The 2016 presidential election and its aftermath ushered Danielle Hensley into a political, cultural, and spiritual reawakening that also revealed deep divides within her family of origin. She embarked on a quest to educate herself about her white privilege, pervasive judgmentalism, as well as racist, homophobic, and other bigoted ideologies among fellow Christians. She courageously faced hard truths, deep childhood wounds, and generational traumas, while learning the meaning of loyalty and what true love looks like in the face of seemingly insurmountable divides. If the Bough Breaks . . . examines the seemingly universal and growing chasm between the right and the left through the lens of a single family and within the context of the Episcopal Church, where such ideological, political, and spiritual differences can be as subtle as they are pernicious. Hensley's tale is also a love story, if an unconventional one. It is the love story of a daughter/sister/granddaughter/mother fighting passionately against external and internal forces that conspire to destroy love and to continue unhealthy cycles of abuse and denial in her family. It is an everyday shero's quest to cling to love and fight mightily for it, even if it means letting go of relationships that appear to be broken beyond repair. But are they truly, irreparably broken? Or can love, ultimately, triumph over fear--hers, theirs, and ours?
