I am a word person.
That isn’t a surprising statement to anyone who knows me. I make sense of the world—of my experience with the world—through words. When I’m confused or stuck, I write my way through it, tracing the edges of my thoughts until something clearer emerges. Words are my signposts; they mark where I’ve been and help me name where I am. I love discovering new words, love the way a well-placed phrase can illuminate something I didn’t even know I was trying to say. The right words can hold truth, beauty, grief, and hope all at once.
Which is why I can’t stop thinking about my friend Kerin’s Substack post.
In it, as she reflects on her experience as a white woman raised in the evangelical church and responding to what she’s witnessing in the United States, she writes:
“At first I wanted to mediate, soothe, say, I don’t blame anyone. But that would be a lie and I am more interested in telling the truth…You can look at the stats and see that more than 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump in 2016 and again in 2024. Do I blame you because you voted for Trump? Hell, yes I do.”
Those are not soft words. Those are words that don’t reach for comfort or consensus. But they are words that tell the truth as she sees it. And I feel the honesty of them. Her words resonate with me because I am, by nature and by habit, someone who wants to soothe–a Recovering People Pleaser who wants to smooth rough edges, to find common ground, to make things okay.
But lately, I too am having an easy time finding people to blame.
I blame the people who voted for the current president for a second term.
I blame the people who are actively covering up, suppressing, and redacting the Epstein files.
I blame the people who don’t believe women.
I blame the people who don’t believe people of color.
I blame the people who are waging an unjust, unsanctioned, and unplanned war.
I blame Congress for moving slowly or for not moving at all.
I blame the agents who are kidnapping people off the street because they have brown skin.
I blame the officers who are killing people.
I blame the pastors, elders, and deacons who are turning a blind eye to abuses of power.
Yes, I’m having a very easy time placing blame.
And maybe, as a word person, that’s part of the temptation. Because blame is so easy to articulate. It arrives quickly, fully formed, sharp and satisfying. It gives me language for my anger, my grief, my fear. It lets me point, name, accuse. It makes me feel, for a moment, like I have located the problem outside of myself.
But the longer I sit with these words, the more I wonder what they are actually doing.
Because if words are signposts, then blame is a sign that only points in one direction—outward. It names what is wrong, but it doesn’t show me where to go. It clarifies my anger, but it doesn’t transform it. It may even tell the truth, but it is not the whole truth.
And here is the harder truth I keep circling back to: blame, by itself, doesn’t heal anything. It doesn’t repair what has been broken. It doesn’t protect the vulnerable. It doesn’t make us more honest, more just, or more whole. It might expose complicity—but it rarely invites repentance, and it almost never cultivates the kind of change I long to see.
If my words only blame, then they are doing only part of the work. Because words can also confess. Words can lament. Words can tell the truth not just about others, but about myself—my own complicity, my own silence, my own desire to stay comfortable. Words can name harm and still leave room for accountability that leads somewhere beyond defensiveness and division. Words can, and should, lead to action.
So maybe the question isn’t whether blame has a place. Maybe it does. Maybe there are truths that need to be said plainly, without softening.
But I don’t want to stop there.
My friend Kerin doesn’t want to stop there either. “We must refuse to normalize this moment,” she writes. “Neutrality and silence feed the oppressor and harm the oppressed.”
I want my words to be honest enough to name what is wrong—and courageous enough to imagine what could be made right. I want them to move beyond accusation into something harder and more generative: confession, responsibility, repair. I refuse to stop at blame. I refuse to normalize what is happening. I refuse to silence my words. I refuse to soothe.
Because if I am a word person, then I have to believe that words can do more than assign blame.
They can tell the truth. They can ignite action.
And, if I’m careful with them—if I’m brave enough with them—they might even help make a different kind of world possible.
15 Responses
Excellent
Your words pierced my heart ❤️
Thank you for reminding me words must turn to actions.
Thank you, Susan!
Thank you, Kathryn….your words, if I may say so, are the words I’m trying to articulate, verbally and on paper. Karin’s blunt words are ones my mind shouts…loud and clear. No mincing their truth! Thanks for using your tools, words, well!
Your words were wonderful to read. And, your friend, Karin, expressed exactly my own sentiments on many occasions. Then I wonder, does speaking so forcefully really change anything? Perhaps for some people it does. I’m only hoping that the consequences of what is happening in our country will change minds and hearts. But thank you for the article which helps me get the anger of believers who voted and support Trump out. Now, I have to listen to the voices of those telling me to live like a Christian–show mercy and love to all, seek justice and walk humbly.
Thank you, Ruby.
These days, I think I need a heart change as much as, or more than, those around me.
My wife and I visited/toured Mauthausen Concentration Camp near Linz, Austria (the city of Adolf Hitler) yesterday. One of the exhibits is a chronology of the beginning and rise of Naziism. The parallels between then and now are frighteningly striking. Our guide, who was passionate about truth-telling, implored us to speak up.
Steve:
It’s been really, really hard for me to see history repeating itself. I was a German minor, so I spent a lot of time immersed in studying Nazi Germany. And, of course, having been in Oman so recently, our current global politics is disturbing and upsetting.
Thank you for commenting!
Mauthausen was one of the most evil exterminations camps Nazis used to kill prisoners–no Zyklon B gas, but murderously strenuous hard labor. I make reference to Mauthausen in my novel The Homecoming Man.
“It might expose complicity—but it rarely invites repentance, and it almost never cultivates the kind of change I long to see.”
Blame – like finger pointing – is easy, except when we realize when we point we have three other fingers pointing back at ourselves. How have I been complicit in all of this? Where do I need to repent and change? These are the much harder questions we as individuals, and as a country, need to ask ourselves. Thank you for giving me a lot to think about!
It’s tough–really tough–to think about individual and communal complicity!
Didn’t your dad talk about finger-pointing and the other fingers pointing right back at us? (;
I just read these words this morning which have given me pause. The article used words that to me represents narrow mindedness. It came from a group of broad minded Democrats that believe in order to win the next national (US) election we must find a person who is “male”, “white”, “heterosexual” and “christian”. As I said, these words seem so narrow minded but it reflects what Americans (US) seem to want as their leader. Our politics need to be big tent politics and I am afraid (ashamed?) to admit that I need to compromise some of my values (represented by words) to move forward and toward a better place.
Thanks for your thought filled article.
Ken:
Thank you for the reminder that ALL words hold great power. I know we see that so clearly these days. but I worry that I’m becoming so numb to even the words that seem “neutral”.
I have a word to offer: power. We tip toe around it, as if it is nuclear material and maybe it is, but until we grasp it and try to use it in a responsible way, we let others use it haphazardly, and that causes a lot of pain. People have more power than they like to imagine, but it has to be used in responsible and effective ways. You talk of blame, and that’s good. It hones anger, but anger must be utilized by power to move the world from what it is to what it should be. You must embrace power.
I know power corrupts, but you know what else corrupts: powerlessness and pretending you don’t have any. I suspect that’s part of what’s going on with 80% of the evangelical church. They’ve convinced themselves that they don’t have power or they’ve grown tired of using the power of Christ and so they give themselves over to another form of power, so much so that evangelical is no longer a religious term, at least not in whole. It is a political term … you know … power.
A second word for us to toss around a bit is “organizing.” If you want to see change, you need to organize to make it happen. White people don’t know what that means, generally, because we’ve always held enough power that we never thought to learn what organizing does for power. White people have a lot to learn.
So Sesame Street, words of the day: power, organizing. Feels like a good place to start in order to do the long hard work of persuasion.
The truth shall make you free, Jesus said. That makes truth a powerful medium to embrace!
And then activate toward freedom – a bold but necessary challenge. And yes, the work will be long and hard!