Mark Feldmeir

The longing for home

Homesickness – the longing for home. Frederick Buechner points out that the word “longing” comes from the same root as the word “long,” in the sense of length and time, as in, “it’s a long line,” or “it was a long time ago.” So, the word “longing” has its origin in time and distance. But …

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Three suggestions

So, what can we do? Where do we go from here? Can I offer three suggestions? First, if you’re white, listen to people, especially to people of color, who are willing to share about their experiences of racism. By doing so, you will become a more informed student of history and of place so that …

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We have the moral responsibility to open our eyes and see our society more truthfully

If we want to understand racism in the U.S., as uncomfortable as it might be for us, we have the moral responsibility to open our eyes and see our society more truthfully, and to become more receptive to what it is like to be black in the U.S. Here are some astonishing statistics that may …

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How can we talk about race without the defensiveness, reflexivity, and scapegoating?

Baltimore, Ferguson, Charlottesville, Charleston. Trevon, Tamir, Sandra, Philando, and Freddie. Kaepernick, Serena, Barkley, and Lebron. White supremacy, white privilege, white fragility, and woke. “Hands up, don’t shoot.” “I can’t breathe.” Black Lives Matter. These are just some of the people, places, controversies, and catchphrases that have come to define the complexities of today’s conversation about …

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When the cost of error is too high, the wise hedge their bets.

If, for ideological reasons, we cannot agree that human activity contributes to climate change, then we should consider it pragmatically, through the lens of risk-reward analysis. Even if we cannot prove the veracity of human-caused climate change, the most prudent approach is to act as if it is true. This is because if it is …

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Three core commitments

For Jesus, a politics of love manifests itself in the form of compassion, which in Latin means literally to “suffer with another.” Genuine compassion evokes a deep concern for the suffering and well-being of neighbor, and is expressed most fully in the “basileia tou theou,” the Kingdom of God. Life lived in the Kingdom of …

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