Two brought my attention to these socks because … they match. And she almost never wears matching socks. But she did on this day. And we took a photo to memorialize the occasion. As I sat back down in the living room next to her, I absentmindedly read the message on the socks, which I’d picked out for her. “Be You.” The words are printed in a big, pink heart. “Oh,” she said. “I thought it said ‘You be love’ or ‘You be loved’.” I was immediately sorry I’d suggested it could mean anything else. I told her I thought her version was much better than my interpretation. Our culture has put so much emphasis on us being ourselves even if it comes at the expense of someone else, even if everyone has to accommodate us so we can be ourselves. Maybe we marginalized so many groups that this overcorrection is going to last a very long time, until almost everyone who has been excluded and marginalized (at least, those that can find a voice) have forced everyone else to feel as excluded and uncomfortable as they were made to feel for so long. The message Two saw on those socks is so much better than the dangerous attitude that everyone needs to accommodate me and my sensitivities, triggers, and the rest. I’m trying to find my way here – how can I live unapologetically with Christ as an integrated part of my life? Being a Christian and believing in Truth, morality, and a natural order to the world isn’t cool. But can you imagine? Instead of focusing on “being you,” whatever that means, whoever that is, you focus on allowing yourself to be filled with God’s love and the knowledge of it? Instead of making the world make room for you (and it probably won’t), you focus on being love to the world? Maybe that is a practice that is already deeply embedded in your life. It might not ever have occurred to you to live any other way. For me, while I idealize “Being Love,” doing it in practice is much, much harder than approving of it as an idea. Insecurity is something I’m ready to be rid of. I can’t seem to shake it off completely. Like shame, it is a raggedy hanger-on as I struggle forward towards something better. Shame and insecurity are the opposite of what I heard from Two’s interpretation of her socks. I love the open innocence and confidence of my kid, who saw an even stronger, bigger message of positivity than even the makers of the socks intended.