Monthly Archives: May 2014

Evolution of Hell

By request, repost of 2008 blog (now defunct) on literary evolution of Hell in the bible: In the synoptic Gospels, Hell is usually described as a realm of fire, a place that seemingly judges and punishes at the same time, (Matthew 5:22, 29–30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5). The most...... Read More

When Mother is the Hardest Word

My ancestors passed down this lament: Sometimes I feel like a motherless chile, Sometimes I feel like a motherless chile, Sometimes I feel like a motherless chile, A long way from home. Sometimes mother is the hardest word. Sometimes mother is a curse word ~ not the object of a profane expression, but the subject....... Read More

A Lamentation For Our Daughters

This is a wailing; and it shall be wailed. The women of the world shall wail it. Over Nubia and all its nations they shall wail it, says the SOVEREIGN God. Ezekiel 32:16 My Lament My eyes grieve continually for the souls of all the daughters who are raped. My eyes grieve continually for the...... Read More

Who Gives This Woman? Patriarchal Marriage

For many, marriage is a sacrament or a covenant given by God, an institution that is rooted in love and gives rise to more love through the interweaving of families and sometimes the nurture of children. For many of my conversation partners in the past three weeks, the notion that trafficked girls could be sold...... Read More

Trafficked into Marriage

Today black women in the United States and perhaps some of our allies are wearing geles, traditional West African head wraps like those worn in Nigeria to call attention to the hundreds of our daughters, kidnapped and sold like the Israelite daughters at Shiloh more than three thousand years ago. Some folk still have not...... Read More