Best Interview:
Micky Jones interviews Walter Brueggemann for On Being
“Beginning with the Exodus narrative and the Elijah narrative and the Jesus narrative, they are all storied about public transformation that happened by courage of uncredentialed people. These kinds of narratives feed our imagination and give us energy and courage. As the civil rights movement of the 1960s and ‘70s understood, singing is a way to keep your nerve. If you think about the Song of Miriam or those dangerous songs (many of which are in the mouths of women), we are invited to join that kind of singing which is a refusal to accept the dominant definitions of reality. Such singing and storytelling is an insistence that there is another way to experience the world and there is another way to act in the world. These are very important models and authorizations for us.”
Best Idea:
For Advent: Community Made Icon
Best Writing (nominated by Leigh Kramer):
Laura Turner with “The Mission”
“This is our home now, these 500 square feet of second-story apartment living with hardwood floors and a half-dishwasher. But it is our home only because someone else couldn’t afford it.”
Best Series (nominated by Alissa Smith)
Stacy Sergent with “The ABCs of Hospital Chaplaincy”
Best Reflection:
Christena Cleveland with “Advent/Darkness”
“Advent isn’t a holiday party. It doesn’t pressure us to conjure up a hopeful face, ring bells, and dismiss the foulest realities we face. Advent isn’t about our best world, it’s about our worst world. I think we eat the chocolate and put on the pageants because we don’t want to face the worst.”
Best Analysis:
Fania Davis with “This Country Needs a Truth and Reconciliation Process on Violence Against African Americans”
“This is urgent. Continued failure to deal with our country’s race-based historical traumas dooms us to perpetually re-enact them.”
Most Beautiful:
Ice and Snow
Most Powerful (nominated Andy Campbell)
Joshua DuBois at The Daily Beast with “The Day I Used Eric Garner’s Voice”
“I still feel disgusted with myself for letting some punk kid in a pizza shop and a police officer who couldn’t take a second to listen rob my friends and me of our dignity that day. I’m still curious who saw us bent over those tables. I still wonder what my wife thinks about her big courageous man coming home shaken, seeing my tears for the first time. It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened to me, but the first time as a married man with more to lose.”
Most Whimsical:
Artist Transforms Children's Drawings into Adorable Plush Toys
Most Thoughtful:
Jeremiah Gibbs with “Women Pastors and Male Privilege”
“While I’m networking with colleagues, she must figure out who believes should be in the room. Male pastors never wonder if they were passed over for a job because of their gender. Male pastors are significantly more likely to be selected to pastor large churches. Male pastors need to admit that they get to ‘just do their job’ while female pastors only get to do their job after they’ve proven that they should be given an opportunity to do so.”
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So, what caught your eye online this week? What’s happening on your blog?
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