Robert A. Black, Mathematical Storyteller

Doctor King wasn't the first one to say it. He heard it from a young woman named Prathia Hall , who used "I have a dream" several times in the opening prayer of a service commemorating a church that had been burned down by the KKK. Preachers often borrow from each other (just like writers, I should mention), and Doctor King borrowed it from her. I didn't know that before yesterday. I heard it from the Rev. Traci Blackmon , who was our guest preacher for Martin Luther King Sunday. This is our second MLK Sunday with our new Rector, and I've got to say he brings in some pretty amazing guests. Last year's had a profound effect on me, too. (Yes, you can see me in the background. My seat in the choir always puts me in the sight-line of the live stream camera.) Rev. Blackmon's sermon was titled, " Where are the Dreamers? " and she pointed out that "Prophetic resistance is only possible for those who can still dream." It's ...

I've had a number of different blog post ideas cross my mind this past week or so, on various subjects related to the Trumpocalypse. Russian interference, racism, authoritarianism, white privilege, deception, inequality... the list goes on and on, to the point where you get tired just thinking about it. Even this post, where I'm telling you about how crazy and unsettle I've felt trying to write about these times, has gone through multiple versions. But it all comes back to something I realized while hiking last Saturday. I've realized it before, but it seems I need regular reminders. I was hiking back up Sisar Canyon and the Red Reef Trail, toward Topatopa Bluff. It was the same hike I'd done two weeks earlier, but it had been cloudy on my first trip and I hadn't been able to see the face of the bluff at all. This time, the bluff was in full view - and what a view it was - but the hot sun really wore me out. After five miles of climbing the six-mil...

The Rector at All Saints was out of town on Palm Sunday, but he still made his mark on the day. On Facebook he posted this tantalizing line from the sermon he heard that morning: "It's not that we care that there is an empire. It's that we care that we are not the empire... Jesus exposes that the very aspiration to be empire is evil." I kept hoping to find the full sermon somewhere, but alas it hasn't turned up. Maybe it will eventually. In any event, it resonated with me because of some realizations I've had in recent weeks. I've never felt more American than I have in the weeks since the election, protesting and writing against the current administration's agenda. I've never felt more Christian than I have in the weeks since the election, objecting to the way that "white Christian America" has so completely abandoned its Christian principles.  And I think that's because I'm no longer part of the empire. What empire d...