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Sabbath Devotional :: More Than One Story and Our Part In It
This weekend we honor and commemorate Pioneer Day in our church and for some, in our state. And for many, this commemoration can be much more complex than we sometimes make it. Pioneer Day seems to predominately celebrate those in the mid-1800s who migrated westward from the eastern United States or Europe to Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Idaho, and other states. We honor those who often saved and sold nearly everything they had to follow a prophet’s call to come build Zion and then to come west by handcart or wagon. Recently, the church has made great effort to acknowledge other types of pioneers — the pioneers of today who still…
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Sabbath Devotional :: Stumbling Blocks to Stepping Stones
There are stories beneath our feet. Some are marvelous. Some are horrifying. Many are a mix of both. Here is what happens when we learn to unearth and examine them all. Walking the tree-lined streets of Bad Homburg, a suburb north of Frankfurt where my family and I have lived for many years, I sense daily the reverberations of stories beneath my feet. This happens in part by way of “Stolpersteine” (literally “stumbling stones”), the brass-covered, engraved blocks of cement cut the same size as surrounding cobblestones in between which these special markers are placed. Their location is significant: They point to the last residence of former locals who were…
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Are You Aware? Latinx Diversity and Contributions
This is part II in our “The Latin Experience in the States” Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. NOTE: Throughout this article, the terms Latino, Latina, Latinx, and Hispanic are being used interchangeably to refer to the same group of people. I never thought that immigrating to the U.S. was going to be part of my life’s journey. I grew up hearing about the “American Dream” and the idea of what that meant through TV shows and movies. I remember hearing the “dislike” in people’s comments when they heard the word “America” was used interchangeably with the United States of America. It was accompanied by the…
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Are You Aware? Face Value
This is part IV in our Awareness Wednesday series on the Asian American Experience. Read the other posts in the series here. As we anxiously awaited the birth of our daughter, I found myself, as countless parents before me, wondering about my baby and her future. What would she look like? What would her personality be like? What traits would she gain from us and our families? However, I also spent time thinking about how my baby girl would see and be seen in the world — how would she self-identify in terms of race, and how would others define and perceive her because of her appearance. In 1941, another first-time mother was…
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Are You Aware? The Model Minority Myth
This is part II in our Awareness Wednesday series on the Asian American experience. Read the other posts in the series here. I tried to step lightly across the hot sand in a graceful manner but failed as grains of sand made room for the weight of each step as I balanced three pairs of sandals and an extra pair of goggles that my daughters and husband didn’t need. We were vacationing in Kauai for the first time, and, as is normal, they all ran pell-mell into the surf leaving all their belongings behind. As I gathered their accouterments to the chair where I had staked out our spot on the beach, I…
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Rethinking Anger and Peacemaking
When scrolling through social media or listening to the news, it seems lots of people are angry, for a lot of different reasons. It may be tempting to dismiss such anger as divisive. However, as a professor and student of rhetoric, I am troubled by this tendency to dismiss other people and their arguments simply because we believe those arguments are made in anger. If we are committed to peacemaking and eliminating injustice, we need to be open to discussions, even if the framing or content of those discussions makes us uncomfortable. Not all anger is equal I want to be clear: I’m not saying we should give a pass…
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Are You Aware? Native Americans 101
This is part I in our “Nation to Nation” Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. In the United States today, the federal government recognizes 574 tribal communities as sovereign nations. Dozens more are recognized within the boundaries of states. Canada recognizes 674 First Nations communities as sovereign nations, and in Mexico 89 different Indigenous languages are spoken. First Nations and Indigenous Mexicans are all Indigenous and relatives of the Native communities within the United States’ current borders. Understanding a bit of history and the existence of tribal communities today is an important undergirding of any movement toward an “ethical” governance on these lands. We must be…
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Let Us Be Patriots
There are visionary ideas that have become symbolic beacons to the American people, directing our gaze toward higher planes, helping to define us while at the same time chiding us to do and be better than we are. Think about the Constitution, the creation and purchase of the Statue of Liberty, the Emancipation Proclamation, “I Have a Dream,” and even the first public library. Embedded in each of these landmark moments was one inspired individual with an idea that would ultimately create an outsized impact, far exceeding anything they could have conjured in their wildest dreams. While I’m no historian, I imagine few would argue against the Declaration of Independence topping…
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Are You Aware? Expanding Perspectives
This is part VII in our Awareness Wednesday series on disability. Read the other posts in the series here. I have a host of medical diagnoses — a list of acronyms that likely won’t mean anything to most people. Some include POTS, MCAD, probable EDS, IBS, GERD, ME, mito, hypokPP, DSPD, PTSD, chiari, hyperPT… honestly, I don’t keep a running tally anywhere, so it’s hard to keep track of all of them. In plain English, I have a glitchy nervous system, low stamina, sagging brain, gimp leg, migraines, PTSD, allergies, and other conditions, all very complicated, most interconnected, few treatable, and most beyond the knowledge of the average doctor. I also…
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Are You Aware? Five Things You Can Do Right Now to Fight Ableism
This is part V in our Awareness Wednesday series on disability. Read the other posts in the series here. 1. Learn about the history of disability. In order to understand current experiences of disability, we need some information about how disability has been experienced. Because disability history is not covered in schools, most people have very little (if any) exposure to it, leaving it up to disabled people to do much of the educating on this topic. Given that disabled people have been around just as long as anybody else, it’s impossible for me to recommend resources that cover all of disability history. But I’ll recommend three resources that I believe…