I read a section of Isaiah 56 with some colleagues today. It’s a favorite passage for a lot of people I know. From the Hebrews’ post-captivity period, the chapter includes phrases about not desecrating the Sabbath and drawing people to a “house of prayer for all nations.” Spaces like the National Cathedral use the latter in their marketing. […]
More on the Japanese internment
This week, George Takei shared more about his experience with socially marginalized people and marginalizing social laws. I referred to his 2014 TED talk in last night’s post; this morning, he published a new reflection on his life in a United States internment camp. The United States apologized for locking up Japanese Americans. Have we […]
Reflections on the US-Japanese Internment
Lately I’ve been honoring the Santayana quotation about being doomed to repetition by referring my readers to history: Habit and memory are a sort of heredity within the individual… Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible […]
How reaction can restrict us
A friend shared this quote from Gloria Anzaldúa this week: A counterstance locks one into a duel of oppressor and oppressed; locked in mortal combat, like the cop and the criminal, both are reduced to a common denominator of violence… All reaction is limited by, and dependent on, what it is reacting against… At some point on […]