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Desert Church

The broad brim of my plain hat shades my face and neck from the relentless Arizona sun as my old mule packer’s boots crunch along a dry creek bed. A small band of us, strangers just days before, are holding what my journal describes as “Meeting for Worship on the Occasion of the Sonoran Desert.” We are a delegation of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). Our ages span five decades, we are more women than men, we are citizens of four nations, and our faith walks include Judaism, agnosticism, secular humanism, Quakerism, Roman Catholicism, evangelical Christianity, Buddhism, and neo-paganism. We are a motley crew, and not just theologically.

On Water (March 2019)

Black. Christian. Anarchist.

I am an African American whose encounter with God is more an attitude than belief system, a certain swagger and daring in the face of what black liberation theologian James Cone would refer to as “obvious failure.” By all quantitative standards, the post-Reconstruction experience of African Americans would meet the definition of failure. Today, the median wealth of single Black women is – prepare yourself – five dollars. In San Francisco, African Americans are only five percent of the population. If all religious practice is a response to a set of particular historical circumstances what can speak to this collective misery? The African American religious experience is ultimately about the quest for freedom and self-determination.

On Control (July 2019)

Dreams and our Faith in Action

Keep notes on the dreams, nudges and glimmers that become evident with this attunement. This at-one-ment where the eternal now becomes available for us who have cultivated the ears to hear and the eyes to see, the hearts to feel and the belly to know.

On Epiphany (February 2025)

On the Christian Calendar and Epiphany

We can learn from and happily follow Jesus’s teaching. We experience a Light or a Word from beyond ourselves that is a guide to our lives. The lesson of Epiphany is that those two are identical; Jesus is Light.

On Epiphany (February 2025)

On Legacy

As millions of victims would attest, religious communities routinely fail to demonstrate mercy or kindness.

On Legacy (September 2024)

Generations of Technologies and Quakers

We are in a liminal period, a transitional time between the information technology and the artificial intelligence.

On Tech (July 2024)