In all seriousness, as if the United States skipped abolition, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Era, and the last four decades of Reconstruction Part Deux, American Christians are debating whether White supremacists are the new outsider whom they’re compelled by grace to welcome. It’s an odd scenario to represent as merely hypothetical when one […]
Thanks for learning with me
The United States begins its summer season a little ahead of the solstice with Memorial Day weekend. The end of May also brings my year-long writing experiment to a close. Thank you so much for reading and learning with me since last May. I’ll be writing again in a few weeks. Subscribers will hear first what’s next […]
Respecting the evidence
Once upon a time (last year), after I’d moved to yet another state (NY) and found a place to live in a tough market in a rather unreasonable amount of time (three weeks), someone who loves me very much called me “determined.” I translated that affirmation as “willful,” and I laughed as I thanked her for it. Willfulness […]
Unnecessary ties
Dependence of church members on civil government for material support should be avoided if possible, especially where such dependence would interfere with the Christian’s freedom to testify to the government of Christ.” —Friends of Truth / Glenside Friends Meeting, Christian Conduct Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, […]
Dying from an inability to say no
I was going to title this post “Say no so you can say yes,” but I googled the phrase first and found that Zen Habits’ Leo Babauta has already written that thought down. “We have to clear up some space [in our lives],” Babauta writes, “by saying No to things we’d like to do, but […]
Why old dogs can learn new tricks
“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is a proverb I learned in primary school along with other common English idioms. It never occurred to me at the time that the saying contradicted the also-common “You’re never too old to learn.” It turns out that even if the battle between “fixed mindsets” and “growth […]
