Please share in your spaces and join via Zoom Join us for an evening of reflection, dialogue, and community centered on Black women’s healing through a discussion of We Deserve to Heal , edited by Patrice Gopo. This powerful conversation brings together scholars, writers, and thought leaders to explore healing, friendship, and the lived experiences of Black women. 📅 March 26, 2026 🕖 7:00 PM 📍 Education Building, 2407 Cascade Road, Atlanta, GA Attend in person or virtually,

Getty Images   The real tribute in the recent moment of Michael B. Jordan publicly honoring his mother is not simply about a successful actor thanking his parent. The deeper tribute is to Black motherhood itself a form of leadership that nurtures, orders, disciplines, and champions excellence. Michael B. Jordan’s success does not belong to him alone. It stands within a long and global tradition of Black mothers who hold families together, who stretch resources, who insist on

Shutterstock I am listening to the State of the Union address, and I find myself confronting a hard truth: for people of color especially Black people this country no longer feels like home. If I am honest, perhaps it never truly was. The chamber tells its own story. Brown faces and Black faces are sparse, this time intentionally as a form of resistance and protest. Whiteness drapes itself in red, white, and blue. The chants “USA! USA!” ring with a certainty that has never fu

One of the gifts of the liturgical church is that it orders our spiritual lives in seasons. Each year we are invited to encounter God from a different vantage point. Now we stand at the threshold of Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent. Lent is often described as a season of repentance. But repentance, in its truest sense, is not self-condemnation. It is re-orientation. It is turning again toward God. The Prayer Book reminds us of “things done and left undone,” not to shame u

Television Shame How utterly and unforgivably pathetic. Once again, we are forced to ask not simply who are we following, but a more dangerous question: what kind of people are we becoming?From a Motherist framework, this is not merely a political failure it is a failure of care, of nurture, of moral formation. White America, how are you allowing this to happen? Is this truly what you voted for not only in leadership, but in spirit, in tone, in the shaping of the national con

image Michael Hammets This week has unfolded as yet another collision of competing interpretations of the New Testament and, more precisely, a public lesson in how Christians believe Scripture authorizes behavior. I deliberately distinguish  Christians from  followers of Jesus , because the gap between the two has become increasingly stark. I recall my mentor,  Peter J. Lee , Bishop, once naming the fault line with clarity:  it is either law and order, or peace and justice .

Well, it looks as if this moment has just begun. Here we go folks! You might wonder what I’m referring to. I’m talking about the political shenanigans now unfolding here in Atlanta and beyond shenanigans that are not abstract but visceral and deeply destabilizing. Atlanta has suddenly become a focal point in national tension. Fulton County’s election records have been seized by federal agents amid renewed scrutiny of ballots from the 2020 cycle, and rumors of increased ICE ac

I have spent the past three days participating in a Black women’s leadership summit hosted by an organization I love dearly. I entered the space with a clear purpose: to listen, to learn, and perhaps most importantly to unlearn in order to relearn. I wanted to pay attention not only to what was being taught, but to what was being assumed. The summit offered a range of strong, practical workshops Leading Boldly, AI for Leaders, Inclusive Sisterhood, Executive Presence, among

The World Is a Circle (lyrics Burt Bacharach and Hal David) “The world is a circle without a beginning,and nobody knows where it really ends…” Those words have lived inside me for more than fifty years. The song was written in 1973 by Burt Bacharach and Hal David for the film  Lost Horizon . I was ten years old then too young to remember the movie, too young perhaps to grasp its metaphysics but not too young to remember the song. I remember every lyric. I remember the melody

image: UX Gun Happy New Year, Is this who we are as a country? These are my limited observations as I listened to the press conference and followed the breaking news on Venezuela. From within my Motherist sensibility, a deep spiritual dread surfaced. I heard our leaderhip extol military dominance, power framed as righteousness, force as legitmacy, and killing as resolution. The logic was clear:might makes right. The experience felt disturbingly similar to watching a militar

It is a new year and a new day. God has entered the world Incarnate embodied, present, dwelling among us. We do not simply begin another calendar cycle; we step into Epiphany, standing beneath light that reveals, awakens, and calls us toward deeper purpose. The Magi, who are sages and carriers of wisdom, followed that light until revelation broke open before them. Epiphany reminds us that God still illuminates paths, expands consciousness, and invites us into new ways of seei

Black Box Gift A Great Gift I am naming what many of us already know: more than 300,000 Black women have lost significant streams of income in recent years many of them entrepreneurs, creatives, and thought leaders. Forced lifestyle shifts, shrinking opportunities, and economic structures that consistently marginalize Black women are yet again minimizing our lives, labor, and leadership. We can debate the causes macroeconomic shifts, intentional political agendas that push Bl

Sunday, December 20, 2025, marked the Winter Solstice the longest night of the year. For others, the day was observed as Blue Christmas. Though these events are not inherently connected, Blue Christmas services are often held in December as sacred acknowledgment that the holiday season is not joyous for everyone. For many, this time of year is layered with grief, loss, rejection, illness, loneliness, and unresolved pain. Physical ache and emotional wounds do not quiet themsel

Recently, my dad has been ill and receiving care at a Veterans Administration hospital. During my time there, I began to notice something unsettling: a striking racial disparity among the patients. By my estimation, for every four or five veterans of color predominantly African American I saw perhaps one white veteran. This observation raised questions I have not been able to shake. Is this disproportionate presence typical within VA hospitals across the country? Does it ref

I want to testify to the grace that found me this week grace that showed up in the middle of chaos, inconvenience, and my own exhaustion. Even in the disorder of daily life, I sense that God is moving, not only in my spirit but also for my stepsister, Tonya’s birthday today.  For that, I am profoundly grateful. We are reminded never to dismiss the stranger in our midst for we may be entertaining angels. Our washing machine stopped spinning, which means the clothes come out to

Xfinity Well, it is out Wicked: For Good, Part II of the Wicked film series and yes, I have seen it. In a theater filled almost entirely with Black women, there was literally one man present, seated with his wife in the last row. And on premiere night, another theater filled up as well. Black women showed up $17 million in sales on opening day and projections surpassing $85 million by weekend’s end. If you follow my blog, you may remember my 2024 reflections, “Gravity I” and

"The People that built their heaven on your land are telling you yours is in the sky" Nina Simone Nina Simone’s statement exposes the paradox embedded within Black women’s theology: an imposed either/or framework—rooted in colonial and patriarchal epistemologies—conflicts with a universalist understanding of Spirit as immanent, relational, and all-encompassing. As one whose life is centered in a universalist approach to spirituality, I affirm that the Divine speaks in many la

Recently, the Trump administration’s threat to deploy troops to Nigeria raises significant ethical and geopolitical concerns. As someone who was married in Yoruba land and whose spouse is Nigerian, I find this development deeply troubling. The long-standing conflict between northern and southern Nigeria cannot be simplistically framed as a religious war. Both Muslims and Christians have been victims of violence, and such conflicts are rooted more in socio-political, economic,

Image:Samar Ahmed Bearing Witness: Reflections on the No Kings Rally Today, I had the opportunity to participate in the No Kings Rally once again. It wasn’t my first time being part of it, but this year was the first time I truly experienced the full breadth and depth of the rally and the march. I found myself on the front line, standing as clergy with 10,000 people behind me. The clergy were asked to lead the march a request I’ll reflect on more deeply in a future post. Sp

I serve in a small, family-style parish with an average Sunday attendance of about 50 people and 105 on the membership rolls. There is...