Acts teaches us that when the people of God lose the plot, God will raise up those who still know the story—people like Stephen and Philip. The other bit of good news is that if you’ve lost the plot, it isn’t too late to get back in the story.

In sharing his scars with others, Jesus convinces the disciples, even Thomas, that the season of Eastertide is one of emergency, but it is ultimately one of hope. Our raw wounds do turn into healed scars. Life does overcome death. Depression does end. Love does conquer all.

Mitri Raheb’s latest book forces me to re-appraise my own Christian assumptions from the ground up, not just about Palestine and the most recent escalation of a longstanding practice of settler colonialism, but about my own complicity in settler colonialism here at home, and the ways all of that complicity and blindness is intrinsically related to how I’ve read the Bible and believed as a Christian.

The world has tried to bring an end to war and establish peace on earth. However, as the evil of war continues in Gaza, each of us at the community Passover Seder I attended, and those gathered in encampments on college campuses across the country, are keenly aware that peace is elusive and evil is persistent.

I inherited some vulnerabilities from my mother. But I also inherited some strengths. Here are some qualities that I learned from my mother that helped me as a pastor.