With the skilled research of an historian and the pristine language of a poet, J. Chester Johnson tells the story of his damaged heritage and its responsibility in the grievous actions wrought upon the black sharecroppers and their families near Elaine, Arkansas in 191...

This post is longer than usual. It is a presentation I made about Cry, the Beloved Country. It is a bit rough, not polished, but I think the message of the book is essential to our struggle today.  Please watch it when you have time, and then spread the word of th...

     One of my favorite memories of teaching was a breakthrough with a special student when she raised her hand with great enthusiasm and said, "Mrs. Courtney, Mrs. Courtney, Does history repeat itself???" 

These two readings appointed for today prove how...

On this day in history...In 1968, immediately after he announced to his cheering supporters that the country was ready to end its fractious divisions, Robert Kennedy was shot several times by 22-year-old Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan.

Do you remember where you were that day...

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, a...

Psalm 72

He shall live as long as the sun and moon endure, from one generation to another... there shall be abundance of peace till the moon shall be no more.

     These are hard times. We are fighting on two fronts: the pandemic of COVID and the pandemic of suffocation....

Pentecost 

by Malcolm Guite

Today we feel the wind beneath our wings
Today  the hidden fountain flows and plays
Today the church draws breath at last and sings
As every flame becomes a Tongue of praise.
This is the feast of fire,air, and water
Poured out and breathed and...

Psalm 8

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, *
the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,
 What are human beings that you should be mindful of them? *
mortals that you should seek them out?
 You have made them but little lower than the ange...

     Here is a discarded Christmas tree. I saw it on the side of the road, uprooted and lying on its side. And when I looked closer, I discovered the new growth all over it. Its root ball was out of the ground, but somewhere there must have been a single strand of root...

       As a high school English teacher, one of my greatest challenges was to teach teenagers how to understand poetry and enjoy it. It was not an easy task, but with a positive attitude, a bit of humor and a few skills, I often succeeded at least to the point...