A record 2020 U.S. hurricane season combined with the COVID-19 pandemic has created an additional population of victims: eager and skilled disaster-recovery volunteers prohibited from traveling to assist devastated communities. Many of them are members of American congregations with long…
Eating Rice Krispy treats amidst the devastation of south Louisiana
Darren and Marianne were preparing to celebrate their twins’ second birthday with friends and family. Marianne made Rice Krispy treats and cut them out in Mickey Mouse shapes to serve at the party. They knew it would be a rainy…
When crisis prompts the question: ‘Lord, teach us how to pray’
Jesus tells us that one important way to pray is to pray through our action, working to ensure that the kingdom of God becomes a reality on earth. He says our way forward is to work to make this world better for others.
The parable of the black life
In his 2015 book Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates writes to his son, “In America it is tradition to destroy the black body. It is heritage.” Ever since I read, re-read and re-read again those words, I have…
Nonviolence and a different future with God
“Deliver us from evil.” Most Sundays we pray these words, but rarely do they sound the resonance we hear in these anarchic days. Evil seems unrelenting, incapable of exhausting its ravenous power. Who can withstand its voracious appetite for destruction?