Read MoreThere is no reason for my children, whether in Spanish or English, to find it necessary to use words meant to depict the power over another with their historical context of 400 years (because the majority Africans were trafficked to Latin America as well). Therefore, there are words that we know, within their historically significant context, but don’t speak directed at other humans.
Why would DEI interventions be any different? Healing comes through an integrated experience of multiple emotions, body sensations, combined with imagination ignited on a cellular level – including our hearts, arms, fingers, thighs, spirits, guts, and yes, the prefrontal cortex thinking/processing brain.
Read MoreThe thought of Christmas brings me both joy and grief. Every. Single. Year. And every single year I pull out Christmas music and gravitate to “Oh Holy Night” by Mariah Carey. As a teenager, I discovered her Christmas album and had one of those ancient cassette tapes - connected to a wire - connected to my CD player. Am I even remembering that right? It was a sort-of-conversion device to play compact discs in my car. (That’s a clue to just how old I am.)
Read MoreAnd there was evening and morning the first day. Who am I to say
That a God who bends down low
Who drinks deep,
deep of my sorrow
Never hoped for a better tomorrow?
Read MoreThe dark days of winter stretch from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. Cloudy skies force the sun to take cover. I feel alone. Slow home-school mornings compete with news feeds of election season anxiety, and air thick with virus. Although I see the faces of four eager-to-please children, I know the weight of their isolation in my chest.
Jesus, I declare, “Come.”
Read MoreRead MoreHope is,
Hope is a spark.
Shooting out from my fingers,
Pow, pow, pow!
Hitting the powder on the ground,
Blasting like fireworks to the dark.
It screams,
I (boom) am (crash) here (pow).
God doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t grow tired or weary. My burdens or the burdens of those I love are never too much for him.
Instead, Jesus invites us to allow him to carry all that weighs heavily on us.
Read MoreOn one hand hope fuels me to meet creative deadlines, stirred by the notion that my words will fall on ears to hear and eyes to see. Hope ignites passion to sit with clients who are filled with rumblings of despair as they look over the debris of trauma in their lives. Hope gives birth to desire and longing for repaired relationships.
Read MoreThose who have passed, whose blood cries out to us – the Abels, wait for us to begin to slow down. We have a difficult choice. Will we listen? In a time of protesting, rioting, anger and rage, the blood of Abel deserves an answer.
Read MoreJesus stood in front of the donkey, got on it, no scars yet and they all cheered as he entered the city. I cannot watch the live feed of Facebook without wondering if I am another onlooker, or observer, cheering for the next great moment of harm in someone’s life.
Read MoreRead MoreI’ve not had a good relationship with grief. My wise friend, Gloria Huh (on #thearisepodcast this week) shared with me that regardless of my awareness, I’ve been building a relationship with grief. Well, she’s right. My relationship with grief is not open or welcoming. It’s stiff, resistant, and at times, hostile.
I am celebrating the resurrection of a brown Jesus who ate with wine-drinkers and tax collectors, elevated women to power, healed the untouchables, called religious leaders to pass through the eye of a needle, and gave a murderer deathbed forgiveness and entrance into Heaven.
Read MoreMaybe talking to plants does help them thrive. I wouldn’t put it past God to be that creative. And maybe my physical self affects my spiritual self. Or better yet, maybe my “self” cannot be bifurcated. Maybe everything is spiritual, even the physical. If an immaterial thing, such as connecting with my plant can help it grow, what are the implications for the way I speak to other people? What about the way I speak to myself?
Read MoreRead MoreIt feels emotional to think of them freshening up the vacant spaces of our yard, the home full with all four children this Spring. The Coronavirus has played into my mind, when I let it. An essay on a flower may seem superfluous, not the justice writing I normally do, but it’s a window into the complexity of what aspects of creation are markers for hope.
Holy ground, where are you now?
The place Jesus stood before the High Priest…
Do you still remember?
Read MoreWhere are you, dirt, which the soldier stood upon and leaped to strike his face when he refused to answer Caiaphas?
What did you feel?
