Approximately 64 percent of Hispanic Students are not succeeding to where they should be in mathematics in one of our local middle schools.
Read MoreThere are close links, with research backing these links, between succeeding in 8th grade mathematics, high school graduation, college enrollment and then earnings
Read MoreCommunity isn't just the physical neighborhood, homes, and streets - it's the people. Justice isn't just the laws, rules, and punishment - it's the treatment; it's how a community and society function and operate. For decades and even centuries, the United States has been working (and at many times struggling) to become more united. The idealism of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" written into the Declaration of Independence and the aim to be "one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" from our school-aged pledges, are baked into this American Pie.
Read MoreLike Edmund, we ate the Turkish delight offered by the system, relying on their forms, processes, hoping thier procedural laws built to oppress us would do something other. Our stories cemented in stones, the scars on our skin, un-dead, and un-done.
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.
Read MoreMichelle Obama says, “When they go low, we go high.” My dear African American colleague reminds me that supremacy creates a false dichotomy of the choices you have in a scenario – creating false equivalencies which are rarely true.
Jesus, born into a culture, of an other-ed group, under the tyranny of empire, answered the call of those other-ed groups. Ernest Gray states, “He champions their cause. He’s been doing it for all time.”
Read MoreAs I sit here trying to let my flame of joy live, I wonder about this. My rational brain and therapist in me say, “Yes, we hold the tensions of this world, we hold our various emotions and experiences together.” But my body and my heart are skeptical, possibly even scared, unsure if it’s safe. Safe for what you may ask? Safe to believe God is all who She says She is and I am who She says I am. Safe to be in my body as I feel the goodness of God and not fear disappointment, death, and it ending. Safe to take up space. Safe to believe that it’s okay to find rest and relief in my joy.
Read MorePerhaps this Thursday, we can all sit, mourn, and honor the peoples who cultivated the earth under our feet, who cared for the animals, and one another. Perhaps as illness rampages across the country we will finally begin to comprehend in the tiniest way how a virus can change the way we work, live, eat, and gather. Perhaps we begin to repent. Perhaps we begin to know gratitude in our repentance.
Read MoreRead Moreibrancy and beauty will come around again.
Did you know, Revelation 5:8 paints a celestial picture of the prayers of the saints as the incense filling golden bowls, brought before the Lamb? Our prayers are not forgotten.
Read 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).
Cruel mysteries surround us
About a plundered earth
Where people are pillaged,
Possessions cherished,
And cravings for power, insatiable.
With certain skin shades despised
While another is idolized.
Where there are wars and walls,
Image bearers banished to cages.
Read MoreGod 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 MoreTime flies. And the formless, empty places of my heart, are a greater part, partially because I cannot find my heart. A heart where spaces feel empty – like before they were transformed.
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 MoreSo, you are asking what to do? Your eager to find hope? You’re rushing to grief?
Then, do the hard and bloody work of fighting for hope.
Repent. Repent. Repent.
Read MoreThe sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. 14 There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a human being. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel!”
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Young-Hak Hyun, Korean Theologian