and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive ― Audre Lorde, The Black Unicorn: Poems
From Science Fiction to Science Possibility
Dr. Ronald E. McNair was the second African-American to work in space (the first was Dr. Guion “Guy” Bluford), and died with his Space Shuttle crew members when the Challenger exploded shortly after take-off in 1986. My alma mater, Texas Tech University, is one of 200 US universities that runs a McNair Scholars program for low-income, first-generation college students […]
Beyond the Literal: John Spong on The Gospel of John
This review was originally posted on The Hillhurst Review. Spong, John Shelby. (2013) The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic. New York: Harper One. pp. 316 John Shelby Spong is something of a legend within the contemporary Christian thought leadership. Through a 24-book writing career and two-and-a-half decades as bishop to New Jersey Episcopalians, […]
Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket
In case you missed it: the PBS tribute to James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket. (Length: 1:25:12) What is it you wanted me to reconcile myself to? I was born here, almost 60 years ago. I’m not going to live another 60 years. You always told me ‘It takes time.’ It’s taken my father’s time, […]
Atlantic: Relationships and Ambition
The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.—George Eliot, Middlemarch The Atlantic explores the links between relationships and […]
Reading As Friendship
You can’t really wish to write someone else’s book. Reading at its best is like friendship: part of the pleasure is that the friend is not you, thinks different things, has different tastes, surprises you, does what you cannot. —Anne Norton
