Category Archives: Uncategorized

Whiteness. The thing that envelopes us like the air we breathe. The thing we White folks never get around to examining. The thing that resists examination. In New York City in the 1990s, a new acquaintance, Black, whom I had just met at Riverside Church said to me, “You know, it’s curious—but none of theContinue reading “A Greased Pig”

I haven’t posted for a while–which you already know if you follow this blog. I’ve been busy moving to North Carolina, falling in love, getting married, and writing what I intend one day to be my book. I have a story to tell. A story that hovers, sometimes in memories just beyond my reach. TheContinue reading “Invitation to Begin”

A man rises up to stand behind the pulpit.  The dark mahogany behind him frames his white face.  He pauses to arrange his notes on the podium and looks up at the congregation.  Voices call out to him.  “Tell the story.  Tell it, preacher!” If ever a truly “white” man existed, it was my father. Continue reading “Witness”

…and a dollar short.  Isn’t that how the saying goes? I usually post on a Thursday. I like Thursdays. I was born on a Thursday. You remember the nursery rhyme? Thursday’s child has far to go…. The line has special meaning for me. I sure enough know I have far to go— But I’m notContinue reading “A Day Late”

Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened…. Matthew 14: 28-30 It isn’t that I lack the courage In factContinue reading “Peter steps out”

“If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” (Jeremiah 20:9) I am looking for the hand, I say.No, she answers with characteristic bluntness.Continue reading “Un(en)titled”

I am taking a break from posting for the next three weeks (June 23 and 30, July 7), as my brothers and I prepare to memorialize our Dad and bury our father’s and mother’s ashes in a plot they purchased with our grandparents back in the 1960s. I was raised a Southern Baptist and nowContinue reading “In the midst of life”

In the inaugural post for this blog, in March, 2021, I wrote that my mother and father taught me and my brothers everything we know about holy discomfort. “My mother dreamed of tending her own home, raising a family,” I wrote. “She always joked that she honestly had wanted the picket fence!  And yet sheContinue reading “My Mother’s House”

Going into the ministry was nowhere in my father’s plans for his life when he was a boy.  It was Grandma Reid who named him. “Why don’t you call him John Wesley?” she proposed. “Maybe he’ll be a preacher.”   Of course, there was that one time that young Wesley abruptly announced that he was goingContinue reading “John Wesley the Baptist”