This time last year I went backpacking in the Gila Wilderness. I was miles from anywhere, doing the usual mix of enjoying the beauty and wondering why I thought carrying all this weight uphill was a good idea. At one point I passed a guy heading the opposite direction. We did the normal hiker nod, maybe a quick “how’s it going,” and then he paused and said, “Hey, just so you know, I saw a few rattlesnakes not far up the trail.”

That was it. No big speech. Just a heads up.

Now, I never actually saw those snakes.. But I can tell you I paid a whole lot more attention to where I stepped after that. Every rock looked suspicious. I interrogated every shadow. And I was genuinely grateful.

Because here’s the thing. He didn’t have to say anything.

He could’ve just kept walking.

And if I’d gotten bitten, that wouldn’t just be bad luck. That would be a moment where someone saw a real danger and chose not to name it.

We understand, instinctively, that something would be off about that.

And if we’re honest, we also know there are moments in life that feel less like a snake hidden in the grass and more like something much more obvious. If there’s a bear charging down the trail toward me, I don’t need quiet restraint. I need someone to yell, “Bear,” as loud as they can.

There are moments that call for that kind of clarity.

There’s another version of this that happens all the time if you hike. You’re coming down the trail after summiting a peak and you pass someone on their way up. They ask, “How much further to the top?” already breathing hard. And you have a choice of how to respond.

You can tell them the truth, “about two hours,” or you can soften it. “Oh, you’re close. Maybe forty-five minutes more.” That can be tempting because you don’t want to crush their spirit. You want to encourage them. But if they don’t have enough water, or daylight, or energy, that little white lie can actually land them in trouble. So what sounds like kindness in the moment can turn out to be endangerment.

As such, experienced hikers learn that in the wild, honesty isn’t about being blunt for its own sake. It’s about care. Truth telling, at its best, is an act of love.

In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

I’ve found myself thinking about that line a lot lately.

There’s no shortage of things happening in the world that stir strong reactions. Sometimes the rhetoric gets heated. Sometimes it crosses lines. And in those moments, I notice a familiar pattern. I find myself wondering when something will finally feel like a bridge too far, and whether the people closest to the situation will say so out loud.

But often, what stands out just as much as what is said is what isn’t.

Silence feels safe in the moment, but it rarely stays neutral.

Maybe part of why that sits with me the way it does is because of how I was raised. I grew up in a conservative Christian home, and part of what I was taught was that character mattered. Not just policies, but integrity. So when I see moments where that kind of accountability seems uneven, it nags me.

Scripture speaks into this, though not with a simple rule. On one hand, you have a clear call from Proverbs 31:8–9: “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves… defend the rights of the poor and needy.” That’s not optional language.

James 4:17 pushes it further, saying, “Anyone who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.” That’s a line that doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room. It also dovetails with words from the confession we say in the Episcopal Church each week: “We confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and what we have left undone...”

This acknowledges that sometimes leading a moral life isn’t just about avoiding wrongdoing. It’s also about what we fail to do when the moment calls for it. … There’s a powerful scene in Esther 4:14, where Mordecai tells Esther that if she keeps silent at a critical moment, the consequences won’t just disappear. Silence itself becomes part of the story.

And then there’s the image from Ezekiel 33:6, where a watchman sees danger coming. If he sounds the alarm, people can respond. If he stays quiet, he shares responsibility for what happens next. Those texts are sobering…

But Scripture also reminds us in Ecclesiastes 3:7 that not every moment calls for a response.

Even Jesus lives in that tension. There are moments where he speaks with clarity and courage, especially when people are being harmed or burdened. And there are moments where he stays silent, because speaking would only feed the very thing he’s resisting.

So we’re left with something more demanding than a rule. We’re left with a question we have to carry… When is silence wisdom, and when is it something else?

Part of what makes this so hard is that we’re not just truth seekers. We’re also “belongers.”

We want to stay connected to our people. Our families, our friends, our communities, our political tribes. And sometimes telling the truth, or even asking a hard question, can feel like it puts that belonging at risk. … So we hesitate.

We tell ourselves it’s not our place. Or that we don’t have all the facts. Or that speaking up won’t change anything anyway. And sometimes those instincts are wise. But sometimes they’re not.

I was thinking about this recently while sitting on a beach, reading Jesus and the Disinherited. Which, if you’ve read it, you’ll know is not exactly light spring break material. I’m aware that bringing Howard Thurman to the beach probably says something about me. Apparently relaxing for me includes being quietly confronted by deep theological truth while everyone else is reading novels.

Thurman says that when a person avoids speaking the truth over a long period of time, they don’t just tell lies. They begin to become a lie.

We don’t just avoid the truth. Over time, we reshape ourselves around not saying it. Because silence, especially repeated silence, shapes us.

There’s a reason voices like Dietrich Bonhoeffer carry so much weight. He wrote, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak.” He wasn’t writing from a safe distance. He was watching a society, and a Church, struggle with whether to tell the truth or protect itself.

And again, Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us that what lingers in memory isn’t just opposition. It’s the absence of support when it mattered.

If you’ve ever been in a moment where something wasn’t right and others could see it but didn’t speak up to help you, then you know how that feels. Having encountered such moments myself, I know I’ve been grateful when a few people stepped up to speak up for what is right. That made all the difference. That’s part of why this matters to me.

Now, to be clear, this isn’t a problem unique to one group or one party. We all have a tendency to protect our own. We all have blind spots when it comes to the people we identify with. … That’s part of what makes this so human.

But it also means that some of the most important voices are the ones that come from within. Not the ones shouting across the divide, but the ones willing to say, with honesty and care, “This part isn’t right.”

And that kind of honesty doesn’t just happen in public statements. It happens in conversations. It happens in phone calls. It happens when people actually take the step of reaching out to those in positions of responsibility and saying, “I’m concerned about this.”

We’ve seen examples of that recently, even when it’s uncomfortable, when people have spoken up and called for accountability in situations involving serious wrongdoing. Those moments aren’t easy, but they are necessary. They show what it looks like when truth matters more than convenience. Words matter. But action matters too.

So how do we navigate it?

There’s no perfect checklist, but a few questions have helped me.

Is someone being harmed, especially someone who doesn’t have much voice?
Am I close enough to the situation that my silence would actually matter?
Am I hesitating because it’s wise to wait, or because it’s uncomfortable to speak?

And maybe the hardest one.

Am I willing to say the same thing when it’s my own people/side who need to hear it?

Because the truth is, those are the voices that carry the most weight. Not the ones shouting across the divide, but the ones speaking from within.

So maybe the question isn’t simply, “Should I speak or stay silent?” Maybe the better questions are: Where might my silence actually matter? Where might I feel pressure to stay quiet because speaking honestly could cost me something with my own people? And am I willing, when it matters, to tell the truth anyway?

I’ll be honest, even writing something like this carries a bit of that tension. We all feel it in different ways.

At the end of the day, this isn’t about becoming louder people.

It’s about becoming more honest ones.

People who know that sometimes silence protects peace. And sometimes silence protects harm.

People who are willing, when it matters, to say the hard thing with clarity and care.

People who, like that hiker on the trail, see something ahead and simply say, “Hey, just so you know…”

And when the situation calls for it, people who are willing to raise their voice and shout, “Bear!”

Not to win an argument… But because they care enough to tell the truth.

And because sometimes, that’s what love looks like.

When people first visit an Episcopal church, they usually assume they know what they’re walking into: some prayer, music, a sermon, and probably communion. Those are, after all, the usual ingredients of Christian worship most anywhere. But before long, many begin to sense that something about the Anglican approach to faith is a little different… perhaps even if they can’t quite name it.

One of those differences is this: unlike some traditions, we don’t begin by asking people to sign on to a detailed set of beliefs. We do confess the historic creeds, baptize in the name of the Trinity, and gather around the Eucharist because we trust Christ is truly present among us. But instead of asking people to sort through every theological position first, Anglican Christianity invites us into a shared life of prayer, Scripture, and sacrament. We trust that belief grows as we learn to live that life together.

I’ve found it helpful to think of Anglican spirituality as a kind of container for a way of life centered on following Jesus. This “container” has structure. Week by week and season by season, it draws us into shared practices: gathering for the Eucharist, moving through the rhythms of Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter, hearing Scripture read aloud, confessing our sins, and participating in a community where everyone has a role to play.

Much of this common life is shaped by two books: the Book of Common Prayer and the Hymnal 1982. They aren’t manifestos. They’re more like a training regimen for Christian living.

Anglicans have an old phrase that captures this: lex orandi, lex credendi - “the law of prayer is the law of belief.” In other words, the way we pray shapes what we come to believe. Our prayers certainly contain theology, but the deeper point is that repeated prayer slowly forms the imagination.

I realized this for myself once while backpacking in the Gila Wilderness. Early one morning, I was descending a ridgeline, whispering prayers as I started my day, when I noticed that the words I was using were almost entirely drawn from the prayer book (which some say is at least 75% Scripture). I remember thinking, “Well, I’ll be… this stuff really works!”

Just as habits shape musicians or athletes, spiritual habits shape the soul. Anglicanism takes theology seriously, but it assumes that belief grows out of a life of prayer rather than the other way around. We begin by praying, confessing, receiving grace, hearing Scripture, and living in community. Over time, understanding deepens.

In some churches, Sunday worship can feel like an event you attend - something you observe and perhaps evaluate on the way home. But Anglican worship is less passive and more participatory. We stand, sit, kneel, pray, confess, sing, and receive communion… and before long, we’ll probably ask you to take part more actively.

Episcopalians sometimes joke that we greet newcomers by putting them to work. I’ll admit, that practice can make me cringe a bit. Part of me thinks, “Can’t we just let people get their sea legs first?” But there’s a theological instinct underneath this tendency. It’s that we believe faith deepens through embodied participation, not passive observation.

Christianity was never meant to be something lived from the sidelines.

Our worship engages the whole person. It’s less like watching a performance and more like joining in. So you may be invited to read Scripture, serve at the altar, greet at the door, teach children, or help carry the life of the parish in some small way.

And over time, these practices begin to work on you… slowly and quietly. The Psalms stretch your emotional life. Confession loosens pride’s grip. The peace draws you into relationship with people who aren’t just like you. The Eucharist becomes not a reward for being good, but a steady gift of grace.

The seasons of the Church year begin to shape you too. Lent invites self-examination. Holy Week confronts you with the cost of love. Easter teaches you to hope again.

None of this happens overnight. But over time, these practices begin to form people who look a little more like Christ. And isn’t that the point?

I’m convinced that all this matters - especially now.

Because, for many today, Christianity is encountered primarily as an ideology, often tied to politics or culture wars. Faith can become just another place where our existing views are reinforced. But the Anglican tradition offers something different: a way of life that roots us in practices deeper than the moment we’re living in.

We trust the Scriptures, sacraments, and prayers to do their work. Plus, we truly hope that our encounter with Christ’s transforming love will shape us before we go out and try to reshape the world.

For those coming from evangelical or non-denominational backgrounds (as I did), this difference is often felt before it can be named. Instead of beginning with arguments, we begin with prayer. Instead of demanding certainty, we invite participation. I find this refreshing.

And I know (now from personal experience) that over time, this life has a way of changing us.