Fully Human
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Fully Human

“What does it mean to be a human being?”  This is one of those questions I heard in the opening lecture to the required philosophy class in college.  It was the kind of thing that made me not like philosophy.  I wasn’t interested in hearing historical and contemporary postulations about something that could not really…

Community
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Community

For decades I’ve heard Barbra Streisand’s voice crooning out words I know to be true: “People, people who need people, are the luckiest people in the world.”  Of course, I think that people needing people aren’t just lucky; they’re human.  I think we all need other people.  We all need community. Religious folk like to call…

Overlooked
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Overlooked

  Growing up in the Sunday school programs of black churches and in Catholic elementary school, I was taught that although there were many disciples, but there were only twelve apostles.  That is, there were many people who followed Jesus, but there were only twelve men who Jesus handpicked to preach the gospel.  These were…

Quiet Crash
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Quiet Crash

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston writes about the protagonist Janie Crawford’s relationships with her three husbands and how they reveal her evolving relationship with herself.  During an argument with her second husband, Janie realizes that “something fell off the shelf inside of [her].”  That wasn’t the end of the relationship, but it was,…

waiting
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waiting

When I first finished divinity school, I subscribed to a journal of Christian spirituality called Weavings.  That was when I first heard of the concept of “active waiting.”  Often associated with the liturgical seasons of Lent and Advent, “active waiting” describes the way in which believers wait for a great spiritual event.   In the Christian tradition,…