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How appropriate that my South African sister broke the news to me – Mandela died. I picked my daughter up from school and before we were out of the carpool lane I cried again, telling her Madiba died. “The South African president?” she asked. We read his story many times last year over dinner, so she knew it well enough to share my tears. We drove to the store and picked out bunches of white lilies, a pillar candle and…

The news has been good. In the last four years of working alongside our Batwa friends each mother has safely delivered her child; each baby announced her arrival with a hearty cry into the Burundian sky, squinted his eyes at the glorious glow of the African sun. Not a single baby has been lost in childbirth. Until now… The call came early in the morning that the baby entered the world with uncharacteristic silence. Stillborn. The community of men carried…

Today my son asked me about his birth mother – again. Why couldn’t she keep him? When you adopt, you must be all kinds of strong, tender and honest. Best we can tell she abandoned him roadside, only days old, umbilical cord still in tact. She wanted him to be found, why else wrap him in her bright African block fabric skirt? I imagine her watching from the bush, waiting for someone to carry him to a better life. Another…

There is an ancient song. It's been sung for generations upon generations, passed down like a bloodline. The song is deep in me. It's a song of hope I carry like blood just under the surface, whizzing about with purpose, with promise. It's the hope of a new city where transformation has come and wrought it's best work, crafting a masterpiece. In the new city we see granaries, not armories. We're busy making food, not war. The department of defense…

Faith and violence have no business being in the same room. Whenever they mingle, their handiwork is hell-bent. True religion, as James described centuries ago, involves reaching out to the widows, orphans, the most vulnerable. Violence only creates more vulnerability. Our postures of prayer, hands clasped or bodies bent forward and prostrated, should create space in us for faith in increase, hope to stir, love to rise up. Our houses of prayer should move us to the threshold of the…