This week, we read Luke 3:1-22, a text that orients us first in all of competing political powers at play at that moment in history – and there are many! But then we simultaneously zoom IN to the personal and zoom OUT to the godly with the accounts of baptism. We wonder - Does something change in that ritualized moment, or does the ritual mark a shift that has already happened, or is the ritual lay a foundation for change in the future? Can they all be true? We wonder about the paths we are on and the paths available to us, laid by our ancestors or by God or by the needs or cravings of our bodies or our communities. Can we hold onto both our own belovedness, and the belovedness of others? Can they both be true?