Mar 26
Here’s a video for Holy Week and Easter 2013, from the team at ProfligateGrace.com – including Stan Goff, Kara Slade, and Amy Laura Hall. The music, Canticle of the Turning, is a paraphrase of the Magnificat. This version is from the Emmaus Way album Rite 7.
Jan 22
I heard this piece on NPR this weekend, and I nearly had to pull off the highway and hula hoop. Here is a quote: “Volunteers, by their very nature, are an upbeat crowd. That includes a group of a dozen volunteers who came to Tyler Elementary School in Washington, D.C., Friday to organize the school library. The library was kind of a mess, and the kids couldn’t check out books. There’s no librarian here because of school budget cuts.”
“I find myself one day in the world, and I acknowledge one right for myself: the right to demand human behavior from the other.” – Frantz Fanon
Why would I grouse about some friendly people spending their day organizing an underfunded library? Because, volunteerism in the public school system is turning nice church ladies like me into scabs. “Scab” is union slang for someone who works while her brothers and sisters are taking the sacrifice to strike for better (or these days maintained) pay. In this case, I am using the term loosely to make a point. During a time of drastic cut-backs in what were already woefully underfunded school budgets, PTA moms can and should use our moxie to organize for a better education budget. The default game-plan in Durham is to fill the holes of public education with well-intentioned, fairly well-off women, and Duke undergraduates, who are not trained, and who are kindly, sometimes daily, working for nothing – taking up a position that someone used to do for a salary and benefits.
The NPR piece notes that George Bush the First advocated the “thousand points of light” idea – the idea that real people in real neighborhoods doing bits of good was a better strategy for dealing with what are usually called “social problems” than more funding for “social programs.” It traveled over to the U.K. recently, where churches and local charities were asked to fill in for cuts to basic services (all while duly appreciating the princess’s new frock, of course). Read more
From Travis Reed’s Work of the People blog at Patheos, here are some comments on the election, populism, and what it means to be a neighbor in a democracy. (Embedding is not working right now, so go to the site and watch the video! You won’t regret it!)
Thanks also to Travis for sending his readers to us at profligategrace.com!
So, in case you have had your nose stuck in the Prima Pars of the Summa this summer, and are wondering why I have so rudely used the word “pussy” in a blog post, perhaps begin with this explanation here. As someone who has been known to raise a ruckus in front of a religious icon (namely, Duke Chapel) with minimal cost to my own hide, I am impressed by these women. I hope to be more like them when I grow up. Read more
Feb 12
I was very honored that David Crabtree asked me again to weigh in as an LGBTQ ally. I had read over some of Rev. Wooden’s previous interviews, and I decided ahead of time not to enter a theological or scriptural debate on the issue. It seemed to me that we were likely to end up with a Bible Boy/Gospel Girl face-off, and Gospel Girls rarely win that way. Some readers may be disappointed with this decision, but, well . . . remember the gender and race dynamics of even the supposedly “New South” and think through how you would have had me engage instead. This is all just really, really tricky, dear people, and what we truly need is the kind of sustained, long term solidarity-building conversations that come only with effort, patience, trust, tacos, and pecan pie. On a totally frivolous note, I am wearing the blouse I bought for my (failed, thank God) interview for the senior ethics post at Yale. Only it used to be white, and I wore it then with a boring, blue pinstripe suit (snore, but, hey, it was Yale, after all). I accidentally spilled food down it at some point, and decided this summer to dye it bright fuchsia. I think it looks much better this way!
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