[ETA: A few principles for Table living have solidified during this project. I covered one—get under—in these posts. Here's another!]

My daughter E, age 7, was crying a little. I sat next to her on the couch, smoothed her hair, and asked what was up. She gazed miserably into the bowl on her lap and muttered, “S and I agreed that he’d make lunch and I’d wash the dishes; he made me this mac and cheese.” I could hear S, her 9-year-old brother, banging around in the kitchen. She went on. “We have two kinds of mac and cheese, you know? The orange and the white? And he doesn’t have a favorite, but I only like the orange kind.” The watery mess in her bowl was, um, not the orange kind. “I know allll his favorites, and I make sure to give him the things he likes! Why doesn’t he care about me?” From the kitchen, oblivious S yelled proudly, “How’s that lunch? You liking it?” She sniffed, shrugged, and shook her piteous little head.

That’s when E and I had our first conversation about superpowers, the specialized skills and habits that start in our natures and develop over time—that, like superheroes’ strength or speed, might have a tricky origin, definitely have a bright side and a dark side, and can be used for good or ill. One of her superpowers, I explained, was attentiveness to other people’s preferences. Forged in the hot brain of a solicitous little sister, it was both a blessing and a curse. (See: America Ferrera’s jeremiad in the Barbie movie. AND ALL GOD’S WOMEN SAID, AMEN.)

I think we’ve all got superpowers—habits of mind, practices—with dubious provenance and the potential to inflict serious damage. Most of mine grew from fundamentalist Christianity: moral hypervigilance, a manic fervor for study, a killer Protestant work ethic. When I was deep in evangelicalism, they seemed unalloyedly good, productive, righteous.

But as I learned more about evangelicalism’s complicity with all of the “ism”s, the ways that it has been used to harm and ignore the very people Jesus commanded us to love the most, I started to see all of those superpowers with only disgust and despair. I have this huge set of skills and habits, I thought, and they all suck. These obsessions I have—with integrity, with knowledge, with systems of theology and morality and salvation—are serving only to harm me and other people and the world. They’ve got to go. (Trade one kind of black-and-white thinking for another, babyyy!)

But/and/so.

As I helped E work through the ups and downs of her superpowers, I started reconsidering the bright sides of my own. I lugged out the boxes I’d locked up and stashed in the closet when I was worried that their contents were too dangerous. Some of that shit was dirty, and it’s taking me a good long while to separate the good from the ugly.

But here’s the thing. If the Table is about wholeness, then I need to bring to it my whole self, including powers that could be dangerous.

If building the Table is a matter of urgency—and I think it is—then I’ve gotta use what I’ve got.

And if the whole world is God’s and good, then our superpowers—even those of dubious origin—are redeemable.

That moral hypervigilance? Its bright side is a deep care for goodness and human flourishing.

The fervor for study? I undertook multi-translation inductive Bible studies before menarche, for crying out loud. When it becomes clear that I need to relearn my own history or study up on reparations or listen closely as people describe their experiences, I’m ready. Bring it.

And that’s just the beginning. I (we) also have the following (again, every blessed one with a big, scary shadow side): a regard for truth; a global mindset; an inclination toward organization and activism; earnestness and sincerity; a willingness to engage in difficult conversations; trust in the ineffable and nonlinear; hope on a cosmological scale. Every one of these is useful as we participate at the Table.

Now, a big, glaring caveat: these superpowers don’t make us invincible or prevent us from royally screwing up. OBVIOUSLY; that’s why I’ve been obsessed with their shadow sides. This isn’t about strutting into the struggle with our capes flowing and soundtracks blaring.

This is about not throwing away useful stuff just because it’s dirty. This is: Hey! Don’t toss that weird ability that has often caused you pain BUT IS A POWERFUL SKILL! We need that! We need you! We need it all! Let’s use it all! Dump it all on the table, and we’ll strategize from there!

I think the action here is: identify your superpowers, the ones whose origins you’re ambivalent about, the ones you’re sometimes ashamed of or annoyed by, but that you’re pretty sure could, in the right light, be kickass tools for Table building.

What have you got?

And all God’s women said: amen.