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A friend posted this on social media: "White privilege is your history being part of the core curriculum and mine being taught as an elective." I keep thinking about this and know it is true. As a white woman, I need to work harder to listen to the black communal wisdom. I need to seek out testimonies of their history, too often sequestered to elective classes, small publishing houses and neighborhoods unknown to me. February is Black History Month. I…

My son stands on the threshold of twelve. And I shudder. I should beam with maternal pride at the young man he is growing into with each hard conversation, each fought for grade, each wave of hot emotion he overcomes with self-control, each chore completed and lesson learned. I should savor each day of his radiant smile, silly high-pitched laughter, his natural skill on the soccer field or basketball court, his practiced penmanship and comical clumsiness when it comes to…

This morning I crack my eyes open and see the saints. They are marching past, a pageant of virtue from generations gone by. Madeline L’Engle and Henry Nouwen, Wangari Maathai and Richard Twiss, more recent saints like Marcus Borg and Phyliss Tickle parade past as reminders of our inheritance of faith. The lives of the saints give a tangible vision to what an embodied faith can look like. Their tenure tells of creativity and contemplation, activism and advocacy, even scholarship…

The killing of Trayvon Martin woke me up. I’m the mother of a brown son, and brown daughter. The world no longer sees them as sweet adopted African babies, though they will always be babies to me. Now they are brown bodies at large in a frightening world with a deep and tangled history I was too privileged to learn. In school, in casual conversations and on the news I learned things about slavery, race and the push for civil…

I saw the cover of this book and was instantly transfixed. The image broke something open in me. Something felt became something named – or closer to it as I entered into the bold colors and bolder revelation. The artwork is the cover of Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God by Kelly Brown Douglas. The image shows Trayvon Martin, with hoody and spilling Skittles, draped across the lap of his black mother. It evokes another Mother…

I watched the police officer grab the young black girl by her thick cords of hair, swinging her off her feet, off the ground and then onto the grass. I saw him put her head into the sidewalk, ebony hair cascading down like a veil covering her face. DaJerria yelled for her mom the entire time, cried out for someone to come to her aid and comfort her while the officer perched on her back with both knees. This image…

Often times personal lament and confession overlap. There are moments we see ourselves amid the ashes and we complain, confess, speak out our part in the wrongness of things. Reading the lament Diana offered, this one phrase haunted me relentlessly: “And sometimes, the betrayer is me.” I love my brown brothers and sisters. Yet as I scour my own upbringing, I see how my words and actions have betrayed otherwise. It is a systemic wrong, but also a personal one…

Everyone wants to deck the halls with blaring reds and shining silvers, eager to rush into celebration. We love the Christmas music, old and new, the blow-out sales and conjuring of merriment. We say the season is laced with magic and miracles amid the snow and woolen scarves. We don joy. But Advent is the season of purple hues and dark blues. It is the cool colors, the chill before the celebrations of good cheer. In this season of hush…

Halloween is a night of pseudo ghouls, ghosts and goblins. I turn off the light on the porch to signal there’s no candy on offer, no costume-clad hostess at the door and no need to parade up my drive way. I wait for the night to become quiet again so I can enjoy the soft glow of moon in peace. In the wake of Halloween comes All Saint’s Day, and like the morning light streaming through my bedroom window comes…

He was walking to school in the morning air, right before the sun warmed away the chill. Backpack slung over one shoulder, dangling as he shuffled in his high-tops. The entire sidewalk belonged to him – maybe everyone else got a ride with their mom or arrived early for a free breakfast. He didn’t look lonely or sad. He didn’t look worried. To the naked eye he didn’t look vulnerable. But as I drove by him in the school zone…