How many times I have taken myself for granted The power I hold My opinions My voice My endless opportunities
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All articles filed in Racial Justice
Naming
“Mally!” He said, excitedly, “It’s a girl!” My husband broke the news to me after delivering our baby himself as the doctor stood a step away, coaching him on what to do. I couldn’t believe it; a second girl! Almost exactly 19 months earlier, I had given birth to our oldest daughter. We knew her…
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Distracted
I heard the tires on the gravel driveway and called Dan to hurry! We rushed out the door and we greeted four year-old Grace and I swiftly rushed to the other side of the car and unbuckled five-week old Parker Anne for the first time! I gently held her in my arms and helped Grace…
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An Impossible Space
Today, I am present to my sense of participation in an impossible game. Addressing racism and biblical justice as a faith leader and woman of color is a place of relational compression. Everything is constantly squeezed, and I can feel the bones and weight of my competing responsibilities creaking and cracking. In the middle my…
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I Wonder
I married a man who often has a swirl of controversy about him. It seemed like a good fit because I was the skinny girl on the playground who faced down big six graders for being unkind to the brown third grader from India. If someone made fun of the wheelchair bound child with hydrocephalus…
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Abel’s Blood Cries Out
The echoes of “Black Lives Matter” bounce through the car. My children cradle signs made from foam board. They speak of George Floyd, their awareness growing. A sign that says, “Mexicans for Black Lives” rests in the front passenger seat. I drive. My oldest asks, “Will we be safe at the protest?” I’ve heard the…
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Stains on My Soul
Somewhere between Kobe, Covid and Killings, we lost our ability to play. Sitting outside of a makeshift emergency room, I asked God,” Is this what we have been reduced to?” Question after question, and no answer came.
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Trees, Hope, Justice And Waiting For Sunday
I sometimes want to be a tree. I want to blow in the breeze, feel the rain on my branches, shelter birds and squirrels, and grow roots deep and wide so that I am strong and resilient to whatever might want to take me down. I want to bend and grow without to-do lists and…
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What Can I Do?
I turned off the television and stomped my foot and almost growled with agony and anger. I couldn’t help it! I turned around and harshly spoke, “Why hasn’t the church spoken about this? I am so mad! Why isn’t more being said from our pulpits?”
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To My Elders
Four years ago, on a wintery morning, a fierce, truth-telling woman whom I cherish as my elder told me something I have never forgotten: “You can’t know where this story leads. All you can do is look at this moment and do the next right thing.” At the time, we were speaking of a romantic…
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