“One of the breakthroughs I had … was understanding the degree to which I tend to align what I see…
Guest link – #SeminaryWhileBlack
This is a link to a blog I follow—The Won Percent—and I want to note, upfront, that I am not…
Green Books, Black Lives, and White History
I’m reading some interesting responses to “The Green Book,” which, if you have been in a cave in Thailand for…
When Home Is Gone
I’m seeing something recently that is new to my vision, and that is the homeless. Yes, of course I mean…
#WakingUpWhite Chapter 11: Headwinds and Tailwinds
“Skin color itself is not the barrier; it’s the beliefs attached to it. And beliefs, compared to birth dates or…
To Wrestle with the Angel
Today I participated in a hands-on seminar led by James Whitfield, CEO of the Leadership Eastside organization. We went through…
Entertainment Matters
We usher at the local theatre about once a month for live productions. It’s our “date night,” and we generally…
#WakingUpWhite Chapter 10: The Melting Pot
“The United States has reaffirmed its commitment to being a melting-pot society adhering to Anglo-Saxon standards, as opposed to a…
To Study Portuguese
When I was younger (well, any day in the past is when I was younger, but stay with me here),…
#WakingUpWhite Chapter 9: White Superiority
[Edited 2/23/2019 A point of clarification on this post: the indented portions are quotes from the book by Debby Irving,…
Prayer to Persephone
Today’s post is just poetry, this time from the sublime Edna St. Vincent Millay: Prayer to Persephone by Edna St.…
I’m Just Here to Dance
I had an interesting question the other day: are Christians good? The subject came up because there is a defense…
Trying Every Doorknob
What do I do about the things that I see that I think aren’t right? What do I do about the situations where injustice occurs, where oppression is maintained, where there is no room for the human and the person and the needs to be understood, much less addressed? So much is a giant system that is rolling on unchecked, and all I have are these small tools and weak commitments that are easily broken by adamant obstacles…
#WakingUpWhite Chapter 8: Racial Categories
“The biggest problem with America’s idea of racial categories is that they’re not just categories: they’ve been used to imply…
In the Fields of the Lord
I guess I’m on a kick of listening to acoustic, and finding intriguing (for me) albums that have that just-right…
#WakingUpWhite Chapter 7: The GI Bill
“I couldn’t shake the duped feeling—duped and infuriated to have inherited a legacy that contaminated me with injustice.” This chapter…
Little Things with Great Love
I’m snowed in today (and have been since Thursday), and though we may get some relief this afternoon what with…
Review: When They Call You a Terrorist
Yet another reminder of James Baldwin’s words* “If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things…
#WakingUpWhite Chapter 6: From Confusion to Shock
“Racism wasn’t about this person or that, this upset or that, this community or that; racism is, and always has…
It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way
You know, as we get older our sleep cycles shift. Used to be that I could sleep straight through, night…
#WakingUpWhite Chapter 5: Within the Walls
“For me, part of the waking-up-white process is acknowledging that I’m a recovering lemming*…I never considered that the space I…
Waking Up White, Introduction
Debby Irving mentions her childhood in a privileged New England family. An interesting article was posted Thursday by the New…
Are #BlackLivesMatter and #BlueLivesMatter Opposite Sides? A Conversation
An interesting conversation in church this morning, Our pastor, after reading a few books about race and conciliation (Including Jemar…
#WakingUpWhite Chapter 4: Optimism
“By pretending the world was virtually problem-free, my family culture left me grossly underprepared to solve problems.” The 50s and…
Believe
Something I think about every so often is how we are sometimes two people. We are people who think we…
#WakingUpWhite Chapter 3: Race Versus Class
“Which one is the real issue?” The temptation when confronting a difficult issue is to find a subsidiary issue, make…
#WakingUpWhite Chapter 2: Family Values
“One of the things my white mother could not teach me was to honor feelings of outrage.” This chapter is…