In the heart of the Hudson Valley’s sloping hills is an agroforestry project with a beautiful end goal: return to the land the plants and trees indigenous to it. Decades of invasive, endless growth have left the land with a lack of biodiversity. Slowly and surely, though, this diversity can be reintroduced. Even the pawpaw, […]
Tag: love
Dealing with the Scary Stuff
A friend and colleague of mine who does human rights work alongside me mentioned recently that she went on vacation and left her work phone off the whole time, only to fear when she turned it back on she would learn someone she’d been in touch with had been murdered the night before. It wouldn’t […]
Beatles Mania
As long as I can remember, I’ve always been a Beatles fan. The first album (that wasn’t soundtrack music) anyone ever bought me was a Beatles album my sister got me for Christmas or a birthday one year. I must’ve been twelve or thirteen at the time. I already knew half the songs that played […]
20 Years On and Rethinking Empathy and Reconciliation
I’ve been thinking a lot about an old English teacher, Faye Hardin, who passed away in 2019. She was a tough old bag. Some twenty years ago when I had her my senior year, there were students in my class whose parents and grandparents had her as a teacher. She pushed students harder than most–to […]
Quarantine, Day 300: New Year’s Eve Edition
The blankets are all over the floor even though I prefer them folded and put away when they aren’t in use. I have like five pillows from the bedroom that have ended up in the living room over the course of the last few days, and I just haven’t bothered to move them. To my […]
You are not Christian.
Throughout my life I was told by “Christian” pastors, children’s ministers, camp leaders, youth directors, Sunday school teachers, and other church workers and parishioners so many heartfelt, dignified, and loving words about what Christianity was through the life and ministry of Jesus. I believed them. Today, I no longer see those same people living the […]
Quarantine, Day 58
The world outside my window just seems so surreal, the way it’s picked up and continued as though there is nothing deadly and invisible all around us. From my window, you would think nothing had changed. From my window, though, my worldview is so incredibly limited. It’s within the house that I’m painfully more aware […]
Quarantine, Day 15
It feels like everyone I know right now has just enough of a sore throat to wonder. We just found out a day ago that we’re now one and two degrees away from fellow colleagues who have tested positive for covid-19. The creeping dread follows that knowledge. I check my temperature often. I shake off […]
Some Brief, Not-So-Classified Thoughts
I’ll keep this one even shorter. Yes, Osama bin Laden is dead. People ask me here if I’m happy about this. Most of them are, it seems. I just respond, “I never rejoice when anyone dies.” That’s not a lie. It’s unfortunate that bin Laden is just one more death in a war I wish […]
Thoughts for a Spring Day, or Identity Not-so-Crisis
So, it’s a breezy day, and I’m sitting in a chair chewing gum with my mudir (boss) in what might be the only grassy place (the Dar Chebab, or “House of Youth and Sports” where I work) east of the Middle Atlas Mountains, where everything else is desert. So, we’re sitting there having a short conversation […]
