Enslaved to sin. That we might no longer be enslaved to sin. This we know, that our old self was crucified with Christ so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. The catechism of enslavement includes rape, forced procreation and forced impregnation and also, forced...... Read More

https://www.facebook.com/traci.blackmon/videos/10216424686271095/  Violence. A single word of scripture begets a thousand words. The prophet cried violence, screamed violence; hurled it at the skies and the God veiled within. Violence. Violence all around. Habakkuk’s people were under siege. He doesn’t tell us when he prophesied but we know ancient Israel lurched perpetually from one catastrophe to another,...... Read More

Before folk start issuing calls for racial reconciliation… Again. No. Reconciliation is the culmination of a process that begins with conviction and leads to confession and contrition, public and private, followed by individual and communal repentance. Much like the stages of grief, these steps are not rigidly sequential, though some more easily presage others. Persons...... Read More

[In an earlier version the title was misspelled as “exercising.”] In the Name of the God who loves we who are hated, those who hate, and those whom we hate. Amen. Forty-nine. Forty-nine lives cut short. Forty-nine people murdered. Forty-nine souls martyred. Forty-nine of God’s children executed for living and loving out loud as gay,...... Read More

Alleluia! Christ is risen! For fifty days the Jewish and Gentile Christians of the early church told the stories of Jesus, his life, his death and his life-from-death over and over. Jesus was raised from the dead as he said he would be. I imagine everyone knew someone who had seen him, touched him, broken...... Read More

I loved Hidden Figures and cheered throughout and cried at the end. It was powerful. Go and see it and take your children. One my favorite images in the movie was Octavia Spencer as Vaughan under her car in full mechanic mode laying on a tarp with her lovely pump clad legs sticking out from...... Read More

  We gather on a day when the ugliness of humanity is on full display in our world. You may feel as I do at times that there is nothing we can do to fix, to heal our world. We cannot prevent people halfway around the world, across the nation or here at home from...... Read More

I admit that I was disturbed at the news of a ROOTS remake, particularly at the hands of the History Channel that did such violence to the Bible in its whitewashed fan-fiction offering. I was somewhat mollified when I heard LeVar Burton was one of the folk behind it. Then I read Awesomely Luvvie’s (Luvvie...... Read More

Image credit:  Christa by Edwina Sandys Let us pray: God of our mothers, Hagar, Sarah and Keturah, fold us under the shelter of your wings with all your children of every race and every faith. Amen. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have...... Read More

Let us pray: God who dreams in flesh and blood, teach us to respond to the cries of your people with justice, compassion and unfailing hope. Amen. God told Moses to say: I have heard the cry of the Israelites and I have seen how the Egyptians oppress them, press them, squeeze them. Exodus 3:9...... Read More