brian shivers

When the history is inconvenient, painful, and difficult to name and acknowledge lean in, listen close, and sit with it for a while. There is so much to learn. Over the last week, my family and I had the opportunity to visit some beautiful outdoor locations in and around Virginia Beach, Virginia. For our Covid vacation, we stayed outside - no indoor eating, no museums, no aquariums, no historic building tours. And frankly, it was amazing. The scenery, the ocean, the flowers, the wildlife all took our breath away numerous times. It was wonderful to bask in their beauty. However, there were also a number of moments at historic sites along the way that gave us pause.  Jennifer, Allison, and I have done some verbal processing together and sat in silence as we thought about what we experienced.  Personally, I will continue to sit with what I learned and try my hardest to take the necessary time to process it all. But I confess that there has been and continues to be a heaviness in my spirit