Baby, I鈥檓 not sure I can handle you this year. I鈥檝e ripped off all the cardboard doors and thrown out the chocolate bells and wreaths. I scattered the plastic cattle and shepherds from the mantle and I鈥檝e a mind to set the manger on fire. No place left to rest your tender head, no altar for foreign kings to come and genuflect, offering tidings of frankincense and gold. If I can keep you out of this scene, maybe I can save you from all the pain and passion we鈥檙e all breathlessly waiting to lay at your feet.

Hey, baby, listen, please: stay away. Just this once. I can鈥檛 bear to look in your cherubic face, bathed in the light of stars and a song so soft it might just be angels. You can鈥檛 know what awaits鈥攃an you?鈥攂ut this is how we tell the story: backwards, with the lonely end in sight. You are quiet, no crying to make, while all around our cry goes up. And, oh baby, what a cry. Yet, maybe, by some divine light, you do know, somewhere deep inside, who you鈥檒l come to be. At least that鈥檚 the gift we hope for this year, every year: the hope of the child born to die.

Sweet baby, my heart is a heavy star hung in the east. To ask so much of one so small. We walk slow laps around the house while I hum you a litany of carols. God rest ye merry gentleman. Let nothing you dismay. Peace on earth, goodwill to men. You reach out for the ox and ass, the funny humped camels, the robed men bowing. You try to eat the tinsel and giggle at the winking lights hidden in the tree. I want to follow your lead and let the world exist just as it is, in such complex simplicity. I wonder at the song鈥檚 insistence to fall on my knees.

I confess, baby, I hear no angelic jubilee this year. Only a choir full of woe after such a year as this, wondering: what do we dare ask of you, a child鈥攅ven the Child of the Most High? It will be us, baby, who brings you to an end so far off. But not yet. On this silent night I see you simply as the sleeping child, lost to dreams you鈥檒l never know. A child to love. A child to be loved by in return.

I confess, baby, I hear no angelic jubilee this year.

Oh, baby, maybe that鈥檚 all I need this dark season. Not the promise of who you鈥檒l be, for how could you know? How could any of us鈥攇athered in living rooms to hold ourselves close, singing of promises we鈥檙e not quite sure we believe鈥攈ow could any of us know anything for sure? So much pain, baby, so much loss. Yet, swaddled in a dark veil, there you are: the out-of-focus brilliance, a squirming reminder that life lives on.

Please, baby, come and stay. Remind us to do the same. So smile and laugh at the funny animals, wreath yourself in glistening tinsel, and stare bright-eyed at the shining angels we can鈥檛 see crying Hallelujah! We鈥檒l laugh as we鈥檙e able, singing the song to pass on the gift as best we can of peace on earth, goodwill to men.

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On a bright Sunday in early June I rose early and headed out to Discovery Park for a head-clearing walk in the woods. Driving through a still-sleepy Ballard, I turned on NPR and was quickly aware that Something Had Happened.

Orlando. Pulse. Gay nightclub. Mass shooting. Muslim-American. Terrorism? Radicalized? Unfolding situation. Stay with us.

Again. That was my first thought: another one. Another mass shooting, more dead. It never ends. I tried to catalog it away, another terrible incident to fill the news cycle, to file away and try not to think about. But I kept listening as half-facts and fuzzy details emerged, and as the scene inside the Pulse nightclub began to take on flesh, my best friend Tom popped into my head.

Tom, who I鈥檝e known for close to a decade, is one of those rare friends I can call for anything, anytime. Tom, who I鈥檝e created with, cried with, laughed with, changed with. Tom, who, in strict confidence, came out to me three years ago. Tom, who I鈥檝e watched since then joyfully embrace his full humanity as a gay man, shedding fear and shame to live as he was made.

And, then, suddenly I was thinking of my other friends, in Seattle and around the country, and relatives and folks I work with who are queer. Suddenly I had a whole list of people鈥攆aces and names and voices and particular laughs鈥攑eople I care about, any one of whom could have been at Pulse that night.

It could have been them. It could have been people I love.

Earlier that morning, brewing coffee, on the drive to Discovery Park, I鈥檇 been humming Kirk Franklin鈥檚 version of It鈥檚 a gospel song backed by a choir that managed to make its way deep in my body. The day before, standing in a circle and holding hands with over 100 of my peers, Dr. Caprice Hollins played the song for us. It was the culmination of Multicultural Perspectives, an intensive four days spent confronting and wrestling with racism, white privilege and supremacy, and the difficult reality of the world we live in.

Slowly traversing the circle, Dr. Hollins took us by the hands and looked in our eyes. She spent a moment with each of us, singing over us, echoing the words of the choir:

I pray for you, you pray for me.
I love you, I need you to survive.
I won鈥檛 harm you with words from my mouth.
I love you, I need you to survive.

You are important to me, I need you to survive.
You are important to me, I need you to survive.

It was a balm of love on the fear and harm we鈥檇 admitted to causing, faced in ourselves, or lamented having borne and continuing to bear. I joined in uncertainly at first, singing under my breath, and then as I gained confidence I sang more bravely, the words working their way into me.

In the days since, as I鈥檝e let the lyrics linger, I鈥檝e begun to hear the phrase 鈥淚 need you to survive鈥� differently. It has two sides, two ways of being held and understood: one is self-centered, one is other-centered. It鈥檚 gotten under my skin, to be honest, and left me feeling uncomfortable. So, as Dr. Hollins encouraged us, when the going gets tough, I try to turn to wonder. What is it about this phrase?

The first, self-centered reading is focused on me: I need you to survive. My white, straight, male reality gives me the privilege of hearing in this way, as if, without you I am nothing. It speaks to my fragility, born out of a deeper story, that in order for me to be okay, you have to be okay. The sentiment sounds good, but it makes you鈥攁 queer person, a woman, a person of color, a trans person, a person of differing ability鈥攄o all the work. It鈥檚 a consumptive, devouring, and unhealthy way of relating. And if I鈥檓 honest with myself, I can look back and see how often I have attended to others (my wife, my friend Tom, my friends of color) in a way that looks like I鈥檓 about them, when really the person I鈥檓 worried about surviving is me.

The second way of hearing the phrase鈥攖he way Dr. Hollins wanted us to hear it, I think鈥攊sn鈥檛 about me at all: it鈥檚 about you. I need you to survive, not because of what you can do or give me, but because you matter. Period. There鈥檚 nothing said about agreeing with, supporting, liking, or being comfortable; qualifications aren鈥檛 the point. The point is that you matter just as you are, a person in the world. Our realities and experiences may be wildly different, we may never understand or ever even meet each other, but the simple fact that you are here is enough reason for me to be invested in your survival. The shorthand for this way of being is compassion.

I need you to survive, not because of what you can do or give me, but because you matter. Period.

And here鈥檚 the thing: if I鈥檓 able to live and love in this second way, it turns out that I get what I need anyway. If I鈥檓 able to say 鈥淚 need you to survive鈥� out of compassion, I am suddenly capable of imagining that you might just be saying the same thing back to me: you need me to survive, too. Compassion, it seems, begets compassion.

If I鈥檓 honest, this may be the hardest message for me (perhaps for many of us) to hear. I鈥檓 quick to question it, to straight-up disbelieve it. Really? It can鈥檛 be. Can it? Jesus, for what it鈥檚 worth, was constantly singing this song of loving compassion, trying to get the people of his day (and ours) to pay attention and really hear the truth in it (see Matt. 5:1-11; Matt. 6:26). But whatever your spiritual leaning, the song remains the same: I love you, I need you to survive. Really.

To end at the beginning: sitting in my car, listening to the radio, my tears that dark morning sprang from a deep well of sadness at my own imagined loss: my best friend, people I know and love. What would happen to me? But as I let myself explore wonder and imagine another鈥檚 survival as integral as my own, as I begin to foster compassion, my tears take on a new meaning. I can begin to lament not simply for myself, but also for those who carry a grief deeper or more pointed than my own. I can weep with and not for. I can learn to yearn for another鈥檚 survival in a new way, and if I am brave enough to listen closely, I can hear them aching for my survival too.

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