Your Truth and Tenderness will Reform the World

“Love without critique enables harm. Critique without love hardens hearts. Together — they become a force for liberation.” - Lauren Christian

Dear reader,

Last week, I shared reflections on the tension I’m holding in my master’s program—where our spiritual formation is guided by theology, personal reflection, and structured prayer.

The deeper I go, the more certain I become: divinity cannot be conferred by religious authority. It lives within us. It’s regretful that so many are taught to outsource the sacred to institutions, when it's patiently waiting inside of each one of us.

As a millennial, I’ve lived through more institutional collapse than certainty. I keep returning to the question: Do our institutions need to topple, or can they be transformed from within?

At their best, institutions preserve wisdom, share resources, and serve the collective good. But when they shift from serving sacred truth to preserving their own power, the harm ripples through generations.

And yet—institutions are made of people. People like you. People like me.

Our collective well-being rests on our individual capacity for both truth and tenderness. The best and maybe only thing we can do now is this:

Expand that capacity. Begin a daily practice. Anchor yourself in love. Speak truth with courage. Let your inner life become a quiet revolution.

Start where you are. We’re all learning how to be open, honest and loving—often for the first time. And that learning begins with by unlearning the habits of force, denial, and fear passed down to us by those where just trying to survive.

This work is not small. It is sacred.

With care and conviction,

Lauren