I used to think I worked in a clean industry and environmentally speaking that is basically true. Now I am more aware of the fact that we bring ideas to a kind of life and we export them to the world. So no, I don't work in a machine gun factory but I do work in a field that speaks to the lowest common denominators, promotes outrageous values, sensational ideas and leaves behind truly awful mental images. I've read that the second use of every new communications technology from Gutenberg forward (and maybe back) is for pornography. I think the third use is for the production of garbage for public consumption.

Is it really any harder to make a good movie than it is to make a bad one? The work of the various departments is the same. Film people tend to have a great work ethic, taking pride in their abilities and their individual and departmental production.

But the final product is generally built around a hollow core, that being the writing. The writing generally sucks, and if the writing doesn't suck, the themes and ideas generally do. Are good scripts harder to find or to write than bad ones? There are a zillion good writers out there. Just look around here, in bloggerland.

Speaking of great writing of another sort, I am way behind on posting the image prompt responses. I'm running out of time now but I'll make a start now and steal some time later to finish. I am also going to be spending some time on the road these next few months and it might be harder to post the prompts. I am thinking of asking some artist friends to guest produce, using their own images. It might be a nice break anyway and would open up the blog to other kinds of collaborative efforts, too. Ideas, anyone?

My, what a wordy lunch.

Obviously they've got the birthday thing and they'd like me to do something for the girls who had a birthday already and what not. I think I'd have to start from May to get the girls from this term's birthdays.

Then there's the check and find out who is who and where they live and if they need anything. I'm just going to have to go door to door this week end and find everyone. At least I know our ward is pretty much in building 1 and half of building 2. I was worried I'd have to run all over the complex (I believe there are like 14 buildings or something like that)...

I have to admit while sitting at the table discussing all of this I was shocked to feel like my mission had prepared me for this calling. I'd done this kind of stuff before as a missionary. Granted I had a companion to help me, but now I have a comity to help me. It's pretty cool how Heavenly Father gives us experiences throughout our lives to prepare us for ones to come.

Last nights birthday party for Emily was a huge hit! We had a few people show up and then Ryan decided since he was the only guy he'd yell out to all the people in the court yard from our balcony and see who'd come. Well the whole ward showed up! HAHA!! I met some really great people. Even was asked about my room mate who has pretty much dated everyone in the ward. :P Please, brothers, I don't want to be the one spreading gossip. But the one guy who asked me seemed to be a little bitter about it. It's almost turned into a ward joke. Sad...

Anyway, after everyone left 3 guys stayed behind to play a game of Cranium, my favorite game! We were teamed up one guy and one girl per team. The game ended and I believe Emily and Rob won. Either way it was still fun! :D I'd like to have another game night soon.

So, here I am... Compassionate Service Leader for the Relief Society. On the 23rd I meet with my bishop to get a calling as an ordinance worker at the temple. I work Monday - Friday 8:30am - 4:30pm as a graphic designer...I seem to like staying busy. There's so much I want to do! *sigh*

Emergency Numbers
This will certainly be an encouragement to you.

When in sorrow..........................................................call John 14
When men fail you............................call Psalm 27
If you want to be fruitful...................call John 15
When you have sinned.......................call Psalm 51
When you worry.................................call Matthew 6:19-34
When you are in danger......................call Psalm 91
When God seems far away...................call Psalm 139
When you faith needs stirring.............call Hebrews 11
When you are lonely and fearful..........call Psalm 23
When you grow bitter and critical.........call I Corinthians 13
For Paul's secret to happiness...............call Colossians 3:12-17
For understanding of Christianity..........call II Corinthians 5:15-19
When you feel down and out..................call Romans 8:31-39
When you want peace and rest................call Matthew 11:25-30
When the world seems bigger than God....call Psalm 90
When you want Christian assurance...........call Romans 8: 1-30
When you leave home for labor or travel.......call Psalm 121
When your prayers grow narrow or selfish.....call Psalm 67
For a great invention/opportunity..................call Isaiah 55
When you want courage for a task..................call Joshua 1
For how to get along with your fellow man......call Romans 12
When you think of investments and returns......call Mark 10
If you are depressed.........................................call Psalm 27
If your pocketbook/wallet is empty.................call Psalm 37
If you are losing confidence in people.............call I Corinthians 13
If people seem unkind.....................................call John 15
If you are discouraged about your work...........call Psalm 126
If you find the world growing small & yourself great....call Psalm 19

Alternate Numbers:
For dealing with fear.....................call Psalm 34:7
For security..............................call Psalm 121:3
For assurance.............................call Mark 8:35
For reassurance...........................call Psalm 145:18

NOTE: ALL LINES TO HEAVEN ARE OPEN 24 HOURS A DAY!!

. The Condor Soars, by Lirone, on Words that sing

. Bystander, by one more believer, on piece of pie ala mode

. First Light, by Tiel Aisha Ansari, on knocking from inside

. tears trickle slowly, by gautami tripathy, on firmly rooted

. Aztec Eyes, by Marlow44, on feel free to read

. Leonine, by niebla/fog, on niebla, a hermetic weblog

. 'tis a gift to be simple, by Paul Squires, on gingaTao

. Ghost of a Promise, by Brad Frederiksen, on maekitso's cafe

. Praise, by Ranier Marie Rilke, just because...

As things could change at any moment I thought I would put a Thursday image prompt up now. Enjoy, and if you are in the U.S., have a happy 4th of July (and exercise your right to vote!).

Church of the Old Mermaids, from lirone, author of the weblog, words that sing

Harbor Lights, a first post from the author of the blog, abwfriend

Civilization, from Australia, by the author of the blog, maekitso.

Defining Boundaries, from Guatami Tripathy, who's blog is firmly rooted.

Thunder Opens the Sky, from Pamela Olsen, author of the blog, Amputated Moon

. Again he dreamed of divine love , by Cristine, author of the blog, mariacristinapoesia.

. on Icarus' wings, by cheong lee san, author of the urban poems blog

. imagine freedom, by lissa, creator of the blog, flyturtlefly

. artist of the portrait, by amuirin, author of stop and wander.

. ripe with the fullness of waiting, by damyantig, of daily (w)rite

. tasting the sun, by pepek, of my uncle pepek’s journal…

. stars and fire and bliss, from lirone, of words that sing

. the kiss, by nan-de, author of the blog, vignettes

. partly cloudy, by pamela olson, creator of amputated moon

. blessings, by tina trivett, author of the poetry of tina trivett

. sometimes love sustains us, from Z, While her post is not x-rated her blog is deeply personal.

. spring, from piece of pie ala mode

. a dream of fire and air, by niebla, from her hermetic weblog, niebla/fog

. clouds percolate from the sun, by gautami tripathy, of firmly rooted

. the daughter, by yours truly

………………………………………………………..

. a little note of explanation, or sizzle, in memory of broadus evans

. paint me a picture, by Jodi, creator of the weblog, why paisley

. Just Ride, by Z. of thenakedtruthaccordingtoZ. Her post is for anyone, but her blog is adults only.

. yearning, by gautami tripathy, of Deli, India. Her weblog is firmly rooted

………………………………………………………..

. I found barefoot boy on floresence as I tripped around before work this morning. It is a three-way collaboration between johemmant, cristine and this unwitting author of the painting.

I just posted all these on the storybook collaborative also. Naomi says it should be collaborative storybook. What do you think?

I start Wednesday on a movie in pre-production in Santa Fe. It will be my first show since moving to NM. I'll be helping to make Las Vegas, New Mexico look like Jaurez, Mexico. Not too big a stretch, actually. Don't have many other details. The reason I bring it up here is because for the short while one is on the show, a movie tends to take over one's life. I don't know if I'll be able to post people's work as often as I have been doing.

So I'm thinking to continue the Thursday prompt but to save the entries and then post them all at once, say on the following Tuesday? You can still post links in the comments. This just concerns my getting it together to offer them all in one location as I have been doing.

And then there is the little unknown one, and when she - or maybe he - will show up. We are at two weeks and counting... send up some prayers for us and we'll do the same for you, hold the whole bunch of you in the Light. Thanks, everyone, this has been fun.

( new arrivals posted here )

. .

As for dreaming, I dream about going back to Africa as a missionary . . . to somehow be involved in placing orphans and bringing a solid and truthful knowledge of Jesus where hope seems depleted. If thats in the cards God has for me, so be it.

I'm learning daily that I'm loved by an amazing and gracious God. I yearn for truth and wisdom . . . as much I do for grace and mercy . . . having more grace than truth is spiritually off balance . . . I've always leaned more on the side of grace and God is really convicting me to balance it out a bit with more truth.

my nose eyes and mouth
filled with the scent of bleach
my palms cramped
i wondered how pee totally misses the outer bowl
yet winds up aplenty around the base of the thing
and where do all these super long hairs come from
this is me cleaning a toilet

after i'm finished
after i washed my hands
i looked at the toilet
shiny porcelain spotless gleaming even
with that accompanying music
like in commercials
which indicates shine

i was so pleased with me
and that's when i realized
i am great at cleaning toilets
like really really good
it was nice and good to know that there is something at which i excel
something i can say that about and believe it to my very soul
finally

i am good at something
i am good

(copyright 2008) c A Hughes
04.19.08

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...............

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Hiking in the woods I found this rusting refrigerator that hunters had been using for target practice. I retrieved the door and it sat in the studio for a year or so until surfing the web I happened across some drawings by children who were survivors or refugees of war or civil unrest. The pictures were collected by Human Rights Watch workers helping the children and were put on the web here. A quick search found kid's drawings dating back to the Spanish Civil War, WW1, WW2, the bombing of London, Germany, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon Chechnya and on, and on, and on...

I was moved to copy some of the drawings onto the fridge door, eventually adding some of my own but a good many of the drawings came directly from the kids. I added hunter/warrior figures found in cave paintings.

I then traced the figures onto steel plate and cut them out using a plasma torch. I painted some and backed them all with magnets so they are completely movable refrigerator magnets.

I have not been giving a back-story with the images thus far but this one seemed to ask for some explanation. If anyone feels moved to write from it I would love to read what you have to say. As always, if this image doesn’t suit feel free to take another.

(All 3 pics above are the same door, different shots. Steel cut-outs are on table. Sorry, have neither door nor good photos with me now.)

.

I do this kind of work intuitively, trying not to analyze as I work. The images build and layer. I try to trust that inner sense, try to choose the best on the fly, sometimes backtracking, painting out, painting over, sometimes progressing to a finish. Sometimes knowing when I've finished, sometimes..

...I'll ask my son, who's eight, what he thinks.

"Well," he says, "You're making it different, but you aren't making it better."

.

All of this is just to say that your thoughts on these things are as good as mine, often more interesting and sometimes more fun, and I welcome them.

.

This week::

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Prester John, from crackedheadblog wrote faith without works.

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why-paisley??, rockin' girl blogger, wrote darfur fridge

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expalla, known only as expalla (want help setting up that blog? write me) wrote a silly little door

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christine, prolific author of mariacristina wrote Lantana using the painting below as a starting point

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The wife told us about her willingness to follow her husbands calling to go to Africa. She even thought that maybe it was hers as well. Then when the violence broke out in Kenya recently (right where they are living), she went many sleepless nights struggling with God for putting her and her family in that situation.

During one of her sleepless nights she read through James, and realized that this was actually her calling as well. Since then she has been willing to do whatever, and follow God wherever, this called for.

So my question is this, what do you do when you and your spouse have conflicted callings? What if God is calling you to go to Africa (or any of a million other callings), but your spouse isn't getting that word?

I remember a time when I wanted to be older, I envisioned it to be my ticket to freedom in order to do what I wanted to do, finally! How ironic, as time went by I realized that freedom is not to be able to do what I want to do but what I ought to do. Sometimes we ignore what we need to do in order to fulfill our earthly mission but we are soon reminded in the most uncomfortable ways; trials, sorrows, grief, sickness, etc. Unless we are shaken we would never stop to look deep within in order to find answers to our challenges. Most of us like to enjoy life without having to deal with pain and sorrow but it is in that pain and sorrow that our true self is revealed maybe for the first time even to us. In most cases is not a pretty picture, it is our being torned by past experiences, wounded, weak, sensitive to the most minimal criticism from those around us. It is not who we want to be or who we are at the moment but somehow others can't forget our past.

As we enter dark moments in our life we are forced to be guided by others things other than our regular vision. Our emotions, our instincts, our faith and our soul needs to come into play in order to find a way out of our immediate misery. Accustomed to live on the flesh disregarding the soul will make this experience difficult. Trying to get away from the dark quick will also produce painful sensations since our whole being is calling us to experience and change at a certain level before we step away from it transformed. Like I mentioned before changes are not easy to make specially when we are uncertained of the outcome, that's where faith comes in. Trusting that our trial has a reason for being and a purpose for our life and well being.

Truth has a way to make itself known. Inner peace is only achieved through a balance within, it is the satisfaction to know that our intention and our purpose is fully aligned to our individual persona. We can't live our life under someone's goals, values and intentions. Personal growth is an individual process calling us to put everything and everyone aside in order to be true to our self and our destiny. Failing to become individuals we slowly extinguished the very light we are called to let shine for the world to see. If we cover it, nobody will know it existed. One of the most painful experiences is to know that we are unknown to those around us, they are quick to see our faults and not our virtues. Another painful experience is to have hidden our individuality so well from those around us -in order not to disturb their life- than when it finally emerges it is rejected and their love and support is withdrawn from us.

I wonder what life would be if we decide to stay forever in our dark night just to keep the peace of those around us while the war continues inside of us. I don't believe is possible to deny what it clamors for; transformation. To negate to go beyond what we know for sure is only denying the great possibilities God has in store for us.

So okay, I go with that and it goes along until I realize that I'm never going to read a 27 page poem and there is no reason to expect anyone else to. So I try to recast it into something else, maybe like this dense little wonder. And sometimes works and sometimes it doesn't. It also sometimes twists into something darker.

And it goes until it seems like maybe I am working on a short story, or a chapter of a book. Both way beyond what I can manage at this point so here is where I duck back into painting. This particular effort seems to want the chopping block... any feedback sincerely appreciated...

She sits upon a windowsill and spies a laughing boy, about eleven, barefoot by the water’s edge beneath the tree’s green reaching hands. The canopy throws its color down and lights the shadows with reflections. Subtle ocher, umber, rose and violet rustle over every edge and surface, every fractal point and pinion.

He notes the subtle, languid colors, held within a water droplet curled within a blade of grass caught between two fingers. In his lens he rifles through the brightness, sorts the light: the red, orange, yellow from the green, blue and violet. Light everlasting, Creation’s quiet engine banks and glides through his examination, the river flowing like a dream through his attention. He’s a roving, freckled, happy sunburn, loopy, careless, and so, so fetching.

She watches from her windowsill and notes the romp and listens to the forest talk, the chittering of birds and squirrels, the sounds of things that root and snuffle. She notes the hiding place of perch and trout, beefy bullfrog, quiet mouse and sees the drop of water falling from his fingers, hears the plip! of water merging once again with water, sees the satisfying ripple of the river growing greater. At the liquid sound the animals of tree and branch, the things that root and snorkel through the grass and thatch grow quiet as the moss upon the granite.

She’s something special, also freckled, quiet as a dream of looking up through sunshine held in water. Sister to the winds she snaps her fingers and they come, the old familiars, first responders, these three edgy, banshee sisters. And she is wind in human form, the fourth wind, now a zephyr, now a storm. They sail from their oblivion, trailing dust of days and nights, shedding plastic bags and fragments of collected sounds.

The trees above the river rattle, reaching for the windy ceiling. The sisters whip the air and beat it with their silver bones. They forget where they’ve just been, they forget the rusty underpinnings where no bottom is, no edge, no roof, no ceiling. They’ve just left the place that holds the sucking sounds, the shrieking, lurching, hideous foreknowing, the wide eyed, lunatic, brokenhearted howling…

…continued

So we smashed like acrobats, a mess of arms and legs and heads and backs, spinning through the flaming hoops to meet the leaping, happy cats and all those clowns in human suits, and all their senseless chatter.

The main stage crashed without a sound, the lights in popping strings came down. The tents and poles ablaze and we threw whiskey on the flames. Who ever would have guessed? We blew up our little mess.

We fell just shy of Kingdom Come, smoking wisps of greasy carbon, mauled and roasted but, somehow, still breathing.

I took the Silver Meteor, you took the Silver Star. The rolling wheels on the clackity tracks and time to think but blankety blank, with darkening brow and only love and hate to break my fast, and fear was all I had for lunch and the train dropped me in Boston.

Walking wounded, psychically scarred, bankrupt of cash, bankrupt of love, eviscerated human stumps, born to hump and hump and hump and hump, still guiding by the stars. The rule of hate was short, thank god.

We would meet but never mend, in the time apart too much began. I lost the maiden all forlorn, the kids the cars the house the home. For the land where we were matched and mated, like sugar in the rain dissolved and faded, and we dissolved soon after.

I found myself in losing you. You opened the door and smashed me through. I skidded across those holy floors and tumbled into the basement noise to be healed by grizzled laughter.

And now you are beautiful as a tree in the wind, I love to see you twist and bend, a strong and able, beautiful survivor. I wish you desert kings and airplane wings, arid lands and silver springs, vroom! vroom!! vroom!!!ing kids on bikes and friends with a gift for laughter.

We tie ourselves to the turning wheel. Scars do soften and reveal what we were, how we did feel, and the walking lights beside us, guide us, and whisper who we are.

Whereabouts and Wanderlust
traveled hand in hand.
Each one loved the other most
and trekked through many lands.
Altogether they were happy,
blue eyes and blue.
Sleeping children brought them flowers,
with love, from me to you.

And so the story went, my friend,
and went for many years.
The end was unexpected
and came with endless tears.
We somersaulted backwards
and crashed through all the hoops.
Our faces smashed in asphalt
blood and teeth and glass.

Now all these years away
and healing still to do.
I pray that you are happy
and leave this song for you.
There is no benediction
able to erase
these scars upon our hearts,
leaving not a trace.

But the marks we carry
make us who we are,
of crippling unkindness
born out of fear,
echoes of our screaming
ringing in our ears.

Is it our mistakes
that make us who we are?
Or how we learn to live with them
and with each other
in this little bell-jar?

We will go to the invisible carnival.
We will ride the invisible rides.
We will not stand in line
we will have a great time
as we flash our bright wings in the sun.

I will buy you lavender ice cream
I will throw the poor doggie a bone
you will shoot out the eyes of the targets
and win us a free ticket home.

Sweet sweet engine of mercy,
bright flying speck in the sun,
tomorrow I’ll be riding a donkey,
tomorrow I’ll be on my way home.

But, what if some darkthing I see?
And what if it whispers my name?
And if the darkling should take me?
So seeing you never shall be?
Well, then the gathering light,
the gathering light,
the gathering light
shall have me...

Transcript
Barack Obama’s Speech on Race

Published: March 18, 2008

The following is the text as prepared for delivery of Senator Barack Obama’s speech on race in Philadelphia, as provided by his presidential campaign.

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man who's been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”

“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

Back in Montezuma, N.M. after 10 days on the road with 18 UWC-USA students, faculty chaperones, and Broadus, 8.5 years, a great traveler, interested in everything. In place of a Spring Break, students at UWC elect a service-learning adventure. This one was to study border issues, especially as they pertain to Mexican illegal immigration. We worked with community and human rights groups – faith based and otherwise – working along the US-Mexican border.

Humane Borders and No Mas Muertes put out markers and water in the Arizona desert for the migrants trying to cross over. The Border Patrol, and the Arizona state and county governments, as well as all mainstream denominations support their efforts, financially and otherwise, hoping to avoid a much larger humanitarian crisis along the border. There have been 1600 migrant deaths in the fifty miles of Arizona desert between Tuscan and Nogales since 2005. The work of Humane Borders is to prevent as many deaths as they can with the resources they have.

We camped out on a lot of church floors on both sides of the border. No county morgue trip this year but we did visit the federal courthouse, the Border Patrol Museum and talked with members of the Border Patrol. We visited a Mexican orphanage and C.R.E.E.D.A., an amazing addict-run treatment center for Mexican alcoholics and addicts, some of them former coyotes. The students carried out a number of tasks and chores at all of these locations. They also staffed a center for deported migrants returning from the US.

Many of the migrants are from southern Mexico, many from other Central American countries. The migrants have to be wary of the coyotes they hire to take them across the border and fifty miles of desert on the US side. The majority of women taken through the desert are raped either by their coyotes or by bands of robbers the coyote is in league with who wait in the desert. If the migrants are apprehended and deported, in Mexican border towns they are easy prey to predators waiting to take advantage of their ignorance. The Migrant Centers work to shield and counsel returnees.

I’ll be sorting out my own views of the issues in the days to come but I can say now that my sympathy is with the underdog. It isn't that complicated a question. All it would take to resolve the problem humanely would be some genuine concern from the governments of the US and of Mexico for the well-being of its citizens.

Thanks to all who have left comments while I have been away! I'll be posting responses and photos as I recenter here in NM.