Strangers carted away my friend’s history yesterday, piece by piece. An auctioneer’s singsong cajoling held Dave’s life up for examination and bid. Chains, tractors, implements, house furniture, fuel tanks, rakes and hoes all appraised unemotionally for their “value” by area farmers hoping…
A cautionary tale of celebrity pastors and family empires
Late last month, Liberty University and its former president, Jerry Falwell Jr., settled for an undisclosed amount to end a multi-year, sprawling set of multi-million dollar lawsuits brought by Falwell against the Lynchburg, Va.-based school. For the world’s “largest evangelical university,” the…
When being a pastor is ‘the most important calling,’ family values take a back seat
Most of the noise at this month’s Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting was from men attempting to cement their pastoral power over women, Christian nationalists attacking religious liberty, messengers seeking to censure SBC leaders publicly, and the convention voting to…
Women have strengthened my faith
“I believe our hands complicate time. If we’re lucky enough, they help carry on the stories of our antepasados. This is why we write, knit, compose, cook, and so much more. We are all a sacred text.” — Kat Armas…
What my grandparents would think of the Southern Baptist Convention today
In 1998, I spent the spring and summer in Rogers, Ark., with my grandparents. I had graduated from college the year before and was floundering, so hanging out for five months with my three living grandparents was a blessing even…
God’s will for the nuclear family
In David Brooks’ essay “The Nuclear Family Was A Mistake,” he demonstrates that for most of human history, we have existed in intricate entangled webs of extended family. For a majority of our history, society has been built on the…
The Holocaust Musaffecteum: Humbling irritations amidst genuine horror past and present
My family and I had been standing in line for nearly half an hour at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. Despite all that time and with prior experience at another high-security location, I still wasn’t ready…
God’s divine plan for eclipses and ellipses
A few years ago, my teenage son beat me at chess. Because I’m a horrible chess player, I took the defeat with aplomb. Later the same day, though, he beat me at Scrabble. Now, that just plain hurt. I rarely…
The Easter season brings memories joyous and painful of growing up in Palestine
Nothing has changed since a version of this column first appeared in 2020 in another publication under the title “A Lethal Virus Called Israeli Occupation: A Somber Easter in Occupied Palestine.” The original title drew on the spread of COVID in…