WHAT PART OF ILLEGAL DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND? A Meditation on America’s Immigration Debate and the Ocean of Longing 30 May 2010 A Sermon delivered at Bell Street Chapel in Providence, Rhode Island by James Ishmael Ford Text Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door. Emma Lazarus. I think about that golden door.... Read more
It is quite early in Phoenix. I’ve been working on my sermon for Sunday. Soon, I’ll finish packing my bags, check out of the hotel, they’ve said I may leave my bags there, and then go off to the demonstration. I really think Arizona’s SB 1070 something wicked. It plays upon fears, some real, most imagined about the undocumented among us. And out of that fear does some bad things to the illegal immigrants, to our law enforcement officers, and... Read more
On this day in 1863 the Massachusetts 54th marched out of Boston. I think a great deal about that march and what followed. I think about Shaw, that child of Unitarian faith, and where that faith led him. But more, I think about the 54th. The truth is that there was a single State’s right the South was looking to defend. And there were people who were willing to fight and die that something truly evil would be eradicated from... Read more
On this day in 1878 the H. M. S. Pinafore opened for the first time at London’s Opera Comique… And shortly after posting this, Ed sent the following, sort of a rejoinder… Read more
Yesterday while driving along I heard an NPR story about Haiti. One of the people discussed was a Haitian physician. He was cited as saying he had a new definition of who really is an atheist. An atheist is someone who when the earthquake happens, does not pray. Way, way, better than that bit of nonsense about foxholes. Of course, short of that earthquake, who knows what they believe in their bones? I think I know. But, I’ve been wrong... Read more
Margaret Fuller. A remarkable person, worth recalling. Worth celebrating. Read more
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