By DENNIS HARROD At a trailhead leading to a path through woods and fields flush with late summer’s abundance of gold and green, where the wind rustled leaves and shook a few loose, and a scent of fall hinted at what was to come, someone had scrawled a message of despair meant to harm any …
By JIM McKEEVER I won’t give you their names, but names shouldn’t matter anyway. They are voices at the other end of a phone call, faceless men ages 18 to 48, who tell me their stories in 60, 90 minutes. We say good-bye, I wish them luck and I have no idea what happens to …
By JIM McKEEVER I am in awe of James Baldwin. The novelist, poet, essayist and activist has been in vogue recently, thanks in part to the 2020 re-release of the documentary, “I Am Not Your Negro,” and scholarly books such as Eddie S. Glaude’s “Begin Again.” Baldwin, who died in 1987, was a brilliant writer …
By JIM McKEEVER What must it be like to give up everything you have, especially if you are forced to flee your home and travel thousands of miles, protecting yourself and your children from harm? Each day asylum seekers from various countries, as well as detainees released from a Texas immigration detention center, are dropped …
By JIM McKEEVER I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. — Matthew 25:35. On April 15, the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University hosted a dialogue, “Immigration Challenges and Choices: People, …
By WILLIAM D. SUNDERLIN The abolition of slavery in 1865 through the 13th amendment, together with the 14th amendment (citizenship for all people born in the U.S. including formerly enslaved people) and the 15th amendment (the right of citizens to vote) ratified soon thereafter, supposedly laid the foundation for racial equality in the United States. …
By JIM McKEEVER A few summers ago, as our Sunday morning running group mingled and stretched before our weekly long run, the subject of Ultimate Fighting or Mixed Martial Arts came up. I think there had been a highly publicized fight on TV the night before. One runner, whose well-muscled physique indicated a serious dedication …
soy de aquí y soy de allá I didn’t build this border that halts me the word fron tera splits on my tongue from “Where You From?” by Gina Valdés By DENNIS HARROD Hope is the last thing you’d expect to find in the faces of people trapped in the border city of Tijuana. They’ve …
By JIM McKEEVER On Jan. 7, the day after pro-Trump insurrectionists invaded the U.S. Capitol, my West Coast brother went on his regular shift driving for Meals on Wheels. The first client he spoke with, a man in his early 80s, asked how my brother was dealing with the shock of what had happened at …
By JIM McKEEVER As our book club sat around a cozy backyard fire one evening in the summer of COVID, a member used a metaphor that has stuck with me, and I think with the group as a whole. We were discussing ways of communicating with — and to be honest, persuading or convincing — …
Sense of Decency 