DEEP WATERS

I've been thinking about one word a lot recently... LEGACY. My thoughts can be traced to a recent event in my life. This past week I spent time in my hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. I traveled home for my Uncle Alvis's funeral on this past Monday. His funeral was one of the most precious I've ever attended. The room was filled with people whose lives have been touched one way or another by Uncle Alvis. Family members, colleagues, neighbors, fellow church members -- we all crammed into his A.M.E. (African Methodist Episcopal) church home to reminisce and illuminate a life fully lived. My uncle spent his life serving college students as a professor in the School of Social Work at Howard University in Washington D.C. (my alma mater, by the way - HU!!!). As the president of Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina for a short time. As a member of the peace corps in Liberia, West Africa (which my family and I visited when I was only 4 years old). As a social activis

DACA... Also known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. There's been a lot of talk on both sides about DACA recently. The loudest voice has been that of President Trump, who this past week rescinded the DACA program, charging Congress with the task of creating policy to fix the program. I could say so much about this. I could list the many scriptures that encourage us to welcome and care for the alien, stranger or immigrant, depending on your favorite translation of the bible. In fact, according World Relief Global ... "The Bible has a lot to say about immigrants and immigration. In fact, the Hebrew word ger , the closest word to our concept of an immigrant, appears 92 times in the Old Testament alone." I could also quote what pastors, leaders, politicians and entertainers are saying about DACA.  Again, there's so much I could say about this issue. But today, I'll keep it short by sharing a poem I saw hanging on the walls of Th

Hurricane Harvey is a national tragedy.  If you're like me, you've watched the footage through tears - footage of ravaged homes, destroyed landscapes and lost lives. Raising four children of my own, I struggled to watch an interview with the mom who lost four children in Harvey. My heart breaks for her and so many others. Yet I had a thought while watching the many Texans that stepped up to the call to help their fellow Texans during the storm and in its aftermath... Hurricane Harvey might be a wake up call. I believe Hurricane Harvey, and tragedies like it, could be a wake up call for a nation that's becoming more and more polarized. You see this polarization everywhere... CNN, Fox and MSNBC news. Our Twitter feeds. And should I even mention the vicious comments and fights on Facebook these days? Just name the topic, and folks are fighting over it - Black Lives Matter, Civil War monuments, immigration, Alt-right marches and demonstrations, and on and on... G