This is a story about the kind of relationships I want with and for all people. [Today I am finishing up a writing series about race and current events I started at the beginning of July 2020 (see “Black Power & Little Micah,” “Measuring The Problem,” “Profiled,” and “The Cost

[This letter has been stripped of its personal identifiers and shared in hopes that it might be of benefit to someone else.] To my young black friend, I know we’ve had a lot of good conversations over the years, but there are some things I wanted to write down for

I have been working as a peacemaker and bridge-builder in racially mixed communities for the last fifteen years of my life. It’s a hard, joyous, beautiful, and messy business. The one place I have found solid ground on, is in the maxim that, “People aren’t color coded.” This means that

A few months ago I wrote a piece called “Race Is A Meaningless Distinction” where I continued my theme that people aren’t color-coded by talking about what little you could know about two people of a different race (a white person and a black person in this example) based on

I’m sure to some people this sounds ridiculously untrue, but if you are willing, stick with me for a moment. Imagine you are sitting at a table and the person across from you slides two portraits in front of you.  You don’t recognize the people in either of the pictures. 

As the Gallup chart for this post shows, race relations in the United States have tanked in the last few years.  As a minister of a racially diverse church in a racially diverse neighborhood this concerns me a great deal.  This means that white people and black people – at

I believe too many of us in the United States have an inadequate view of slavery – and holding onto this inadequate view comes at a high price for our world and for millions of individuals. Slavery is an abhorrent practice where one human being physically and psychologically subjugates another

A few weeks ago a gentleman at our church asked me why I spend so much of my time addressing crime in the neighborhood.  It was one of those questions that is so simple to ask, while the answer is so big and has so many layers. For starters, we