Category Archives: Uncategorized

I took a free tour of Buenos Aires on my vacation the other day, and at one point the woman leading the tour said, “Argentina has been free of military rule for 28 years. Our democracy is like a teenager–confused, in love and unstable.” Buenos Aires has 3-5 political marches a day, and the womanContinue reading “Buenos Aires and Oakland…more similarities than expected”

Since the movie The Help is coming out, I wanted to share a review I wrote about the book at the beginning of this year, at a site called Fidelia’s Sisters, a site for young clergy women. I was asked to write it because The Help had become such a hot book group book, andContinue reading “The Help — is it helpful?”

This week on Glee, one of the main characters overcomes his fear of being beaten up for being different in order to show up at Prom. And he’s not beaten up. But he’s publicly humiliated, the same way he would have been at my own high school 17 years ago. And as I watched the show, knowing that most of the youth in our region were watching it, too, I found myself wondering, “Does it? Does it get better?”

What I learned to see this summer was the work of God in what could be very mundane work that repeated itself over and over with little visible signs of improvement.

Shed a Little Light Whenever I sing “We Shall Overcome,” I choke up. You may be thinking, “Don’t we all?” Probably it’s hard to be progressive in America and not be moved by it. And I couldn’t tell you all the reasons, but here are a few that have surfaced for me over the pastContinue reading “Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King”

This is actually a devotional I wrote for the e-news of my denomination’s regional church (on which I serve as staff). I wrote it upon my return because they had generously given me sabbatical time and paid my salary while I was away. Bengalis are not popular in Assam. That barely sounds like English, doesContinue reading “LONG overdue India reflection”

I am a pacifist (a conflicted one during Bosnia, Rwanda and Sudan, but a pacifist). I also like to think of myself as a realist. My friend Garry used to joke that I said “There would be no Martin without Malcolm” so often we should just give that speech a number so I wouldn’t haveContinue reading “All we are saying is…”

There’s a South Asian theologian named Thomas Thangaraj who taught at Emory and Candler for a number of years before retiring back to Tamil Nadu (southernmost state in India) a few years ago. I met him in 2001, and he told a story to a group of us about white-guilt-interfaith work versus interfaith work thatContinue reading “Aizwal, Mizoram…tribal theologies and gratitude for the gospel”

…and U of C and PSR don’t even try. 🙂   I just visited Tamilnadu Theological Seminary in Madurai.   Bachelor of Divinity students spend their first year on campus studying, their second year in a village where the faculty go and teach them periodically under a banyan tree, their third year in a slumContinue reading “this is the seminary Union in New York wishes it could be”