“…refugees from a war zone”
The fourth in a series of chapters from my memoir, The Edge of All the Light You Have (formerly, From Where I Stand). This post follows “This is our fight, too.” Two days after the shooting, it was Monday morning and back to school. After they dropped us off, Mom and Dad went with MaMaw…
“This is our fight, too.”
This post is the third in a series of excerpts from my memoir, From Where I Stand, a story of love across race and time. This post follows “Choose this day….” Mom had put a ham in the oven that morning, but forgotten to turn the oven on. When MaMaw took Bryant back to the parsonage…
“Choose this day…”
An excerpt from my memoir, From Where I Stand, a story of love across race and time. This post follows “I thought they would come for me.” Sunday morning, December 14th, dawned clear and cold, stubbornly cheerful. Granddaddy was outside, smoking his pipe. He poked around with his cane in the weeds and ivy on…
“I thought they would come for me.”
An excerpt from my memoir, From Where I Stand, a story of love across race and time. This post follows from a previous one, “You going to that party?” A few days before, the deacons of my father’s church threatened him that, if he allowed his children’s party to go on as planned, with both…
“…every wish one lives for or doesn’t…”
A poem. …The body remembersevery wish one lives for or doesn’t, or even horror.- Yusef Komunyakaa(“The Body Remembers”) She wakes, her body rolling over waves that do not crest.The tide has carried her out, far beyond the limits of her mother’s permission— She fears she will not make it back.Regret lodges itself inside her chest,…
From Where I Was Standing
In memory of Dr. Barney Old Coyote Jr. (Apsáalooke/Crow) In the white history books that I grew up with, the battle was called Custer’s Last Stand. On June 25-26, 1876, we were taught, a large force of Indian warriors ambushed a much smaller troop of brave white U.S. soldiers and slaughtered them without mercy. But…
The Place of No Hope
What you discover may surprise you. Welcome to The Place of No Hope. I will be your tour guide for our time together. What you experience on your visit may surprise you. You may think that you know what awaits you, but you do not. Not unless you have been here before. First, take a…
April Fools
Fifty-two years is a lot of unfinished business. This post is drawn from parts of my memoir, From Where I Stand, a story of love that crosses time and race. In this excerpt, William Lucas and I meet again for the first time in five decades. William and I plan to meet on April 1, 2022. April…
Reckoning with Nehemiah
One of the Black singers said, “You know, it’s curious, but none of the white people I’ve ever met have ancestors who owned slaves….” We stood outside Riverside Church in New York City after morning worship, a group of white and Black singers, all of us members of the Riverside Church Choir in the late…
Beyond the Reach of Resurrection
In December 1969, Ridgecrest Baptist Church, the church my father had pastored for nine months, voted to dismiss him, 27-11. The night before, buckshot had ripped through the middle of a party in the parsonage, narrowly missing friends of mine, both Black and white. Ridgecrest fired my dad because he refused first to cancel the…
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holy discomfort: Love letters from a reluctant Christian 