Censoring: Ban ———
I want to confess to you that I’ve been engaged in a bit of furtive censorship myself.
Facebook and the Recently Deceased
I am down one more link that could help me make sense of this family.
Nashville, in the Moment
The most interesting places felt quiet, frozen, and deeply layered.
Politics as Usual…feat. Chance the Rapper
The word alderman has Anglo-Saxon origins: a noble (serving the king) as ruler of a local district. Quite literally it means “old man.”
Sacred Spaces: Some Distinctly Un-data-driven Conclusions
Seeing chipped stained glass and other signs of disrepair was dismaying, but it also renewed my appreciation of how church architecture brings grandeur into public space.
Parrot Talk
We speak to get outside of our own heads. I don’t think it particularly matters if you don’t always have an audience.
First World Problems: Easy Lifestyle Changes to Reduce Waste
I stitched together my favorite childhood flannel sheets and some old towels to make my own sentimental reusable paper towels.
A Thousand Points of Light? When National Service Isn’t in the Budget
Taken as a whole, AmeriCorps VISTA is the lifeblood of nonprofit social service programs in this country, utilizing the interest and availability of young people for the greater good.
City Mouse, Country Mouse
It’s a kitsch I find myself unexpectedly into. I try to keep up with the quick footwork at square dances, I voluntarily turn the radio dial to the country music station, I pronounce the names of nearby towns like the locals do.
Sex: A Knowing
Daunted by the rightness of wrong, by the wrongness of right, by the thought that this is the nature of knowledge we inherit.
Mutual Respect in the Streets
One Monday morning a couple weeks ago, a man did something I should have been prepared for.
Growing into Solitude
I haven’t outgrown my loneliness, but I do think I’m growing into my own solitude.
Lows
With a new pastor in the pulpit after a long stretch of interim pastors, I’ve been hopeful. But in the past few months, we’ve hit a new series of lows.
After Ezra Jack Keats and The Snowy Day
The call for diversity in children’s literature is based on the idea of windows and mirrors.
Stories I Did Not Tell
He gave of himself, and I fear I failed to give back. I strove to be polite and unobtrusive and if not intelligent then at least not stupid. I fear I failed to let him know me, because I did not know myself.
The Uppermost Room
The room was smaller than I expected, square with leaded glass windows and peeling paint, a water-stained chartreuse couch and scattered chairs.
Imagining Homelands
I’m named after my father’s homeland, a place I know very little about. Because he’s dead, Indian culture is not something I absorb in my everyday life.
Figs, Deferred
North Lawndale is a food desert.
When Enoch Was No More
Last Sunday, I stopped to get coffee before church when a woman hesitantly approached and asked if I was a Christian. I told her I was.
On Second Grade Reading Lists
As I’ve been moving my life into this new room, I’ve been dismantling the one in the southwest suburbs of Chicago where I slept in from the age of ten until I left for college.
Umeboshi No Tsukurikata, or How to Make Red Fermented Plums
I’ve come to appreciate this about Haruko. When I would rather stick to polite smiles and communication mediated by Shiki, she speaks Japanese at me and throws in English words, gestures, and images until I understand.
