“You better be careful; we don’t want to get shot.” These are the words I said to Jeremy last Saturday evening when his hand reached for mine while walking into a restaurant in an unfamiliar town.  These are the words that were uttered mostly as a joke, but which now haunt me as I process and grieve the horror that unfolded that very night hundreds of miles away in Orlando.  These are the words that haunt me as I think about what it means for me to live out the liberation that Pride represents, fearing that I have too often chosen the safety of a closet that easily welcomes me back into its slowly suffocating embrace.  I said those words to Jeremy in a joking way, but the more I think about them, the more I realize how much they came from a sense of deeply-rooted fear.  I think about

  “My conscious won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father… Shoot them for what? …How can I shoot them poor people.  Just take me to jail.” — Muhammad Ali on his refusal to fight in the Vietnam War This week I’ve been amazed at all the tributes to Muhammad Ali.  I knew parts of his story, but was unaware of how big a cultural impact he made.  What an important and complex life.  How significant that a prominent black Muslim man – and a professional fighter! – was a leading voice in resisting war. One of my favorite stories

My sister-in-law posted a picture the other day of my niece enjoying her first week of summer vacation from elementary school.  In the picture, my niece was stretched out in the sun on a beach chair with her nose buried deep inside a book.  In the caption and comments, my sister-in-law noted that the teacher had told students to “read, read, read!” and that my niece had truly taken that to heart.  For those of us who have experienced a traditional 9 month school calendar, the idea of “brain drain” is probably something we are familiar with.  Three months is a long time to go without regular, intentional, and sustained learning and much is likely to be lost in that time. Whether it is teachers sending home packets of math problems or just pleading with students to “read, read, read,” the threat of summer brain drain is something that definitely

  Today we hosted a lunch at church for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and their allies. Most of the fresh tomatoes served at US restaurants and sold in supermarkets October through April come from Florida, with a large percentage of those coming from the area around the town of Immokalee.  For the past 20+ years Immokalee pickers have banded together to overcome low and stagnant wages, sexual harassment, unsafe working conditions, and documented cases of involuntary unpaid labor – otherwise known as slavery.  The tomato fields of Florida have been called ground zero for modern day slavery. But this is changing, slowly.  To date, 15 corporations have signed on to the CIW initiated Fair Food Program.  The list includes companies one might expect such as Chipotle and Whole Foods, but also Taco Bell (the first to sign on in 2005 after a national boycott), McDonalds, Burger King, Subway, and