When one decides to become a believer, a follower of Jesus, they are essentially releasing a degree of certainty in favor of faith (believing what one cannot see). This is actually true across most religions and faith traditions. Ironically, what I notice happening within Christianity—the American strain, in particular--is people don’t actually do this. They …
Yank it Up by the Root: Why American Christianity [As We Know It] Must Die
I love to garden. It’s my happy place. There’s something grounding about putting my hands in the soil—it can change my whole day for the better. There’s also something that emboldens my faith when I think about the trust it takes for me to put a seed down in April and expect a harvest in …
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An Experimental Contemplation: God’s Black Love?
I’m curious about love. Like, how does it show up for the little brown girl from Kentucky who lives inside this worldly urban renaissance woman I liken myself to be nowadays? Is it just a mirage? A fictional oasis that I desire to drink from but doesn’t really exist on the plane in which I …
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Beauty in the Contradictions: The Spiritual Evolution of Prince
"Prince was just too nasty for me. I grew up in the church," she said. My first inclination was to defend the musical icon I loved so much. “Well, you know he wrote 1,000s of songs—over 40 albums, and only a relatively small portion of those could be considered ’nasty.’” “Well, all the ones I ever heard …
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Does Faith Ever Fit…in Academia?
When I set out to write about what it means to be a person of faith working in academia, I was fairly certain that the tension and sometimes outright dismissal I’ve experienced on that front were created by external factors. Specifically, I blamed the skewed perspectives of colleagues who felt that my faith was a …