the Empathy List #117: Church is hard for Marcie Alvis Walker, too.

A conversation with Marcie Alvis Walker of @BlackCoffeewithWhiteFriends about family dysfunction, white supremacy at church, and learning to parent the hard way.

Hello friend, Liz here.

Very few Christian authors write as raw about family as Marcie Alvis Walker does in her debut memoir, Everybody Come Alive. It’s tricky to write about family life, and Christians, in particular, prefer to hide the nuances of dysfunction, inheritance, and adoration that define family-of-origin relationships.

Why? Because it’s simpler. Because admitting our ambivalence might make us look bad—or might mean we are bad. Because nobody’s exactly sure what it means to “honor your parents,” anyway, in a wealthy, individualistic culture like ours. Does honoring mean we keep family secrets? Is it disloyal to find fault with your parents’ way of raising kids? When should we tell-all, if ever?

Alvis Walker prefers to tell the truth in public, and I admire her for it. Her memoir in essays chronicles her bifurcated growing up as an African American woman in the Midwest, the youngest and blackest daughter of a stunning, complicated, mentally ill woman named Miss Nada—herself th…