Just Keep Swimming Memoir Category
Without a Country. Why isn’t this obvious?
Posted on January 16, 2021 Leave a Comment
In 1973, Cliff Robertson starred in an ABC Movie of the Week production of Edward Everett Hale’s story, “The Man Without a Country.” In it, an American officer is being court martialed for consorting with Aaron Burr. He wanted to make a point about the disunity of the new country and so blurted out, “Damn […]
White People, What Are We Thinking?
Posted on June 3, 2020 Leave a Comment
It’s time for white people to check our thinking. Right now. What are we thinking? I don’t mean, as in, What are we THINKING?? No, I mean, as in, what are we as white people actually thinking right now as the U.S. moves into week two of protests and month three of social distancing? What […]
Just Keep Swimming: Pandemic Edition
Posted on March 20, 2020 Leave a Comment
This is my first blog post since everything has changed. Everything. So where to start? To begin with, today I am not going to talk about the politics of it all. I wanted to lay out the sequence of events so that I can remember them–where I was, what I was doing. Reflections will come […]
My Sugar Addiction, Day 1
Posted on January 20, 2020 2 Comments
I am gaining my weight back. Again. Like just about every person who has ever battled their weight, I have tried every diet plan imaginable. I’ve taken diet pills–over the counter and prescription–and for awhile I took Alli fat blocking pills, which was the grossest diet plan ever. Google that one. I’ve done Weight Watchers, […]
“White Savior Barbie,” Not me!
Posted on October 25, 2019 Leave a Comment
I really love my seminary, the McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University. Faculty and staff there are committed to issues of justice and spiritual growth. It is also a place where only about 45% of the students are white. I want to support a place like that and more important, learn from the variety of […]
My White Privilege: An Unexpected But Unsurprising Glimpse
Posted on June 29, 2019 1 Comment
This week I had to check my whiteness two times, first at the ONA Coalition National Gathering and then at the UCC General Synod. The lesson was reinforced for me that, even though I have more than one historically marginalized marker with which I identify (gender and sexuality), that does not mean I am enlightened […]
Race, Religion, and the Lost Cause: Observation from the National ONA Gathering
Posted on June 19, 2019 Leave a Comment
Today is June 19th, Juneteenth, the day in 1865 when news of Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation two years earlier finally reached enslaved persons in Texas. It coincides with the National Gathering of the UCC Open & Affirming National Gathering and a Race and Religion course assignment on whether the Lost Cause still exists […]
A Game of Thrones Travelogue: Or, Finding Community in a LaQuinta in Orlando, Florida
Posted on May 22, 2019 1 Comment
Like all GoT fans, Sarah and I had been awaiting Season 8 for two years. For the last month, we’ve been organizing our weeks around Sunday nights at 9:00. We’ve organized our Sundays around that one hour. This week, for the series finale, we had a minor change to our normal routine of gathering around […]
Season of Lilacs: Memoir For My Mother
Posted on May 6, 2019 6 Comments
Down home, where they know you by name and treat you like family, Down home, where a man’s good word and a handshake are all you need. Folks know when you’re fallin’ on hard times you can fall back on Those of us raised up—down home. (Alabama, 1985) Prologue When my grandmother died, it was April, […]
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