Midlife Meditation

Rachel Dolezal In almost every category Americans use to discriminate, I come out on top. I'm white. Very very white. I don't tan; I freckle. I'm a melange of European blood lines--French, German, Swedish, Scottish--that plant me firmly in the Anglo-Saxon camp. I'm solidly Protestant: Baptist-Methodist, to be exact. I'm university educated, with a Bachelors and two Masters degrees, plus enough post-graduate credits to put me on the top step of my district's pay scale. I'm neither too tall nor too short, and have an average weight for a man of my age and height. And last, but certainly not least, I have a Y chromosome. With all these status points in my favor, one would think I would've lived a charmed life up to this point: privilege, wealth, career, easy credit, immunity from traffic tickets, and all the other benefits, both tangible and intangible, typically enjoyed by male WASPs. And in fact, I almost certainly have be...

The Rev. Willie B. Smith, 1928-2014 What a man he was. John Schwiebert introduced me to Willie Smith in September, 2000. I'd been living at the Peace House for two months at that point, nursing my wounds over losing both a marriage and a career, unsure what direction to take in the days ahead. John knew that, apart from being a minister, I was a musician; in fact, my last six months as a pastor had been spent in music ministry, directing a choir and playing the piano when I wasn't engaged in other tasks. John knew that Willie Smith was looking for a pianist for The Church of the Good Shepherd, an independent African-American congregation he had founded six years before. I had an affinity for black worship and needed some income, so I agreed to meet with Willie, and was soon spending my Sunday mornings at his church. Willie Smith was a striking man, tall, handsome, energetic, and utterly confident in the truth of what he had to say. He had served in the Air Force ...