Remembering what freedom calls for on June 19th

It’s the second anniversary of Juneteenth as a national observance and today, freedom is still on many Americans’ minds. It’s the second time the United States will mark the occasion of African Americans enslaved two years passed the due date of Abraham Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation.” Freedom always takes time, and we are not free until […]

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What Buffalo is known for now

Buffalo, New York is known for large snow accumulations and buffalo wings. It is where I moved to at the age of sixteen, making both a Southerner and a Northerner out of me. It is the home of the Buffalo Bills and a little over a quarter million people, including my mother and siblings. On […]

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The Rodney King Beating- Thirty Years Ago

Thirty years ago, on May 1st, Rodney Glen King called a press conference and called for calm. On March 3, 1991, he was the victim of police brutality. It had been recorded by a neighbor in a nearby apartment— before the recording of unarmed African American people during traffic stops was a thing. I was […]

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Baptism is the way to the undivided “kin-dom” that is coming

My heart is with my siblings in Ukraine. Russia is attacking their home, starting a war during a global pandemic. I pray for their peace and protection. I mourn for the lives lost to the vanities of war and power’s greed. I pray that we will be able to see ourselves without either. Masks on, […]

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Questions from the backseat: Where is the church going?

“Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we—” Children ask this question in the backseat of the car at mile 2. We just left the house, the garage and the neighborhood is barely in our rearview. We haven’t gone over a single bridge or overpass, or railroad track and […]

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