I just returned from leading a group to visit the Legacy Sites in Montgomery, Ala. Each morning and evening, I offered a meditation to ground us for what we were about to see and process. One of the hymns we…
A moral clarity on femicide
Four stories. One week. Femicide. In recent days, the news has carried story after story of women killed or missing at the hands of husbands, partners, former partners and other perpetrators of violence. These stories reveal a pattern that is…
Springtime for war crimes
There is a song in Mel Brooks’ musical The Producers called “Springtime for Hitler.” In the show, two producers intentionally create the most offensive Broadway musical imaginable. They assume no audience would tolerate a Broadway number glorifying Adolf Hitler. The…
America’s unfinished civil war
We are in the midst of an American civil war. This time, wool uniforms have been replaced by whistles, backpacks and face masks worn by ICE agents, and drafts have been replaced by calls from community organizers and federal recruitment…
Hold your breath for health care
I’m sitting in a quiet waiting room, the kind that hums with fluorescent lights and faint disinfectant. No one else is here, but the TV is blasting an old episode of Chopped on The Food Network. The chefs are racing…
What’s in a mask?
The first few years I lived outside Alabama, I received the same question by those learning where I grew up: Did you see members of the Ku Klux Klan walking down the street in Alabama? This question was sometimes asked…
The sacredness of DEI
Diversity, equity and inclusion. DEI. I want to begin this post by reclaiming these words as good, whole and holy. You and I embody diversity, equity and inclusion. As Stacey Abrams recently said in her podcast, DEI is not something…
Glenn Hinson: ‘What he taught us in his lectures was learned in his own life’
On Jan. 29, a spiritual giant died quietly, yet with the force that reflected all of his life. Glenn Hinson was a Baptist professor in the fields of church history and spirituality. He was on the frontlines of the war…
Will we be the right kind of light to the world?
I love metaphors. I love the meaning they create. I love the dissonance they generate. I love how our imagination goes in a multitude of directions that our logical minds might not explore. All because of metaphors. Metaphors are a…
How do you create art out of suffering?
In 1992, artist Nick Cave was devastated by the police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles. As a young Black man, Cave knew the dangerous injustices of racial profiling and then, like the rest of America, viewed King’s beating…
It’s the democracy, neighbor
Last week, I was driving along a Texas highway in Paige, a rural town with a population of 278, when I saw a sign as foreign to me as UFOs and aliens. The billboard read, “Protect Women’s Rights! Vote Blue…
I was thirsty and you made me work in the heat without water
This morning, I took my dogs for a walk because it was the coolest time of the day when their paws wouldn’t be scorched on pavement in our multiple days of temperatures that feel like it’s 100+ degrees. Living in…