had the yoga pants, I had the Suburban, I had the inspirational quote home décor. I was just missing the blog.

Not really. Having a blog is so cliché it makes me cringe, which is why I have avoided creating one for YEARS. I’m not a professional at anything and the world is already full of too many opinions. Besides, as a friend once commented, most of them should be called BLAHgs.

Just in case, though, I created a top secret file a couple years ago labeled “If I Had a Blog.” That file is where I’ve been keeping all my half-baked Word documents, ghostlike articles that I occasionally pull up and add a burning thought or piece of information to. A select few of these documents have swollen and ripened to the point that I feel like I have to share them.

In the past, I have shared a few of my big ideas on Facebook, about body image and politics and such. My husband, K.C., did not like me posting there. He sagely pointed out that Facebook does not have a great track record for fostering productive discussion. Most people, he reasoned, are there either to see pictures of cute babies or pick fights. Per his advice, I am making this blog my dedicated platform for posting articles I write about sensitive topics. That way, the only people who read them are people who seek them out on purpose.

My hope is that my posts are merely a launching place for discussion. By “discussion,” I mean thoughtful, gracious, humble back-and-forth that works toward uncovering more complex truths than can be summed up in a meme or a snarky, one-line comment. If I start using this blog as a space to vent all my feelings and then click Post, like someone would click Detonate on an atomic bomb, hoping to obliterate the opposition and gather any surviving sympathizers into my ranks, I’m counting on K.C. to tell me it’s time to shut it down. My domain name will then be made available to the highest bidding Carrie Stallings out there.

Here’s the deal: you are my friends. You are my family. In fact, Mom, you might be the only one reading this. I am not going to write anything that I cannot discuss with the people I love face to face. Inherent in any post I make is an invitation for you to call, text, email, or talk to me about the content. In this insightful article about blogging as a new form of journalism, Andrew Sullivan says,

"Some e-mailers, unsurprisingly, know more about a subject than the blogger does. They will send links, stories, and facts, challenging the blogger’s view of the world, sometimes outright refuting it, but more frequently adding context and nuance and complexity to an idea. The role of a blogger is not to defend against this but to embrace it. He is similar in this way to the host of a dinner party. He can provoke discussion or take a position, even passionately, but he also must create an atmosphere in which others want to participate."

Like most bloggers, I don’t actually have anything unique to say. Blogging is useful for sharing thoughts with those in your specific circle of influence, those who have a connection to you—even if the thoughts were not yours originally. We digest information better when it is communicated by someone we know and trust. Because I know what it’s like to be me, I (hopefully) have a more credible platform for speaking to people who are like me than I do for speaking to people who are very unlike me.

More white people need to be talking to other white people about race. More poor people need to be talking to other poor people about taking ownership of their lives. More men need to be talking to other men about how to treat women with the respect they deserve. More teenagers need to be talking to other teenagers about becoming secure in their identity. More Christians need to be talking to other Christians about living in affluence while our brothers and sisters are dying of starvation.

These are hard conversations, though. Within my immediate family, votes were cast for Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Evan McMullin, and Gary Johnson. I’m likely to rub at least one family member the wrong way just by mentioning the word “welfare.” Most of my close friends, whom I love dearly and plan to remain friends with, come from a very narrow slice of society that is largely white, middle or upper class, Christian, and conservative. I also have many friends—whom I love dearly and plan to remain friends with—who do not fit into that sector at all. So while it might seem like relationship suicide to bring up these controversial topics, to me, it is the only right course.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”

Peace must be made. It cannot simply be maintained because it does not yet exist. People harboring deep feelings of distrust, anger, and bitterness toward each other but never bringing those feelings to the surface and working through their root causes is not actually peace. Neither, of course, does peace mean holding those feelings up as a banner and using them to stir up battles where battles need not exist. For peace to be made, the truth must be told, all people must be valued, and real problems must be solved.

I scrutinize myself in all that I say, far more so than I do my readers. I am sitting here on my computer with working internet in my cozy, 74-degree house and my essential oils diffusing nearby as I munch on expensive chocolate with 88% cocoa—while brothers and sisters are dying of starvation.

But I’m not going to rationalize and explain away until my worldview lines up with my lifestyle. Nope. I’m going to walk forward in discomfort, bringing up all the questions, challenging all the ideas, seeking guidance from those farther along than me and, ultimately, from God Himself.

I hope you’ll join me.