Category Archives: Beloved Community
Rev Dr. Christoph Patrick Bounds
The life of Reverend Dr. Christopher Patrick Bounds doesn’t fit in a blog; it hardly fit into Memphis! He and the Bounds brothers once opened for the Temptations on Beale Street and he knew the labyrinth under those streets working … Continue reading
Carter, the Improbable Man
Jimmy Carter is not dead quite yet. Counting him out was almost never a good idea whether he was running for an improbable office (every one he ever held) or an improbable health goal (guinea worm, polio, smoking or handgun … Continue reading
Crafting life together
It can all fall apart, this democracy thing. It’s not like gravity that makes rocks fall, even if you don’t believe in it. Democracy only lives in the mind and spirit and evaporates when we forget it. The belief that … Continue reading
Championship Spirit
You can no longer watch championship basketball in North Carolina because of a political train wreck involving sex, bathrooms and religion. In spite of some of those same politics, this is a great place to watch something more important, a championship … Continue reading
Runaway heart
My daughter Lauren is about to give birth to my second grandson, which, with her sense of dramatic timing will probably happen on Mothers’ Day. This also kicks off Nurses’ Week in hospitals. My wife and my (now former) first … Continue reading
Mainsail
Perhaps you’ve met a human. You have noticed that we can be hard to help. Perhaps you’ve been to a planet like Earth and noticed the same thing, except 7 billion different ways. How do you help something with 7 … Continue reading
Improbable Lessons
Between Pope Francis and the nine Charleston “Saints” whose deadly witness held us just as rivited a few months ago it is obvious to all that faith is not synonymous with stupid, mean and irrelevant. They are helping us see through … Continue reading
New blade
I peered through a hole in our basement wall into a cloud of sawdust where my father fed a piece of wood into the spinning blade. The sound was painfully high loud and powerful, such that I can still hear … Continue reading
Pompless patriotism
Jefferson, the pompless patriot, would have approved. Thanks to the Daily Beast and my brother Ron who forwarded their article, I learned that exactly 1,003 steps from my home near the Square in Salem, the Moravians had created the very first … Continue reading
Warren, Kenny and Barney
Fred Smith is a Harvard-SMU-Emory PhD and United Methodist preacher. He grew up tough in Oakland playing football. When he and I were walking around Jack London Square Thursday night after a nerve-fraying couple of days, we went looking for … Continue reading