While shoveling snow from my driveway today, I had plenty of opportunity to reflect. The drive is long and wide and, even though I get it plowed by a service, getting it right can take me an extra hour. When I was about eight years old, I started shoveling snow for neighbors. By that point…
In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.” ― Barack Obama Many are working to make Chicago a great place to live, learn, and work. Scores upon scores are contributing their time, talent, and treasure to these efforts in their personal and professional lives. The issues at play…
Love is our most unifying and empowering common spiritual denominator. The more we ignore its potential to bring greater balance and deeper meaning to human existence, the more likely we are to continue to define history as one long inglorious record of man’s inhumanity to man.” ― Aberjhani, Journey through the Power of the Rainbow:…
Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die life is a broken-winged bird that can not fly.” — Langston Hughes Finding two people who appreciate performance artists on stage and in recording studios and also hold a deep understanding of culture and community is infrequent but not particularly rare. Finding two such men in one…
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.” ― Martin Luther King Jr. For 27 years, Milwaukee’s history has been influenced by a force of nature…
We have inherited a fear of memories of slavery. It is as if to remember and acknowledge slavery would amount to our being consumed by it. As a matter of fact, in the popular black imagination, it is easier for us to construct ourselves as children of Africa, as the sons and daughters of kings…
“Free condoms! Take as many as you like! Free condoms here!” A few times a year I hawk free condoms at Union Station in Chicago and the Intermodal Station in Milwaukee. I figure young adults traveling Amtrak for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Spring Break should be prepared. After all, some reunions are best served with latex.…
This week I am writing about giving and generosity. As the calendar year closes and a new year approaches, I often find that I review my actions and thoughts of the past several months. What have I done? Where did that notion originate? Did it advance me as a human? How? Why? One mental tool…
In the mid- to late-1960s, I did what many of my friends were doing. We grew our hair long, met over coffee, sang folk songs, went to rallies against the war in Vietnam, and marched for housing and racial justice. Sometime during that decade, I met the Berrigan brothers in an apartment near Marquette University.…
I have been custodian to five dogs during my life. Custodian? Companion? Well, I cannot really say that we ever own a dog. They live with us. They count on us. We also live with, count on them. Over winter holidays I had the joy of hanging out with Dexter even more than usual. What a…
Creating Community for Everyone 