Three Prayers and a Consummation
While her husband tried to explain to their two kids why they had to skip their Little League tournament in order to attend their grandmother’s church (and that, no, they couldn’t wear their uniforms,...
View ArticleWords I Couldn’t Say
I. Breast, n. either of the pair of mammary glands extending from the front of the chest in pubescent and adult human females and some other mammals the seat of emotion and thought[1] When my breasts...
View ArticleThe Black Church and the Habitus of Resistance: An Ethnographic Study of...
Social change does not happen in a vacuum. Nor is social change the effect of crises, of those extreme moments in which the status quo is radically disrupted by, for example, mass protests (or riots)...
View ArticleHoly Rolling
I’ve stood by while god pulled people down, held them flailing on the ground, felled by his spirit, rolling them holy and unafraid. A person who falls this way must be willing to give up the dignity of...
View ArticleEkklesia as Open Space: Responding to the Church’s Power Problem
In 2000, I was seduced by power. That year, I had become the dean of a metropolitan cathedral. I remember being delighted at having my own parking spot, which I guarded zealously. In those days,...
View ArticleOn the Condition of Rural America
1. Oak pews hard as stone, plain walls, the clock ticking behind, where only the preacher could see. The preacher saying Every head is bowed every eye is closed, saying Now is the time, if you feel...
View ArticleScattered Notes: History
1. We all know that poetry does not appear out of thin air. History is scientific, the examination of things that no longer are, but were. Detail matters, and perspective. Who and what will I allow...
View ArticleThe New Communion
can a communion cup be a plastic bowl used for Cheerios by a worn-down woman wearing her daily headset saying, you’ve reached North Florida Regional Bank how can I help you? till she...
View ArticleReception or Consumption in the Age of Hybrid Church
On the sixth day of the week, when a darkness had covered the face of the earth, the new Adam lay upon the cross overcome by the sin of the world. The Roman guards served as scalpel and hand to open...
View ArticleMother Mary and a Post-Traumatic Ecclesiology of Grief
In November 2020 it became clear to my husband and me that his mother, Kaye, did not have long to live. After eight years of on-and-off treatment for ovarian cancer, it was now, when we were living...
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