Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash Shawshank Redemption beckons us; the Big Book gives us a path “And if you’ve come this far, maybe you’re willing to come a little further.” That one line Andy writes to Red at the end of Shawshank has a lot of resonance for me, right now, as a white person. […]
Tag: Social Justice
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How To Change Despite Your Feelings
Photo by Ali Müftüoğulları on Unsplash First, relinquish your role as Manager of the Universe David called to say he and his wife were back from visiting our daughter and her family over the MLK weekend. Technically, David is my ex-husband; more accurately, he is my friend. There was once a time when our true friendship, post […]
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Tending to Social Justice as a Garden
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash Community love takes patience, persistence, and long-term perspective Despite pollen, I love spring. Our little house sits on a small yard, almost no grass. The rock-lined paths and mulched areas already overtaken by weeds, sprouting acorns, and creeping vines. Today I decided to pull up what I can, and to […]
Photo by Darius Bashar on Unsplash Ellen’s coming out about George started something worth wrestling with The word friend has become really fuzzy. Way before Ellen’s video about being friends with George W. Bush. Yet, strangely, all the social media backlash has brought two questions into focus: What is a friend versus being friendly? Must we […]
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Lorde Help Us
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash Brandt Jean’s call for forgiveness set off a few alarms. We should listen. Consciously study how to be tender with each other until it becomes a habit.” — Audre Lorde Brandt Jean, brother of 26-year-old Botham Jean who was shot dead in his own apartment, extended nothing less than amazing grace to […]
Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels One muppet on the street taught us empathy; surely we can learn the crossroads One of my first teachers of empathy was a young amphibian on Sesame Street, a vulnerable companion sharing his lonely greenness. Like millions of kids in 1969, I related to and felt my heart swell with love […]
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Getting Ourselves Back to the Garden
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels even if we missed it the first time I’d love to tell you I was at Yasgur’s Farm in August 1969, but I was 10, surrounded by soybeans and corn in downstate Illinois. Ten years later, my future husband would introduce me to Woodstock’s creative tillers: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Hendrix, […]
Photo by Cristi Tohatan on Unsplash Allies have had some bad press. More than five years ago, Black Girl Dangerous Mia McKenzie wrote that she was over the term ally, ‘the constant cookie-seeking of people who just can’t do the right thing unless they are sure they’re gonna get some kind of credit for it.’ I […]
Jodi Barnes 