My granddaddy on my father’s side had klan ties. He wasn’t blood related, my dad never knew his real father, and somehow that makes me feel better, as if blood has anything to do with the way we’re blinded by hate and lies and all the separating we do when we make people less than or other. I’ve come to know that blood is the only thing that sets us free but that’s another story. Needless to say, I never really knew him. My dad was born into the dirty south in the 1950s. He was threadbare …
Diversity
Living in Exile and Finding My Way Home
I. I've asked a lot of God lately. There was a time, not so long ago when my god was poor and mean. I had a theology built on suffering. A god who was always a bit out of reach for frail hands and weak prayers. He was the Jesus who taught righteousness through selling it all and giving to the poor. I thought that’s what he meant. I could find holiness if I just sacrificed enough. He was a god who was always teaching lessons like a wizened schoolmaster rapping his stick across knuckles as I …
A Body of Many Parts: On Diversity and Unity
When God scattered men like seeds riding the wind, with mixed tongues and confused speech, He always meant for the corners of the world to inhabit praise. He always meant for His name to go far and wide. I imagine the tower of Babel, the hands of men making their way to the heavens by sheer will and determination and no small measure of pride. The arrogance to stay huddled and similar when all along God commands our reach further than we’re comfortable. Genesis 11:1 says, “Now the whole earth …
