I was on a conference call the other night for the committee that evaluates board nominations for all the different arms of our denomination. Someone was giving his report on the makeup of the NAPAD board (North American Pacific and Asian Disciples), of which I’m a member. He said, “Well, their racial-ethnic percentages are great–almostContinue reading “You can’t go with this or that…you can only go with OTHER”
Monthly Archives: February 2012
The clutched purse phenomenon and The Warmth of Other Suns
I pulled my suitcase and my laptop behind me as I walked from Lake Merritt BART station towards home last night. I got to my least favorite part of the walk–a stretch with no businesses, poor lighting, and the highway underpass. A guy crossed the street towards me and I deliberately worked to make myContinue reading “The clutched purse phenomenon and The Warmth of Other Suns”
How do we render visible the invisible?
I can feel it already. You’re going to roll your eyes when I say it. You’re going to think I got it from that movie about tall blue people who live in the rainforest. But it’s true–I think one of the most powerful things we can do for people is to SEE them, to renderContinue reading “How do we render visible the invisible?”
Not THAT kind of church
Last night I had dinner with a high-ranking naval officer and her wife who works in an optometrist’s office–a mixed race couple–and heard about the challenges of working at Guantanamo Bay from a woman’s perspective. This morning I had breakfast with a teacher and her wife who’s a drummer–also a mixed race couple–who discussed PauloContinue reading “Not THAT kind of church”
What courage looks like
I can’t believe it was two years ago that I went, a little nervous about what my role was, to support a few kitchen crew members who had been locked out of the Castlewood Country Club for holding on to their right to health benefits. I didn’t yet know that in the previous year, managementContinue reading “What courage looks like”
Finding home (or, A million different Occupies)
I attended my very first Occupy the Hood meeting tonight. It’s not like I was unaware of the movement–my co-pastor and I expressed enthusiasm and concern about Occupy Oakland almost simultaneously almost from the beginning, and when we read this article http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/10/occupy_the_hood.php in October, we were pretty sure this was where we belonged. But thenContinue reading “Finding home (or, A million different Occupies)”
Where we locate ourselves
It’s probably no surprise that I’m starting out this series of blog posts with a reflection by Malcolm Gladwell, on whom I have a semi-secret crush. (As an aside, this crush really irritated my ex-boyfriend, who bore a striking resemblance to Gladwell when his hair grew out.) Gladwell wrote a piece over 15 years agoContinue reading “Where we locate ourselves”
Sandhya Rani Jha 