It’s No-Shave November! I have chosen this year to honor the long-standing tradition of taking the month of November to lay down the destructive forces of the razor in the name of… well, beards. As unradical and uninteresting as this may sound to you, it is somehow still noteworthy to some. I’ve been no-shaving consistently for over three weeks, yet I’m still receiving comments from students at the school that I work at. Most ask me in a harsh tone, …
Last Sunday was different than my average Sunday. My team and I spent the morning at the house of the other Philadelphia Mission Year team. We gathered to discuss a book that we are reading together about how race has an impact on the way that each person finds his or her own identity. The book is really opening my eyes to some principles that I have hardly heard mentioned before, let alone understood. In fact, that ignorance is part …
Each Saturday, my team and I set out into our neighborhood to try to meet people and learn about where we are living. We call it our Neighborhood Outreach but so far it has looked more like neighborhood exploration. We stand out immensely. Our skin color, the way we dress, and our aimless wandering makes us difficult to miss. Our goal on our first excursions was merely to be seen so that our neighbors would recognize us the next time …
I sat on the shore of Lake Michigan. The endless stretch of water before me. The grand Chicago skyline behind me. The consistent, almost rhythmic crash of each wave along with the rustling of leaves in the brisk wind drowned out all of the busyness of the city. The only sound that dared challenge those two forces was the occasional purr of helicopter blades. I sat on a broken slab of concrete. All around me was a pile of similar …
I am blessed. I’ve doubted many things, but never that. If you know me, you probably haven’t either. To start things off, I did pretty well in the birth lottery. Born in the U.S. to a loving, middle class, faith-centered family, I learned of God’s love for me before I learned that crayons weren’t edible. We didn’t live extravagantly but the money was always there. My parents sent me to a private Christian school on their own dime. I had …
