Mariam Williams

I believe our capacity to love expands not with colorblindness or neutrality about another person's gender representation, but with our capacity to listen. 

At the Intersection: I've spent the past several weeks (and will spend the next several) marketing the online courses I've developing and feeling gross and conflicted about it.

At the Intersection: Mary's position at the Annunciation struck me as unfair. She was poor, a teenager and a girl, all together a social position lacking any privilege or authority.

I expected to be in a position to take care of my parents by now in part because I believe in a system of rewards for good behavior and consequences for bad. It's a fictional system, but faith in God and God's promises also nurtured it.

At the Intersection: Apathy suggests that asking, "Why aren't you outraged?" or "How can you just stand there?" or "Don't you see what's going on?" is justified. Something should be moving an apathetic person to action, but nothing is.

At the Intersection: Certainty can make your steps confident and light. Doubt, debate and questions feel unstable. But with them, I feel better about myself, my life and my faith.

At the Intersection: After the 2015 murders at Emanuel AME Church, I said that the survivors were not bound to forgive because the shooter had not asked for forgiveness. With the systemic abuse crisis, the Catholic Church is in a similar position regarding the concept of forgiveness.

At the Intersection: In article after article and poll after poll, certain evangelicals have said they feel they can't live out their beliefs or speak up against sin with laws in place to protect certain groups.

At the Intersection: It was not that long ago that the United States was calling Native Americans names now being used against other immigrants crossing into the country. It was not that long ago that children were taken from their homes and forced to abandon their culture, forget their families.

At the Intersection: I'm not a royal watcher or a fan of the English monarchy. But Meghan Markle, now the Duchess of Sussex, is a woman I relate to in some ways. And there is something hopeful in how the histories of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have come together.

Book review: Though the book's title suggests that Christians on each side of the debate have been arguing about sexual activity, the author's analysis suggests the perpetual disagreement is really about gender, women's roles in society, and changes in the established social order.

At the Intersection: Gospel details about Jesus' burial reveal a subversive, risky act. When there was an opportunity to use his position to prevent an injustice, Joseph of Arimathea took it. ​

At the Intersection: "Black Power is not foreign to Yahweh." I embrace Black Liberation because I am freedom- and justice-minded, as the Bible repeatedly tells me God is.

At the Intersection: Recently I visited a church I had never been to and did something I haven't done in about 15 years: I left a prayer concern on the visitor card. It was about a job I didn't get, one I was sure was "for me."

At the Intersection: When I think about my life and the items, sights and experiences I don't have or wish I had more of, I wonder sometimes if I would seem crazy in a culture or religion that was less bootstrappy, less obsessed with possessions, less focused on rewards, blessings, and curses. 

At the Intersection: Over Thanksgiving, I had an epiphany about the current state of my familial relationships: I love being an adult at the same time so many other people in my family are also adults.

At the Intersection: It may seem paranoid to imagine a future as depicted in "The Handmaid's Tale," but in a culture where women are expected to accept unwanted advances, men are taught their masculinity is under attack, and religious liberty comes at the expense of others' rights, it is time to change.

At the Intersection: "Even God took a day to rest." I argue back that in the Genesis story, God created the world. Nothing in my schedule is as hard as creating the world.

Book Review: Gay doesn’t ask for readers to pity her or to think of her life as unfortunate. Gay owns her choices, referring to her body at one point as “a cage of my own making.”

At the Intersection: At the grocery store, the person ahead of me in the checkout line needed a price check on the last item. I usually don't say anything. This time I did.