Good morning... "On one level, shut-ins allow ordinary people to approximate the experience of 'cloistering,'" our blog post said the morning I unexpectedly woke with achy symptoms (see our post A Cold Or COVID?). "But on another level, shut-ins focus the attention of the community on tarrying. Although prayers can be as diverse as those who utter them, [...]
Good morning... "While the Fourth of July, 1776, is the day America declared independence from Great Britain, people of color were not able to celebrate that same freedom," explains a letter I recently received from my spiritual direction training program. "On July 4th, 1852, here is what Frederick Douglass said in his speech The Meaning of July Fourth [...]
Good morning... "Tarrying, in the African American Church, is a big deal," she emailed me after yesterday's post, Come Rest, which unpacked the meaning of the word tarry. "This word just happens to be in my reading for today. Very interesting description of what tarrying means within this group." She emailed me a snapshot of a single page [...]
Good morning... Her short text included one soulful sketch created by Atlanta artist Danielle Coke. Postive. Powerful. Process-oriented, right? And I will give them one heart [a new heart], and put a new spirit within them. I will take from them the heart of stone, and will give them a heart of flesh [that is responsive to [...]
Good morning... A longtime friend sent me a moving music video, and I asked if I might share it with our online community. Her permission came with this reply: "Please share! It reminds me of the group of moms who would walk the Lovett School grounds and fervently pray for every inch of that place - every person, [...]
Good morning... Many of us had strong reactions to the opinions expressed in a polarizing post from this week, A Mother's Perspective. Some were very "for" the expression of this mother's truth, agreeing wholeheartedly with the thoughts bravely shared. Some were very "against" the powerful post, appalled by the judgement that an "inebriated 'lost soul'" father with black [...]
Good morning... "The course of true love never did run smooth," says the Shakespeare-quoting sign above. True love is bumpy, up-and-down, back-and-forth, uncomfortably stretching for all committed to the course of compassion. "Good morning, Sue," she wrote after our impassioned post, A Mother's Perspective. "I understand that the woman who wrote this is a relative of policeman but, [...]
Good morning... The quilt of our common ground is knit together with colorfully diverse patches. One subscriber's initial email, my response, and her return email below were exchanged after this week's post, The Fierce Urgency Of Now, a post which shed light on the death of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta on Friday night. She wrote... As the protestors [...]
Good morning... As a wide variety of passionate people share with me very personal perspectives, God is building through us an honest online community. Yesterday's post, The Fierce Urgency Of Now, unleashed an avalanche of raw responses, covering most every inch of our fertile common ground. I will gradually unpack our various perspectives on the unrest across our [...]
Good morning... Rayshard Brooks was fatally shot by a police officer in the parking lot of a Wendy's restaurant here in Atlanta on Friday night. Rayshard was twenty-seven years old, a father of three daughters and one stepson. Last night, protesters calling for reform took to the streets and closed down one of Atlanta's main arteries, interstate 75. [...]
