I recently came across an old journal entry of mine from the spring of 2006. For the majority of the piece, I rambled on and on about what I can only describe as nonsense. But right towards the end I wrote these words “I don’t care about the poor.” For many people who know me …
Continue reading I Don’t Care About the Poor and Other Stories About Injustice
Currently, I am reading "The Key to My Neighbor's House: Seeking Justice in Bosnia and Rwanda." As the title suggests, it is a book that describes the atrocities that occurred in both Bosnia and Rwanda in the 1990's, and the lengths that both countries took to get their nation on a path to peace and reconciliation. …
Continue reading Why We Must Confront Racism Instead of Ignoring It
I recently wrote about the relationship between the oppressed and the perpetrators, sharing that those who have been oppressed have to be willing to surrender their notions of being a victim in order for true reconciliation and healing to be achieved. But why in the world would people who have experienced such injustice want to do that? …
Continue reading Victimhood: Are You a Card Carrying Member?
A few days ago, I posted a blog post asking for some feedback about some thoughts I had on reconciliation. Christena Cleveland, a fellow blogger and Twin Citan (go Twin Cities!) tweeted this: I agree with Christena in that reconciliation does involve a great amount of risk and vulnerability on the part of those who …
Continue reading The Cost of Reconciliation: Adding Insult to Injury
An excerpt from Dancing on Hot Coals: I was starting the final trimester of my first year at Bethel Seminary, sitting in the library diligently working on…something. As I was there, a friend of mine sat down next to me and started a conversation. In our conversation he asked me if I would ever like …
Last week, my husband and I toured the Walker Art Museum with our daughter. One of the collections that we saw had a few photographs that reflected on the genocide that took 800,000 lives in Rwanda in the 90s. As I looked at the photographs, I remembered a blog that I read earlier that day …
Ebony Johanna 