Category: Justice
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A Call to Repentance from Anti-Blackness & Gaslighting for the UMC
“They were asking for it,” I imagine at least one of those officers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge said, as they rode off with the blood of John Lewis and Amelia Boynton on their bully clubs. They were asking for it. They wanted the club. They wanted the fist. They wanted the teargas. It is…
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The UMC in 2020: God Overrules Our Rules
(On January 1, 2020 legislation went into effect that had passed by 53% at the United Methodist Church’s General Conference in February of 2019. This legislation – if obeyed – seeks to impose harsh penalties on those who stand with the LGBTQIA+ community, and drive LGBTIQIA+ clergy, like myself, out of the church.) “It is…
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Power Exists to be Given Away – Reminders from Movement Living
Power exists to be given away. The reminder of this came as I listened to the Rev. Dr. Emma Jordan-Simpson preach at the historic Concord Baptist Church of Christ in Brooklyn via podcast last week, in a sermon entitled “Another World.” I hit pause when I heard her words, “It’s that exousia power that we…
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When Celibacy Conflicts With Faithfulness
Most young clergywomen are familiar with the predictable conversation that takes place when people encounter us for the first time in the wild. Scrunching up their face in puzzlement at my clergy collar, the woman cutting my hair, or the man ringing up my groceries will almost inevitably ask, “So can you get married?” In…
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Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother
“You are the answer to our prayers,” Madre Irene said in delighted surprise as we entered the quiet church yard. She had just finished breakfast with her fellow sister in the Order of Mary the Sorrowful Mother, when we came through the gates of Cristo Rey. The two nuns had been discussing the children in…
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Tents, Kids, Money & God
After the weeks I spent sitting at the gate of the tent city for kids in Tornillo, Texas, I realized I was having a hard time seeing the forest for the trees. I texted friends asking them to give me the big picture. Accustomed to trench work, to being close to the ground, I often…
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Two Cities-One Heart: An Appeal to Listen to El Paso (with Juan Ortiz)
They say that El Paso/Juarez are two cities with one heart. While the rest of the nation views Juarez only through the eyes of the media, folks here look across the wall with affection towards the homes of people they love. Here in Southern Arizona, where people who grew up on the border call it…
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Not All Is Lost.
The news today felt like a tidal wave. Like that time I stepped on a yellow-jacket nest and they swarmed me from all sides. Yet, despair could not seem to find a good spot to land on me. I just kept hearing her words: “Not all is lost.” Driving from El Paso to Tornillo with…
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Seven Sisters
Throughout time, the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters, have roamed the heavens, offering to each people over whom they passed a gift. People have used their appearance in the sky to tell them when to plant and grow, and have used their location to help them navigate and find their way. They have been revered and…
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Kids Are Still Arriving To Internment Camp
Far in the distance, on the other end of my camera lens, sat a little figure in pink pants and a pink shirt. A little girl. Four, maybe five years old. She reminded me of another child that it would be impossible to forget: little Omran Daqneesh, covered in dust and blood, sitting motionless in…
Hannah Adair Bonner 