Jill Szoo Wilson – Necessary Whispers

Poem: Stillness and Wind

“You can observe a lot
just by watching,”
said a baseball player
who understood seasons.

Two afternoons ago,
I sat in a lecture hall
watching a man
who still loves what he does.

This, I think, is a form of generosity.

He spoke about observation
as though it were not a skill
but a posture,
something you lean into
rather than master.

Take the dandelion.

We learned its name early.
We learned it could grant wishes
if we breathed hard enough.
We learned the wind would do the rest.

Then we decided
we knew it.

Label applied.
Lesson complete.
Attention withdrawn.

The dandelion continued anyway
with its architecture,
its patience,
its quiet mathematics of return.

It kept unfolding relationships
with bees,
with soil,
with children who forgot its name
but still loved its defiance.

How many things
have we learned only enough
to stop looking?

How many people
do we greet by name
while knowing nothing
of their design?

Later, we were encouraged
to ask our questions
and then to set them down.

To watch.

Intellectual beauty likes to be solved.
Aesthetic beauty prefers to be witnessed.

One explains.
The other arrives.

So perhaps today
we step outside
without extracting meaning.

No schedules.
No proof.

Just a willingness
to stand still
long enough
for something ordinary
to show itself
as extraordinary.

And if we feel something
we cannot name,
let us resist the urge
to name it.

Let us watch.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025

2026: Cultural Divides, Covenant, and Coffee

While 2025 has been marked by dramatically shifting plates under the surface of humanity, it has also been a time of growth, resilience, and gratitude.

Every morning, my husband prepares my coffee. It doesn’t matter what time I wake up, whether we share a similar schedule, or when he goes to bed after coming home late from rehearsal or a work engagement. Each morning, it is my privilege to walk into the kitchen, whose counter is fully lit with whatever sunlight the day is offering, a small gaggle of houseplants, my favorite coffee mug, and a French press cleaned and poised for boiling water.

This might seem like a little thing. But when you consider the aforementioned shifting plates, this morning routine is a respite filled with consistency and love. Little things are where life is lived.

This is the year I went back to teaching after enduring the most tumultuous four years of my life. The time between the summer of 2020 and the summer of 2024 taught me more about who I am than I had learned in the previous forty-something years. Anything good in me was a result of God’s grace, the beautiful kindness of those He placed in my life, and an enduring seed of the Word planted and watered over years of joy, hardship, victories, and defeats. In other words, I learned that I am far more limited than I once realized and far more equipped to handle the slings and arrows of this life than I deserve to be. As Paul reminds us, it is by grace that any of us go forward at all.

God’s love. God’s provision. The fruit of the Holy Spirit. These are life itself. And everything else in this life becomes mercy in His hands, through which we learn how to trust, laugh, cry, hold, and let go. This life is a journey in which we begin to recognize the absolute goodness of God and learn to look forward to the age to come.

So, teaching.

In 2025, I returned to teaching theatre and communication. I won’t write in detail about that topic here, because I’ve been writing about it quite a bit lately. What I will say is this: the best thing about teaching, for me, is that I get to sit with young people, find out who they are, how I can serve them, and where I can help them grow. Not only toward learning or career goals, but toward becoming the best version of themselves.

My entire teaching career has been one of planting seeds. I’ve never once had the same student twice. Because I’ve taught foundational courses like Introduction to Theatre, Public Speaking, Foundations of Communication, and Theatre History, I tend to see students in class during their earliest semesters and then see them in the halls for the next two to four years. It’s rare that I get to see the fruit of my own labor, but those moments do come. When they do, they are a gift. Either way, because my work has been to plant seeds, I’ve learned to quickly see how I can best serve whoever is in front of me and make the best of our time together. I count this a blessing, and a great deal of fun.

These past two years were also significant because this is when my husband and I went through the Book of Revelation in its entirety. It took us one year to read and study it, and another to sit with the implications of the revelation of Jesus for our lives yesterday, today, and forever. I have a feeling this is what I will be writing about for much of 2026. For now, I will simply say this: there is nothing more important in life than studying the Word of God, putting our faith in Him, obeying His Word, and trusting in the finished work of Christ on the cross, His resurrection, and the fulfillment of God’s covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in Christ. These promises are not only future hopes. They are realities already unfolding now and finding their full completion in the age to come. Understanding that changed how I read the whole of Scripture.

God has always related to His people through covenant. From the beginning, He bound Himself to humanity with promises He alone would keep. He made a covenant with Abraham, promising blessing, land, and descendants, and declaring that through Abraham’s family all nations would be blessed. That covenant was carried forward through Isaac and Jacob and entrusted to the Jewish people, through whom God revealed His law, His faithfulness, and His name to the world. Jesus did not replace this covenant. He fulfilled it. In Him, the promises of God find their “yes.” Those who belong to Christ are grafted into this story, not as replacements, but as recipients of mercy, heirs by grace. The covenant God made with Israel is not erased by Christ, and the mercy extended to the nations does not diminish it. This covenant is not only about where history is going. It shapes how we live now, grounded in faithfulness rather than fear, held by a God who keeps His word.

This was the year I came to more fully understand the history of my own faith. Not fully, of course, but enough to give me context for God’s plan, His story of redemption, and His magnificent love. It was the year I stopped placing myself in the stories of the Bible and began to recognize, by the power of the Holy Spirit, that the entire Word of God is His story. It is filled with types and shadows of the Messiah, with good and evil, and with the absolute miracle that you or I get to be part of His story at all.

This was the year I learned, once and for all, that I need to be on His side. God is holy, and there is no possible way I can earn my way into His presence. Jesus came to this earth as the perfect sacrifice to a holy God, and it is only through Him that I can approach the Father. Through Christ, I am made clean. When God the Father sees me now, He sees His Son. There is nothing I could have done to earn His favor. Christ is the hope of glory.

This is the year I began to understand God as my Father. Because my earthly father disappeared when I was one year old, this has long been the aspect of God I struggled to trust. Not because I didn’t want to or didn’t believe He deserved my trust, but because I didn’t know how. God has been patient with me. I can now see that He has allowed certain storms in my life for a specific reason: so that I would humble myself and cry out, “Help me, Father.” There is a vulnerability only a daughter can feel and a kind of help and safety only a Father can provide. I trust my heavenly Father.

The world grew frightening this year, didn’t it? The political climate and our general sense of safety have been eroding. People are being killed for their faith. Riots fill the streets. Traditions are canceled because people are afraid to gather. Glowing screens in every household carry the noise of the world into our lives.

It is frightening.

But God.

There is a peace that surpasses all understanding, and it comes from one source alone. This year, by His will and for His glory, my resolution is to speak more about Him and to learn and teach about Him, His sacrifice on the cross, why it matters now, and why it is the only thing that will matter in the age to come.

So, 2026. Cultural divides, covenant, controversy, and coffee. What an adventure!

Poem: Like Any Woman

It was not what she said

Instead

It was the way she held

The stem of her glass

Between freshly painted

Fingernails

Details

Red wine and red.


She breathed in and out

Like any woman would

Except

The silk in her dress

Gathered and fell

With inhale and

Exhale—

I waited for the next.


Her laugh was too loud

No clever disguise of

Civilized

Formalized veiling her mouth

Instead

Candlelit stares

In the face of she

Whose savage joy mesmerized me.


There was a soulful tune

Permeating the room

Penetrating

Armor I knew

Well beyond its usefulness

But

I had grown accustomed to

Until I felt the thrust of she.


Never before had her eyes

Encountered mine

“Hello,” I said—

Enunciation tranquilized

Words fell all the way back

And slid

To the sharpest point

Of her black high heel.


It was not that I fell mute

Instead

I dared not dilute

Fortuity in the air

With words wrapped

In coherence or

Forced insistence

Of my own understanding.


I held my hand open

For her to take

Perceiving

Gently cleaving

To the feeling

If she lay her hand in mine

Her touch would both stop and

Awaken time.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025

Poem: We Walked Through Snow and Ice

People are complicated. They’re rarely what we first believe, and they’re almost always carrying a weight we cannot see. We tend to notice what others are willing or able to show us, and we assign meaning from there.

Strength, in particular, is easy to misread. Sometimes it’s resilience. Sometimes it’s concealment. Often it’s both.

We move through the world interpreting one another through our own mixture of experience, education, memory, and fear. It is remarkable that we connect at all. And yet, we do.

We walked along in the snow and ice
And you wanted to hold my hand.
I thought you wanted to show yourself strong,
But you were losing your footing too,
And needed my steadiness to help you along.

I refused you because I did not need your help,
I did not fear a fall,
And then you fell all on your own.
I wondered
If I could have helped.

We walked along a sandy shore
And you wanted to hold an umbrella up to the sun.
I thought you worried my skin would burn,
But yours was turning red,
You forgot your hat and needed the cover.

I refused you because I did not need your help,
My skin is olive in tone,
And then your skin turned hot.
I wondered
If I should have helped.

We walked along in wind and rain
And you wanted to lead me into shelter.
I thought you wanted to hold me close,
But beads of sweat gathered around your head,
And fever took your strength and made you ill.

I refused you because I did not need your help,
For me, the rain is a thrill,
And then you lay for days in your bed.
I wondered
Why I did not help.

We walked along inside my dreams
And you wanted to plot out the way.
I thought you wanted to boast in your sense of direction,
But the path grew long and the day turned to night,
So we lost one another under the stars.

I refused your course because I did not need your help,
For me, wandering without plan is adventure,
But then I lost you and you were gone.
I wondered
If I should have let you lead.

We walked away, I went this way, you went that,
And you did not turn to watch me go.
I thought you wanted to stay,
But the distance grew wide
And the time grew long.

I refused to feel because I could not feel it all,
My heart was broken in your hands,
But when I felt it all at once
I turned,
And you were gone.

© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025

The Stewardship of Fear: Trauma-Informed Leadership in an Age of Anxiety

By Jill Szoo Wilson

She is thoughtful, intelligent, good-humored, and consistently encouraging to her fellow students. She’s the kind of student who listens closely when others speak, offers quiet affirmation rather than competition, and seems genuinely glad when her classmates do well. She began the semester strong, delivering two solid speeches and attending every class. There was nothing tentative about her start.

Midway through the term, something changed. Her warmth toward others remained. Her generosity did not disappear. But her attendance became uneven. Absences began to grow to the extent that she missed one of her assigned speaking dates. From there, a pattern emerged that did not match her ability or her effort.

This student did not vanish or disengage as some do. Each missed class came with a morning email in which she apologized and asked what she could do to keep up with the rest of the class. Even as she struggled to be present in the room, she worked to remain connected to the course and accountable to its expectations.

On the final day of the semester, I pulled her aside before class began. This was her last opportunity to deliver the make-up speech she had missed earlier in the term. I asked a question I have asked many students before, a question meant to open a door rather than close one: “How are you doing? Are you ready to go today?” I could see the fear in her eyes drain into the rest of her body and turn into fight-or-flight level tension. Tears came first. Panic followed. We agreed that she could choose whether to deliver the speech privately, after the other students had gone, or not deliver it at all.

When the classroom emptied, we talked for a long time. In the end, she did not give the speech—she could not—and in that moment, I knew I needed to honor her choice. There are times when I will encourage a student to push through their fear. Knowing when not to is part of the work.

What unfolded in that empty room was a trauma response. Panic, dissociation, and fear overtook the student’s capacity to communicate as her nervous system shifted into a state of perceived threat. Her breathing became shallow and rapid. Her body held itself tight. Her words rushed forward, tumbling over one another as she tried to explain how desperately she wanted not to feel the way she did.

Anyone who works in a position of authority—teachers, pastors, physicians, supervisors—has seen this moment. Communication can become physically unavailable when fear takes over. The body tightens, language recedes, and access to speech narrows. When someone is in that state, it is important to remember that applying pressure to the one suffering amplifies distress. Performance returns only when the nervous system has time and space to settle.

There are moments when growth comes from learning that discomfort is not danger, and pushing through fear can be part of that work. There are other moments that call for a different response, as I will explain in the next section.

Fear, Authority, and the Return of Choice

Clinical psychologist David A. Carbonell has spent decades working with people whose lives are shaped by anxiety and panic. His work is especially instructive for those in positions of authority because it explains fear without shaming the person who experiences it and without requiring the leader to become a therapist.

Carbonell begins with a simple but destabilizing premise: anxiety is not a failure of reasoning. It is the activation of a survival system designed to move faster than thought. When fear arises, the brain’s alarm circuitry engages before the reflective systems responsible for language, planning, and explanation have time to come online. This system is meant to protect us, not to help us communicate well.

In moments of perceived threat, the nervous system does not pause to ask whether fear is reasonable or proportional. It acts. Muscles tighten. Breathing shifts into the chest. Attention focuses inward, and sometimes sight narrows. The body prepares for escape, defense, or collapse. Thought follows only if the body allows it.

This is why anxiety so often surprises both the person experiencing it and those witnessing it. A student who is prepared may suddenly freeze. A patient who understands their condition may struggle to answer basic questions. A congregant who wants to speak honestly may fall silent at precisely the moment language feels most necessary. These responses are not evidence of avoidance, deceit, or unwillingness; they’re evidence that the body has moved ahead of the mind.

Carbonell describes anxiety as a “counterintuitive problem” because the strategies people instinctively use to overcome fear often make it worse. Reasoning with fear, pushing through it, or trying to suppress it may appear sensible, but they frequently intensify the nervous system’s alarm. The body interprets urgency, control, or insistence as confirmation that danger is present. What sounds like encouragement to the leader can register as a threat to the person already struggling to regulate.

When I was struggling with heightened anxiety in 2013, I remember telling my longtime family doctor, who was familiar with my personality and profession, “Speaking exhausts me right now. I know what I want to say, but I just don’t feel like talking. It’s exhausting.”

This insight is critical for anyone in authority. When anxiety is driving the body, access to speech narrows as survival takes precedence. Communication returns as the conditions that support it are restored.

The AWARE Framework

Dr. Carbonell developed the AWARE framework while working with clients whose anxiety escalated quickly and overwhelmed their ability to stay present. Rather than asking people to conquer fear, the model offers a way to slow the moment down once fear has already arrived and to change how a person relates to that fear in real time. AWARE stands for Acknowledge, Wait, Allow, Repeat, and Engage. The sequence follows the nervous system’s own rhythm as it moves from alarm toward steadiness.

Acknowledge

Acknowledge begins by bringing attention to what is happening in the present moment. Fear often intensifies when it goes unnamed, especially when a person tries to reason their way out of it or push it away. My student described it this way: “The last time I did a speech, I kept thinking if I could run out of the classroom I would be okay, but then also telling myself I couldn’t run out of the classroom. The more I told myself to stay, the more panicked I felt.”

Acknowledgment interrupts that spiral. When fear is named as it appears, the body no longer has to work as hard to contain it. Attention shifts from escape to awareness, and the nervous system begins to loosen its grip.

In practice, acknowledging fear means noticing and naming what is present in real time: a tight chest, shallow breathing, racing thoughts, a sense of urgency. This naming does not analyze or correct the experience. It simply brings it into awareness. That attention eases the body’s demand for immediate action and signals that the moment can be tolerated rather than escaped.

Instead of asking, “How do I get out of this?” the question becomes, “Is this danger or discomfort?” When the answer is discomfort, fear can be acknowledged without being obeyed.

Acknowledgment slows the interaction and opens space for choice.

Wait

Wait introduces time into a moment that feels compressed. Fear collapses experience into urgency. Everything begins to feel as though it must happen immediately.

For my student, waiting would not have meant deciding what to do next. It would have meant staying with the sensations for a few seconds longer without acting on them. Feeling her feet on the floor. Allowing her breath to move as it could. Letting the urge to escape crest and fall rather than rushing toward resolution.

Even brief pauses give the nervous system crucial information. As seconds pass without action, the body begins to register that immediate escape is not required. Breathing steadies. Muscles soften. Attention widens enough for choice to return.

For leaders, waiting can feel counterintuitive. We are trained to move toward solutions, explanations, or outcomes. Carbonell’s work asks us to trust time itself as a regulating force. Waiting allows the body to recalibrate so that whatever comes next emerges from awareness rather than urgency.

Allow

Once fear has been acknowledged and time has been introduced, the next impulse is often to make the fear stop. This is where anxiety tends to escalate. The body senses resistance and responds by pushing harder.

In the student’s experience, this showed up as an internal struggle. She tried to calm herself, reason with herself, and override the urge to escape. Each attempt intensified her panic. Her body interpreted the struggle itself as evidence that something was wrong.

Allow changes that relationship. Instead of working against fear, the student lets the sensations exist without trying to fix them. The chest remains tight. The breath stays shallow. The urgency lingers. But the fight stops.

Allowing fear does not mean agreeing with it or surrendering to it. It means recognizing that the alarm has already sounded and does not need correction in order to settle. When resistance drops, intensity often follows. The body begins to regulate not because it was forced, but because it is no longer being fought.

Repeat

Fear rarely resolves in a single wave. It rises, softens, and often returns. When it does, the impulse is to interpret its return as failure.

Repeat offers a different response. When fear resurfaces, the student returns to the same steps without escalation. She acknowledges what she notices. She allows the sensations to exist. She waits again. Nothing new needs to be solved.

This repetition teaches the nervous system something essential: fear can come and go without requiring action. Each cycle weakens the urgency attached to the sensations. Over time, fear loses authority not because it disappears, but because it no longer controls the response.

Repeat builds tolerance, not toughness. Consistency, not control, carries the system toward regulation.

Engage

Engage comes after fear has been acknowledged, time has been allowed, and resistance has eased. The student does not wait for fear to disappear. She reenters the task while carrying the remaining sensations with her.

In the classroom, this means shifting attention outward. The student stands at the front of the room with a breath that is still shallow but workable. She looks up. She finds one face in the room. She begins with the first sentence she prepared.

Engagement does not require full calm. It requires orientation. Attention moves away from internal monitoring and toward the shared task of communication.

As the student speaks, fear may continue to rise and fall in the background. She does not evaluate it. She stays with the work in front of her. Each sentence spoken gives the nervous system new information: the body can remain visible, engaged, and unharmed.

Engage restores agency. Communication resumes not because fear vanished, but because attention found a place to rest outside the self.

What This Means for Leaders

Over the years, I have noticed that more students are arriving in my classrooms with nervous systems already shaped by repeated alarms. I see it in attendance patterns, in the way bodies brace before a speech, and in how quickly attention collapses inward once fear takes hold. This is not unique to my classroom. It is widespread and growing.

Recent data make that clear. A large national survey by the University of Michigan School of Public Health found that one in three college students reported moderate to severe anxiety symptoms, with more than a third meeting criteria for a diagnosable anxiety disorder (University of Michigan School of Public Health, 2023). The National Education Association reports similar findings, noting that anxiety now surpasses depression as the most frequently cited mental health struggle on many campuses (National Education Association, 2023). A global review in BMC Psychiatry echoes this pattern, showing that roughly one-third of college students worldwide experience elevated anxiety levels, with anxiety disorders among the most common conditions in this age group (Nguyen et al., 2023).

These are not abstract statistics. They describe the lived reality of the bodies and minds leaders stand before every day in classrooms, churches, clinics, and offices. Anxiety is shaped not only by individual history, but by cultural and academic pressures that accumulate long before people enter our spaces. For many, heightened vigilance is already the baseline.

That reality has direct consequences for communication. Bodies braced for threat do not speak as freely as bodies oriented toward engagement. When the nervous system detects danger, real or perceived, it redirects energy toward survival. Leaders trained to maintain momentum or secure outcomes may misread hesitation as resistance, silence as avoidance, or uneven performance as lack of preparation. Yet insistence on immediacy or efficiency can quietly confirm the very threat the nervous system is trying to manage.

Trauma-informed leadership begins with recognizing this dynamic. It does not require diagnosis, nor does it ask leaders to become therapists. Instead, it calls us to:

notice how fear shows up in the moment,
slow the interaction enough for regulation to begin, and
orient expectations around the body’s capacity before asking it to communicate under pressure.

This does not weaken standards. It strengthens people.
Honoring a student’s nervous system in a moment of acute distress does not eliminate accountability or academic standards; it ensures that evaluation reflects capacity rather than collapse.

A trauma-informed posture creates the conditions under which students and colleagues can perform to their actual ability. It allows them to remain present long enough for thinking, skill, and preparation to take shape. The goal is not to remove challenge, but to ensure that challenge does not exceed the body’s ability to participate.

When leaders understand fear as a physiological response rather than a personal failing, they interpret hesitation as information. They allow choice to reenter the moment. And they learn to meet fear not with urgency, but with timing, which is often the difference between collapse and communication.

In an era when anxiety is this pervasive, trauma-informed leadership is not an added skill. It is a necessary form of stewardship.

Afterword

This is a complicated topic to write about because so much of what we do in a classroom grows out of instinct and the kind of discernment that only time creates. It is hard to explain to a new teacher, or to a young professional in any field, when to hold a firm pedagogical line and when to let it soften in order to meet the human being in front of you. Students need different things in different moments, and those needs are often invisible until they surface in panic, silence, or retreat.

I was out of the college classroom for two years. When I returned this past semester, I noticed a marked shift in the students. I am not someone who says, “This generation is lazy” or “The kids are changing” as a complaint about the future. The students are changing, but they are responding to changes that began long before they entered our classrooms. They face a cultural landscape shaped by social media, constant comparison, economic pressure, and a world that asks them to “perform” in nearly every public and private space. Their nervous systems reflect the world that formed them.

I taught a student in 2013 who blacked out while giving a speech. He remained standing at the podium, but his words stopped. Just before he went silent, he began to stammer, and I watched fear move through him until it overtook the moment.

After class, we sat together and debriefed. I asked him what had gone through his mind just before the fear took hold. He said, “I pictured my mom in the audience. And she was telling me I would not amount to anything.”

In that moment, it was clear that no amount of pedagogy would help him. He did not need stricter deadlines or more detailed feedback. He needed encouragement. He needed someone to meet him in the present moment and remind him that the story he carried was not the story he had to live. I decided to let him give the speech again during the next class period so he could replace that frightening experience with a new one.

What happened next shaped the way I think about teaching. After he finished the second speech, the entire class stood and applauded. They were not applauding brilliance. They were applauding something much more important: courage. They had seen a peer face something that had once undone him, and they honored the strength it took to return.

That semester taught me to build classroom cultures rather than classrooms organized around performance. It taught me that skills grow best in environments where students trust that their humanity is seen and that their fear will not be used against them. I have never regretted that decision.

Poem: Puff and Flicker

She sat in the corner of my room
Smoking a cigarette and
Draining
A glass of whiskey and
Draining
Me.

She was the kind of woman
Who let her ashes fall and she
Swept
Them under my rug but I was never
Swept
Away.

She stayed and she stepped
And the ashes dug into the
Ground
Creating a circle of black
Like a sacrifice made to what could not
Be.

I couldn’t make her leave
Even when she didn’t want to
Stay
And when I couldn’t bear to
Stay
Away.

She sang songs too loudly
And wanted applause
But all I could muster
Were halfway smirks
And halfhearted shards of
Me.

“We were happy once,”
She said then she flicked and
Fire
Fell and she kicked the
Fire
Away.

“The flame is hot and the
Light is bright,”
I muttered.
“Don’t flatter yourself
You aren’t the man you used to
Be.”

Wisps of smoke rose between
Her fingers and she
Puffed
And then coughed and then
Puffed
Away.

“The furnace you lit is
Beginning to roll
Like a lake of flames
Licking the shore
And I fear the fire will splash onto
Me.”

She looked at me with
A tone of voice that was
Silent
Like a deaf man wanting to push
Silent
Away.

“I thought you were speaking of
Love but now I see
I am being engulfed
Because I misunderstood.
You should probably leave me
Be.”

I watched as she sat in the corner
Smoking like a cigarette and
Draining
Drops of whiskey to stop the fire, her life
Draining
Away.

When I knew she was gone
The echoes of my heartbeat
Revived
And vibrated against the walls and
Revived
Me.

© Jill Szoo Wilson

What My Students Taught Me This Semester

Christmas treats handed out. Goodbye hugs and handshakes extended. Grades turned in. Another semester in the books.

Moments like this remind me of what it used to feel like to drop a coin into a noisy fountain. Whatever wish I made filled my mind and hand with anticipation, with the kind of energy that moves you forward. Then came the thrust of the arm, the release, the drop, the looking through rippling water. It felt quiet. Like you had accomplished something, but wouldn’t quite know what until much later.

Where do our wishes go? Where will these students go?

Does that make sense?

This was probably my favorite semester in all my decades of teaching in higher education.

Intersections. Semesters are always intersections between me and the students, the students and one another, and the students and themselves. Who they were, who they are, and who they are becoming. But this semester felt electric, alive with points on a map charting lefts and rights, ups and downs, and ins and outs. For better and for worse.

I had students who became homeless and held on. Students who were beginning afresh and letting go. Students who started with little hope and left with direction, and others who learned quietly that school just isn’t for them. There were fights for freedom. Heated arguments about the meaning of courage, good, and knowledge. I bore witness to confusion and courage and strength and joy. Tides in an ocean of relative chaos, and ships that refused to sink.

I am so proud of my students. Every single one of them. And I am humbled by the role I have in their lives to listen, question, encourage, and challenge.

In the final summation, what I realize is that I needed them more this semester than they needed me. Or maybe it was equal. They kept me focused outside of myself, and when I wanted to despair, they met me with laughter, frivolity, complexity, and routine.

This is life. Our classrooms are microcosms of the wider world, and when we can love, negotiate disagreement, have difficult conversations, and still extend hugs and handshakes at the end, we have taken part in some of the most rewarding work this life offers.

I’ll leave you with some of the results from one of our more contentious Socratic question roundtables this semester, What Is Courage:

“Courage is the willingness to make a full, genuine attempt at overcoming an obstacle that presents a physical and/or mental danger.” —B

“The full attempt to overcome a physical and/or mental obstacle with perceived risk.” —A

“An action. Choosing to face an obstacle that presents risk in spite of those risks.” —P

“An act or mentality that allows or enables someone to overcome an obstacle despite the chance of danger or other unfavorable outcomes.” —D

“The mental and moral strength to act despite fear and danger.” —T

“Courage is doing something even when you feel afraid.” —C

“Courage is the act doing something even when you feel fear/danger/risk/ obstacle, whether is physically or mentally challenging even when it costs you something, and even when no one is watching.” —S

“Courage is bearing up under the weight of outward and/or inward threat for the purpose of becoming who you need to be for yourself and others. All for the glory of God.” —J

“I’m not sure, but I know it’s something we do for the greater good or else it’s just self-confidence.” —L

What do you say courage is?

Poem: Refreshment

There are moments when we 
must stop
and look
and tend to
the unexpected and
deeply welcomed,
simply because 
we live.

A lemonade stand
at the edge of the road,
cardboard sign wavering
between LEMONADE and LEMONAED.
The coins wait in a jar,
oblong ice accepts its fate
as tiny fingers stir 
through mostly water.
Engines reconsider.
Appointments learn patience.
Briefcases bloom with splashes of sugar
any bee would envy.

My cat arrives
with the object he loves most.
Not the clean one.
The true one.
He sets it down carefully,
then looks up,
as if to say:
you’ll want to see this.
And I do.
The afternoon brightens,
pleased with itself.
Thoughts wander off
without wearing their shoes.

My eyes squint
in mixed morning light—
the bulb above the kitchen sink
and ribbons of sunrise through open blinds.
Coffee steams.
I smell it before I see it,
and then I do—
steam lifts
just as light
reaches the window.
Waking,
and God,
and refreshment
keep company
without comment.

—Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025

Poem: The Us We Can See

I am stationed at a wooden table
the size of a reasonable thought.
It does not wobble.
This feels like a small mercy
after watching my Americano
sway back and forth on the last.

Here, the Americano steams steadily
as if rehearsing confidence,
dark, uncomplicated,
uninterested in my opinions.

I wear fingerless gloves,
a compromise between dignity and survival.
My knuckles remain unconvinced.

Winter returns again and again
through the green-painted door,
carried on the backs of coats,
slipping in at ankle height,
lingering like someone
who has already said goodbye
but remains.

A woman at the counter
counts her change twice,
the last of her pennies
now a relic of a simpler time
when 1-2-3 meant something more.

A man near the window
keeps turning his cup
until the logo faces forward,
forgetting the face
with every sip,
which ends with a new turn.
A familiar dance, a waltz?
Sip-2-3, sip-2-3.

A woman with wiry white hair
removes a bright turquoise hat, 
carefully crocheted,
leaving one thread to dangle
from a curl.
The thread hesitates.
So does she.

Heavy oak chairs keep their positions,
pretending not to notice
who chooses them and why,
practiced at holding
what is briefly certain.

A barista with inked forearms
wipes the same spot again,
loyal to a principle I do not know.

The clock on the wall yawns
while declining comment,
stretching its hands
in a familiar reach,
analog-2-3, sameness-2-3,
predictable without irony.

I lift the white mug,
my fingers watching and ready,
and remember how warmth
asks to be held,
while cold does not.

—Jill Szoo Wilson, 2025

Faithfulness in the Face of Antisemitism: Covenant, Memory, and Christian Responsibility

By Jill Szoo Wilson

Author’s Note:
This is not an essay about forgiveness. I have written about Eva Mozes Kor, Holocaust survivor and forgiveness advocate, for years because I deeply respect her message. I honor her legacy here while condemning antisemitic violence without qualification and calling Christians to action in the present moment. Nothing in this piece is meant to soften, spiritualize, or diminish the reality of antisemitism today.

Nearly seventy years after the Holocaust, Eva Mozes Kor still looked at the world and saw a painful truth: antisemitism had not disappeared. The lessons of history, no matter how horrific, were not enough to prevent hatred from resurfacing. As a survivor of Auschwitz and a Mengele Twin, she carried both the burden of memory and the wisdom of experience. She often asked a simple but haunting question: What has changed since Auschwitz?

Eva often spoke about how Adolf Hitler rose to power not as an anomaly, but through a series of orchestrated events designed to achieve a singular goal, the extermination of the Jewish people and the establishment of an Aryan-dominated society. Hitler and his regime promoted the belief in Aryan racial superiority, claiming that Germans of “pure” Nordic descent were destined to rule over other groups they labeled as inferior. These ideas, rooted in eugenics and extreme nationalism, fueled policies that targeted Jews, Romani people, disabled individuals, Slavs, and others deemed unfit for their vision of a racially “pure” society. This ideology was systematically enforced through propaganda, education, and legislation, including the Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935.

The Nuremberg Race Laws consisted of two primary statutes:

The Reich Citizenship Law: This law declared that only individuals of German or related blood were eligible to be Reich citizens, effectively revoking Jews’ rights as citizens. It stated: A Reich citizen is a subject of the state who is of German or related blood, and proves by his conduct that he is willing and fit to faithfully serve the German people and Reich. (Source)

The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor: This law prohibited marriages and extramarital relations between Jews and citizens of German or related blood, aiming to preserve the “purity” of German blood. It also forbade Jews from employing German females under 45 years of age in their households. (Source)

Germany, one of the most advanced and cultured societies of its time, fell under the influence of a leader who manipulated public fears and desires, offering promises of restoration and prosperity in exchange for obedience. Step by step, ordinary citizens became participants in a deadly machine, one that required gradual compromises until they found themselves complicit in atrocities. This transformation is hauntingly explored in the book Ordinary Men, which details how average individuals became executioners not out of inherent evil, but by following orders, rationalizing their actions, and failing to resist the system that consumed them.

Eva witnessed this transformation firsthand and spent decades ensuring people understood how easily it could happen again. She often emphasized that Hitler’s rise was not inevitable, nor was it the result of a single event. It was a gradual process, shaped by economic hardship, propaganda, and the willingness of ordinary people to accept small injustices until they became monstrous realities.

Five Factors That Allowed Hitler to Rise to Power

The Holocaust was not an accident of history. It was the result of a carefully constructed plan, built on a foundation of economic despair, propaganda, and the gradual erosion of moral resistance.

Economic Devastation: Germany faced severe unemployment, with rates soaring to 30 percent in the early 1930s. This economic turmoil created fertile ground for extremist ideologies. (encyclopedia.ushmm.org)

Scapegoating the Jews: The Nazi regime capitalized on existing antisemitic sentiments, blaming Jews for Germany’s economic and social woes and uniting the populace against a common, innocent enemy. (encyclopedia.ushmm.org)

Propaganda and Control: Through relentless propaganda, the Nazis dehumanized Jews, portraying them as subversive and dangerous, which facilitated public acceptance of discriminatory laws and actions. (encyclopedia.ushmm.org)

Apathy and Inaction: Many Germans and international observers remained passive or indifferent as antisemitic policies escalated, allowing hatred to fester unchallenged.

The Allure of Power: Hitler’s strategic political maneuvers, including exploiting democratic processes, enabled him to consolidate power and implement his radical agenda.

These historical conditions are not confined to the past. Alarmingly, antisemitism has seen a resurgence in recent years. A 2024 report highlighted a 340 percent increase in global antisemitic incidents compared to 2022. (timesofisrael.com) Furthermore, a 2025 Anti-Defamation League survey revealed that 46 percent of adults worldwide harbor significant antisemitic beliefs. (adl.org)

Despite comprising a small fraction of the global population, approximately 15 million Jews worldwide, many continue to advocate for oppressed communities, even when it entails personal risk. Eva marveled at this enduring commitment to justice and empathy.

The Ultimate Power: Forgiveness

Eva often said, “Anger is a seed for war, forgiveness is a seed for peace.” To her, forgiveness was never about excusing harm. It was about breaking the cycle of hatred.

Forgiveness does not take place on the battlefield. It is not something that happens in the midst of conflict, nor does it excuse or prevent the necessity of justice. Forgiveness comes later, when the dust has settled and when the victim is free to reclaim their own power. It is not about surrender. It is about refusing to let the past dictate the future.

While Eva never shied away from confronting the past, she was equally passionate about what came next. She believed that dwelling in anger, no matter how justified, only gave power to those who inflicted harm. “Forgiveness,” she said, “is the only power a victim has to heal, liberate, and reclaim their life.”

Eva was careful to say, “I forgive in my name only.” She never claimed to speak for other survivors, nor did she suggest that forgiveness was a requirement for healing.

Eva Mozes Kor often emphasized this declaration, reflecting both her personal journey and a deep respect for Jewish principles regarding forgiveness. In Jewish tradition, forgiveness, or mechila, is a profound process that hinges on sincere repentance from the wrongdoer. Maimonides, a preeminent Jewish scholar, outlined that true repentance (teshuva) involves the offender’s acknowledgment of wrongdoing, genuine remorse, and a committed effort to rectify the harm caused. Only after these steps is the victim encouraged to offer forgiveness.

This framework underscores that forgiveness cannot be granted on behalf of others. It is an intimate act between the victim and the penitent. In the context of the Holocaust, where six million Jews were murdered without any expression of remorse from the perpetrators, the notion of forgiveness becomes even more complex. Jewish law maintains that offenses against an individual require that individual’s forgiveness, making it impossible for survivors to forgive on behalf of those who perished. (utppublishing.com)

Eva’s careful articulation, that her forgiveness was solely her own, respected this principle. She did not presume to speak for other survivors or the deceased. Her act of forgiveness was a personal liberation, a means to free herself from the grip of anger and victimhood, without contravening the collective memory and enduring grief of the Jewish community. (candlesholocaustmuseum.org)

This distinction highlights the delicate balance between individual healing and communal responsibility. While Eva chose forgiveness as her path to peace, she acknowledged that such a choice is deeply personal and may not be appropriate or possible for others, especially when traditional avenues for repentance and atonement are absent.

Forgiveness, in her view, had nothing to do with the perpetrator. It did not condone, excuse, or endorse their actions. It was not about justice. It was about reclaiming control over one’s own life. “I call forgiveness the best revenge,” Eva said, “because once we forgive, the perpetrator no longer has any power over us, and our forgiveness overrides all their evil deeds.”

This idea was radical and not always welcomed. Many survivors could not accept it, and for good reason. Even outside the context of the Holocaust, many struggle with the idea that forgiveness does not mean forgetting or allowing injustice to continue. For Eva, forgiveness was deeply personal. It was about reclaiming power, not about absolving the guilty. But within Jewish tradition, memory itself is sacred: to remember is to bear witness, to demand justice, and to ensure that history does not repeat itself.

Am Yisrael Chai: The People of Israel Live

Throughout history, the Jewish people have faced oppression, displacement, and genocide, yet they have endured. The phrase Am Yisrael Chai, meaning “The People of Israel Live,” is more than just words. It is a declaration of survival, resilience, and hope. It is an anthem of defiance against those who have sought to erase Jewish existence and a testament to the enduring strength of a people who refuse to be defined by their suffering.

This phrase has been spoken in times of both devastation and triumph. During the Holocaust, Jews whispered it in ghettos and concentration camps, affirming that even in the darkest of times, their spirit remained unbroken. In the aftermath of World War II, it became a rallying cry for survivors who rebuilt their lives, many of whom found refuge in the newly established State of Israel in 1948.

Today, Am Yisrael Chai continues to hold deep significance. It is proclaimed at Holocaust memorials, sung in celebrations, and carried forward as a reminder that survival is not just about existing. It is about thriving, growing, and refusing to let history repeat itself. In the face of rising antisemitism, the phrase remains an unshakable affirmation that the Jewish people will continue to live, to contribute, and to stand up for justice, not only for themselves but for all who face oppression.

Remembering is an act of justice. It ensures that the past is neither erased nor repeated. Forgiveness, when chosen, does not diminish remembrance. It follows it. It does not mean forgetting, nor does it replace accountability. Instead, it allows individuals to reclaim the power to shape their own future, free from the weight of bitterness.

We’re on the Battlefield Again

We are on the battlefield again.

Now is the time to fight back. Antisemitism did not end with the Holocaust. It did not disappear with memory or education or vows of “never again.” It has returned openly and violently, and it is targeting Jewish people simply for existing. This is not abstract. It is not theoretical. It is happening now. Those of us who are not Jewish do not get to watch from the sidelines. I serve the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will stand with my Jewish brothers and sisters until the bitter end, or as long as God allows breath in my body. Silence is no longer neutral. To remain quiet is to abandon them on the battlefield.

Recent Antisemitic Attacks (2023–2025)

Below is a concise, verifiable list of documented incidents illustrating the resurgence of antisemitic violence and hate in recent years:

• Bondi Beach Hanukkah Shooting (Dec 14, 2025):
Gunmen opened fire during a Jewish “Chanukah by the Sea” event in Sydney, Australia, killing at least 11 and injuring dozens in what officials condemned as an antisemitic terrorist attack targeting Jews during a holiday celebration. (AP News)

• Timeline of Australian Antisemitic Incidents (2023–2025):
Jewish communities in Australia faced multiple threats including synagogue arsons, graffiti, and escalating antisemitic violence leading up to the Bondi incident. (The Forward)

• Manchester Synagogue Attack (Oct 2, 2025):
A vehicle and stabbing attack at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation in Manchester, England, resulted in three deaths and several injuries, confirmed by police as a terrorist targeting of Jews. (Wikipedia)

• Antisemitism Surge Worldwide (Post–Oct 7, 2023):
Global reports documented thousands of antisemitic incidents worldwide, including threats, harassment, and violent attacks in many countries, since the escalation of the Gaza conflict. (Combat Antisemitism Movement)

• Synagogue and Community Vandalism (2023–2024):
Multiple bomb threats, arson, and intimidation against synagogues were reported in Australia and elsewhere, part of a broader pattern of anti-Jewish hate following geopolitical tensions. (Wikipedia)

• Antisemitic Incidents in the UK (2023–2024):
The Community Security Trust documented thousands of antisemitic incidents in the UK, marking sustained high levels of anti-Jewish hate in recent years. (CST)

• Antisemitic Acts in the U.S. (2024):
The Anti-Defamation League’s audit reported record-high antisemitic incidents in the U.S., including harassment, threats, and violent acts occurring across all 50 states. (Congress.gov)

• Berlin Holocaust Memorial Stabbing (Feb 21, 2025):
A man attacked a person at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin with a knife, injuring the victim in an incident with an antisemitic motive, according to police and press reporting. (Wikipedia)

Christians, What Will You Do?

For Christians, the connection between the God of Israel and the Christian faith is not symbolic, philosophical, or historical alone. It is covenantal and continuous. The God Christians worship is the same God who revealed Himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who said, “I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant” (Genesis 17:7). Scripture never records that covenant being revoked.

As Joel Richardson, a Christian author, Bible teacher, and filmmaker whose work focuses on biblical prophecy and God’s enduring covenant with Israel, has taught repeatedly, Christianity does not represent a departure from Israel’s story but its unfolding. The New Testament itself insists on this continuity. Paul writes that Gentile believers are not the root but the branches, grafted into a tree they did not plant, sustained by promises they did not originate (Romans 11:17–18). The Church, according to Scripture, does not replace Israel. It depends on her.

John Harrigan, a Christian writer and filmmaker who has examined the theological roots of Christian antisemitism, including through the documentary Covenant and Controversy, has argued that Christian antisemitism is not merely moral failure but theological collapse. Scripture bears this out. To sever Jesus from His Jewish identity is to sever Him from His genealogy, His Scriptures, and His covenantal mission. Jesus did not erase Israel’s story. He entered it. “Salvation is from the Jews,” He said plainly (John 4:22). The apostles did not preach a new God, but the fulfillment of what had already been spoken “by the mouth of all the prophets” (Acts 3:18).

Christianity does not make sense apart from Israel. The Messiah Christians proclaim was Jewish. The Scriptures they read were entrusted first to Jewish hands (Romans 3:2). The covenant they appeal to was never revoked. Paul is unequivocal: “The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29). Any theology that distances itself from Jewish suffering, or treats the Jewish people as spiritually obsolete, stands in direct contradiction to the very text it claims to honor.

This is why the present moment is vital. Scripture does not allow Christians to retreat into abstraction when the people of Israel are targeted. The call is older and clearer than modern politics: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse” (Genesis 12:3). Silence, in this light, is not neutrality. It is a theological choice.

Standing with the Jewish people is faithfulness to the God Christians claim to serve. It is obedience to Scripture. The God who keeps covenant does not abandon His people, and those who bear His name are called to stand with them.

So the question is no longer theoretical.

Where do you stand?

Tag: Jill Szoo Wilson