The Cost of Calling Out Without Calling In
Yesterday, I got trashed on social media. It was unfair, undeserved, and deeply painful. My name was listed as one of the speakers (along with my husband and several other community and faith leaders) for the Interfaith Council’s Celebration of Gratitude — an event meant to honor connection, healing, and shared humanity.
The organizers made a well-intentioned but regrettable choice to host the event at a location tied to deep community pain — the site of Trevor Seever’s death five years ago. Trevor’s family pointed out, rightly, that this choice of location, along with other factors, was hurtful. That feedback mattered, and it was important. But alongside that came something else — a wave of hostility and accusation that turned quickly into personal attack.
When I saw the words suggesting we were “celebrating his murder,” I felt physically sick. The kind of sick that starts in your gut and rises into your chest. I’ve coached so many leaders and community members through this experience — being misrepresented, vilified, or attacked online. I’ve helped them find their footing again. But this time, it was me (and my very kind and deeply feeling husband and others).
It’s easy, from the sidelines, to say, “Don’t take it personally, Harness what this is pointing to.” It’s much harder when your integrity — the very thing you try to live and lead by — is questioned in public. When people you know assign you motives that couldn’t be further from your truth. When you said yes to something that was meant to heal, but it became another wound.
The event was cancelled. I understand the choice and it still feels disappointing. This celebration was meant to be medicine — the kind that helps us remember what’s still good and possible in each other.
And that’s the part that stays with me. Because when our way of calling for change becomes attacking people, we end up driving away the very folks who are trying — sometimes imperfectly — to make a difference. Instead of the feedback becoming a lesson — a reason to learn and adapt and grow — it becomes a silencing.
That’s not how change happens. And that’s not how communities heal.
Real change asks for something harder: conversation, humility, and forgiveness.
I’m still feeling unsettled. Still learning from what happened. But I know this — I don’t want to live in a world where we tear each other down faster than we try to understand. I want to live in a world where we keep talking. Where we keep trying.
Because that’s where healing — and hope — still live.