Education As A Justice Issue pt. 2

As I stated in my last post in this thread, I’m doing research on education as a justice issue (in particular the education of young black men). Since I didn’t have the statistic at the time I didn’t want to speculate, but now I have it so I thought I would share.

Currently, African American students constitute approximately 20% of the public school population, while African American male teachers constitute 1% of the teaching force.

Sobering thought. More on the rest of the research later.

Body Theology….or, Beyond Sermon #3

I haven’t talked about the last sermon I’m going to do for my preaching class in a while so I thought I would give an update.

There will be two readings that I will work with. One is 2 Samuel 6. The other is “Let Me Die Laughing.”  While on the face of it those two don’t seem to have much in common, they actually do if one asks the right questions of the Hebrew scripture passage.

Anyway, while I was doing some research on the 2 Samuel passage I figured out that I had been working on something in my mind for more than a year without realizing it……a theology of the body. Just what I needed. <not>

So every once in a while you’ll probably see a post whose topic is body theology. They won’t start until after my May term class, but I’m already gathering my list of books to read in my open time this summer. If you have a book recommendation, let me know.

Unitarian and Universalist History And Polity…Independent Study

It’s that time of the semester, registering for next semester.

Since I’m at a non-UU seminary, I get to set up my own UU History and Polity course as an independent study.

I have most of the usual suspects on my reading list, but I was wondering if there are any hidden gems out there that I should also think about putting on my list. Or if you know of any books that deal with African Americans in our movement that is NOT Black Pioneers in a White Denomination, I would really like to know about it.

I am especially looking for more polity books, so if you have suggestions, I’m really open.

Devil In A Sweatsuit….or, Dreams of “Onward Christian Soldiers”

So today while planning the music for tomorrow’s programmed worship , one of the songs that I chose was Forward Through The Ages. Then the thought occurred to me that the song might not be familiar to this Quaker population, even though it’s in their hymnal.

I asked one of the people on the committee if she’s ever sung it, and she asks me to give her the tune. The first words out of my mouth are, “Think Onward Christian Soldiers.” Well, she did know that song, so she was able to see where I was thinking of going (at least with the music).

Then a devilish thought came into my mind, “We so need to sing Onward Christian Soldiers here.” I can even picture where it would be sung. And haven’t been able to stop laughing since.

Singing Onward Christian Soldiers at a peace school. Isn’t that a great thought? 🙂

Education As A Justice Issue….Research On New Orleans

Some of you know that I’m taking my Peace and Justice course this semester. And for it we have to do a research paper about some issue and relate it to peace and justice studies.

Since I spent most of my week in New Orleans at an elementary school, I decided that I would do my paper about education and the need for more men to be involved in the educational process and in the lives of children in general. Not too big a topic, right?  🙂

So now I’m doing my research. Hopefully I’ll have most of it done by the end of next week.

Women Unbound: Midrash From the Hebrew Scriptures

This was my talkative week (thank goodness it is now done).  I preached twice and last night participated in a special program on women in the Hebrew Scriptures. We had stories from Eve, Hannah, Jael, Rahab, Dinah, Tamar and even the Concubine of Bethlehem. And for a few minutes, I got to be Makeda, the Queen of Sheba. (assuming you know the Ethiopian version of the story)

The program, Women Unbound, is now available as a webcast. If you are interested you can go here to see it.