How can we use what we have, where we are, to create conditions so all can thrive?

Read the essay at www.christiancentury.org/features/map...

As we make our way, I’m looking for clearings, places we can gather and discern together the creative possibilities of our common freedom. This ongoing labor of gathering, discerning together, and building with care is at the urgent heart of our unfinished reconstruction.

I follow water and contours of land to trace the governing power of three construction projects that shape freedom and captivity on the modern American landscape: the suburb, the interstate highway system, and the carceral archipelago. These projects reflect distorted creativity and racial design.

Who is that freedom for? Whose is the public good? What—and who—counts as property? What would change if we were willing to be honest about ourselves and see what’s already in plain sight?

I often think about this as I move about town. In this essay, I try to bring you along.

American infrastructure is a creative and moral project from the ground up. Our built environment is the material form of tradition. Its creative signature underwrites the conditions of our common freedom.

I wrote this essay about a year ago now, but it feels as timely a moment as ever to think and feel our way through the brambles of land, politics, Christianity, and the designs of white supremacy. What can we make of this place where we find ourselves?

just saying, this is a campaign slogan I could get behind

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