Category Archives: Uncategorized

This week I joined a group of White folks exploring what Whiteness is.  One of our first assignments was to write a “racial autobiography.”  To begin, we were asked, “When did you first realize that you were White?” Imagine my astonishment, as I eagerly seized my pen and hovered with expectation over the blank page,Continue reading “What is Whiteness?*”

As I begin writing the story of an important part of my own personal history, as well as, I believe, the history of Wake Forest, NC, I’ve been thinking a lot about what we choose to remember, and what we choose to forget.  What we commemorate, and what we deny.  What we celebrate, and whatContinue reading “What We Choose to Remember”

In the Christian calendar, it is Holy Week.  Today, Maundy Thursday, is the beginning of the end of Jesus’ life on earth.  Which has got me thinking about Lent and repentance, sacrifice and redemption—and Hell. I grew up a Southern Baptist.  The churches I attended didn’t pay much attention to Lent, the 40 days ofContinue reading “Hell (and Heaven)”

Today I want to share a poem I wrote in 2021, during my sabbatical. For two months I stayed at Cedars of Peace, a place of retreat connected to the Motherhouse of the Sisters of Loretto, in Nerinx, KY. Seven Eastern red cedars surrounded the yard in front of my cabin. Four days after IContinue reading “The Red Cedars”

WHITE PEOPLE, this one’s for us.  Specifically for us.  (Although, of course, anyone is free to read.) When there’s a crisis, we progressive white folks get all riled up and put out our BLACK LIVES MATTER signs and participate in protests, put bumper stickers on our cars, maybe purchase a T-shirt, etc. Then we celebrateContinue reading “For What It’s Worth”

What do you do when your GPS dies?  In my last post I quoted the poet Mark Nepo, from his book Seven Thousand Ways to Listen.  Writing about his experience of emerging from deep thought, driving on a familiar road, but in unfamiliar conditions, suddenly and sharply aware that he doesn’t know exactly where heContinue reading “When the GPS Dies, Part 2”

Part of my sabbatical I am spending alone in a cabin in the Kentucky bluegrass country.  Google Maps predicted that it was a 6+-hour drive from Atlanta via I-75.  Even in normal day-to-day driving, I hate traveling the crowded interstate.  Especially I-285 and I-75 out of Atlanta, people driving at high speeds, with enormous impatienceContinue reading “When the GPS Dies”

Trigger warning:  In this post, I write about a lynching, in a fair amount of detail.  Please be advised. Google “English ivy,”  and after you pass over numerous advertisements for nurseries where you can purchase it, you will find page after page of warning. You see, English ivy is an invasive plant, introduced into theContinue reading “Pulling Up the Roots”

I was born in 1953.  So I came of age during the 60s.  A time of turbulence and upheaval, of questioning and throwing out old norms of behavior.  A cultural revolution.  There was a lot going on:  the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war and protests against it, the assassinations of major public figures, includingContinue reading “The Power That Is Love”