Welcome to The Side Aisle

Surviving the Either/Or Divide

There is a line in the 2014 post-apocalyptic novel Station Eleven, “To the monsters, we’re the monsters,” and I can’t get it out of my head. I’ve tried to metabolize it with making art, talking about it with friends, saying it under my breath when watching the news or listening to politicians politicize. I listen to influencers demonize empathy and while other influencers idolize it, but I’m realizing as long as there’s an us and them, someone in there is acting like a monster.

Maybe it’s me.

Parker Palmer defines violence like this: “Any way we have of violating the identity and integrity of another person.” To call the other a monster, even while knowing that to them, we may seem like monsters too, this is violence. This is violence not only to the other, but also to ourselves. We dehumanize when we categorize them, ourselves, anyone, into sides or factions or colors upon a linear scale.

We scrape at the scales we’re covered in, like Eustace in the dragon’s cave, trying to find our political identity. Are we red? Blue? Moderate? Neither? Both? Little of each? But not like that. Even if we identify with the person of Jesus, it comes with all kinds of political baggage we may abhor, but it also comes with belonging to certain groups and institutions we may find value in.

What do you do then?

I have three friends and between the four of us, we’ve published a bunch of books and have a lot of thoughts on current events in the world. In life, though, each of us are coming from very different environments.

One is from rural Appalachia and worked in conservative Christian organizations most of her life. One lives in the city limits of Seattle, a place where natural beauty and city life intersects. And the third is a Duke Divinity graduate who thinks a lot about tradition, food, and holistic living. Then there’s me, raised in conservative fundamentalism in a region known for its non-violence and political pacifism, but a still strong commitment to social justice.

Despite all we don’t have in common, we have this in common: we are facing the political landscape of 2026 and asking one another, “What should we do?”

So we just starting asking each other the questions:

• What are you doing?

• What is motivating that action?

• How is it helping you or your community?

• Also, what are you not doing?

• What’s guiding you in this contentious time?

We just started talking about it together and then starting talking about talking about it with you all together and then somehow that turned into what happens when white women get together wringing their hands and asking, “What should we do?” The answer was obvious then, of course: we should start a podcast ;)

None of us identify as conservative or progressive or moderate or even necessarily, “third way.” None of us have voted one way the entire way. All of us feel free to critique candidates we haven’t voted for and the ones we have. All of us want to find a better way forward not only in how we act on individual policies in government, but also how we act in our own communities, with our actual neighbors.

And we thought, I don’t know, maybe you’d want to listen in to some of those conversations.

Introducing:

The Side Aisle: Surviving the Either/Or Divide

We don’t want to make our home on the line between either and or, we want to find our home on the margin. Not a third way as it is often practiced—avoidance of side taking or action making, a kind of both-sideism, but a true and active, decisive and care-full way of being in the world that honors “the identity and integrity of every person” we encounter—no matter whose “side” it benefits.

We don’t do it perfectly, but we have learned and are learning spiritual practices that help us (and others) survive being given the side aisle.

This is a limited series, just six episodes. We’ll have an intro episode and an outro episode and four in between where we will have a conversation together about:

• Engaging Family across the divide: How do we (or do we?) engage our families when it feels like we’re each living in completely different realities?

• What is the good life when the good life doesn’t work for everyone: How do we pursue care of our bodies, families, and homes holistically when it feels like caring about this stuff slots us into a political silo we don’t support?

• Faith, Communities, and Institutions: How can we stay tethered to our faith, churches, local communities and institutions, when earthly empire seems to take precedence over the kingdom of Jesus?

• Vocation, Public life, and Social Media: How do we talk about what we believe in public spaces without losing sight of the imago dei in ourselves and others?

Listen on Apple here.

Listen on Spotify here.

Send us your questions!

We want to hear your questions, anonymously of course. You can submit them at any time here on our website, where it says, “Submit a question.” Or, you can follow each of us on Instagram where we’ll put out a question box on our stories a few days before we record each episode. We’ll try to get to as many questions as possible.

Follow Sara here.

Follow Amanda here.

Follow Kendall here.

Follow Lore here.

Our hope is this limited podcast will help some of you feel less alone on the side aisle, but even more, that it will help encourage you to have more of these kinds of conversations with the people in your communities. The first episode will be live March 18th on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts

Thanks for joining us on the side aisle,

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@knvslice

Kendall Vanderslice on Instagram: "Exciting announcement 🎉 My …