Amy Frykholm
Times of abundance: Terra Brockman on food and feasting
"We often have the idea of the feast appearing magically from the kitchen without labor. But the participatory aspect is the most important part of the feast."
CC recommends: Fiction
The Buddha in the Attic, by Julie Otsuka. Otsuka tells the story, in collective voice, of Japanese women who traveled to meet husbands already living in the U.S....
To tell the truth: Nobel winner Leymah Gbowee
If Martin Luther King Jr. had written a book exposing his personal failings, it would have been seen as undermining his cause. But Leymah Gbowee does not want to be thought of as a hero.
"Only old people write their memoirs"
I talked to Leymah Gbowee
about the writing of her memoir of the Liberian Women's Mass Action for Peace,
Mighty Be Our Powers.
Commodity dating?
Writer Kate Bolick is 39 and single; I've been married since I was 24. By the logic of her Atlantic article, this means I won something in the "dating game" and she lost something.
ArtPrize's safe, non-provocative winner
Theologically, what does this piece of art evoke and why? To me, it suggests
the religious aesthetics of a self-satisfied people.
Caught in a revolution: Tripoli priest Hamdy Sedky Daoud
"Nobody asked us to close our churches or evacuate. We should appreciate
our Libyan brothers and thank God for their tolerance."
Rapture humor
Several years ago, I was interviewed by Linda Wertheimer of
National Public Radio about the then extraordinarily popular Left Behind
...
Shaking foundations
On my bike ride home from the train station, I see a church sign: "Shaking Foundations?...
Changing laws on trafficking
The faces in the photographs on the front page of the newspaper
startled me. They were laid out in rows. The first photo in the series was
invariably of a young girl, maybe with a mischievous smile or a rebellious
glare, but with a decided look of innocence. By the end of the series, that
same face was battered, bloated and bruised.
Gone to waste: Why is Safeway throwing out good produce?
I'm making my rounds at Safeway, shopping for my church's community meal. In the produce section—where I am forbidden to ask for donations—I see two heaping boxes of fresh fruits and vegetables headed to the trash.
Reform that works: The community schools movement
Some education reformers are trying to shift
the focus from test scores to the broader circumstances of children's
lives. One idea emphasizes schools as places where children connect with
the broader society.
Poems that speak to life
About ten years ago, I returned to church after a long
hiatus. What compelled me to the pews was a hunger for poetry shared
in community.
A time of grace for women clergy: Retreat leader Sister Mary Luke Jones
According to Sister Mary Luke Jones, Protestant clergywomen come to Our Lady of Grace Monastery's retreats "with a deep thirst for community."
Assembly-line justice
If federal policy met its goal of “zero tolerance” for people who
cross the border illegally, the caseload in the Tucson federal
courthouse would go from 200 a day to 1,000. Prisoners would need to be “processed” in groups of 40 instead of eight.
Summer reading list
Up until
now, my ideas about summer reading were driven largely by guilt. My bookshelf
is packed to the gills with books that I "should" read: books people have given me and I need
to return, or books that have been sitting there so long, I have given myself
ultimatums--either read this or get rid of it.