This is US
By Way of Prologue Anyone wanting an easy listening overview of a city’s attractions knows exactly what to do: climb aboard a climate-controlled tour bus. For the price of a ticket and minimal mental effort, you get to sit back, relax, and get an infotainment version of local history. Those were the likely expectations […]
Who Needs a Magical Reindeer? Or (#deconstruct 2020)
It’s finally fa-la-la-la-la time, and I couldn’t be more ready. Every year as soon as December rolls in (and not a minute sooner), I crank up the holiday music. However, this is 2020, a year in which everything is subject to deconstruction, even the iconic little, red-nosed reindeer. It’s not that I have something against […]
“Sir, Can We Talk About Your Knee on My Neck?”
Try to imagine this scenario. You walk into your home and see that it has been plundered by burglars. You even know who the burglars are; after all, they have ransacked your home and stolen your property many times before. Since you know who the burglars are and how they operate, you decide that it’s […]
Who is Mother?
I was once again honored to join the community of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Bloomington, in their virtual pulpit this past Mother’s Day. Thank you to Senior Minister Reverend Mary Ann Macklin for her warm and welcoming invitation. The holiday, Mother’s Day, as a ritual of recognition, elicits a wide range of emotions as […]
Love Worth Doing
Why bother? Why even try? Given a cultural climate, these are not unreasonable questions. Increasingly, they are asked by professionals in health care, environmental justice, education and clinical services. This asking perhaps signals the onset of heartbreak, or may be attempts to stave off relational vulnerability and despair. They reveal the fragility of good intentions […]
Family Matters (with a little help from mother-wit)
Is there a woman anywhere who hasn’t heard: “the older you get, the more you become like your mother”? Typically, these words are intended as a warning or an indictment, not a compliment. How then do we explain that annual rite of spring, committed to exorbitant displays of devotion and no small investment of dollars […]
Awakening from the Trance of Fear (or Toward a Spirituality of Hope for 2018)
Fear moves in mystifying ways. Although we hardly ever call it by name, it is deeply insinuated in our stories of reality. One such story is captured in Mississippi Burning, a movie about the FBI investigation of the murder of civil rights activists. The scene I have in mind starts with a conversation between two […]
By the Waters of Babylon (or Toward a Spirituality of Hope)
Part of the legacy of growing up in a scripture-rich environment is that I sometimes find myself totally captivated by a vivid image. As I was reflecting on the past year, it was this image that came to mind: “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down, and we wept when we remembered […]
Yes, It Does Takes a Village
Yes, It Does Take a Village It happens whenever small groups of justice-conscious people find themselves in casual spaces discussing serious social problems. As the conversation nears closure, someone will invariably say, “It takes a village”. We have all heard it and possibly said ourselves that it takes a village to raise a child. […]
Charlotesville and the Anatomy of Terror
There are times when I feel as if we’re lurching from one hate-spawned atrocity to another. The heart-rending violence in Charlottesville took the life of Heather Heyer, left 19 others with physical injuries, and inflicted soul wounds on countless others. We are long past the point where hand wringing and well-intentioned platitudes about loving each […]