Correction: The date of the culminating march in Washington, D.C. is June 23rd. Some heroes don’t wear capes. Instead of flight or invisibility, the mantle of Martin Luther King Jr. gives one more grounding and visibility. But sometimes that visibility can be deceptive: along with many earnest people seeking to
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Then they sat down to eat; and looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels carrying gum, balm, and resin, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and
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Confrontation and Confession in Charlottesville The events in Charlottesville this weekend remind me how dangerous it can be to be proud of your identity. In the midst of that ultimately violent confrontation, I was proud to see Presbyterian clergy among the many people of faith standing up to the massed
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Before I traveled to the Oceti Sakowin camp, I viewed the events unfolding on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota primarily as an environmental protest. This is largely the frame used by the media: people trying to protect their water from contamination. This portrayal isn’t untrue, but it misses
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Article originally published in the Presbyterian Outlook on November 15, 2016: https://pres-outlook.org/2016/11/dont-display-solidarity-express/ This is not a piece about Standing Rock and the water protectors. This is a reflection to expand the narrative of what happened during the clergy action visit to Standing Rock on November 3, 2016. For information about
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This article was originally published on November 9, 2016 on Denise’s blog, ‘SOULa Scriptura” at The United States of America has elected Donald Trump its next president. It’s sinking in as I type that. We (the royal “we”) elected Donald Trump, a beloved child of the Most High God. We
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If I remember correctly, the classroom in Tennent Hall had a half moon window. I can still see the faces gathered around the table that day in 1992, still feel the familiar, smooth feel of a laminated church tabletop beneath my fingers. We were on the second floor, so we
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There is no debate about climate change. We’re not talking about the fact that the scientific consensus is overwhelming (though that’s true). We’re talking about the fact that climate change wasn’t the subject of a single question during the presidential debates. Our political discourse right now is deafeningly silent about
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Lessons form a Personal Paradigm Shift I have a confession to make. I used to cringe at the word “activist.” I looked at them, and all I saw were loudmouths who wanted attention. And you know what bothered me more than activists in general? White activists. I found them overly
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More than four thousand people have gathered at Camp of the Sacred Stones, three separate prayer camps north of Cannon Ball, North Dakota, near the northern border of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s reservation. The people, known as “Water Protectors,” have gathered in an effort to stop the Dallas-based company Energy
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