Following Jesus in rejecting empire
The cyberworld is abuzz with the recent Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage. But while some weep and others rejoice, the decision which warrants a shout of elation from all Christ followers remains uncommented upon – the SCOTUS decision dealing a blow to our prison industrial complex. The Christian obsession with sex has once again…
ABOVE PHOTO: WWII Propaganda against Germans It is rather remarkable that neither my wife, nor myself, nor our family experience daily discrimination. It is also remarkable that I’ve never worried about being the victim of a hate crime. Why is this surprising? Because my last name, Bessenecker, is German. My wife has three German grandparents,…
He didn’t lift his feet, he slid them, as if skating on the concrete sidewalk. Maybe he was old, but I couldn’t tell because he looked like a cave man, and it’s hard to read a cave man’s age. Eyes looked out from sunken pools in his head, staring down at the ground where he…
My grandmother used to say we had some Cherokee blood She recalled her great-grandmother Sitting on the porch and smoking a corncob pipe But that memory is old and worn Trampled under the Swedish and the German and the English It was the European roots to the family tree which were nourished Those were the…
In preparation for this podcast I watched a 2009 episode of Gangland about the Fresno Bulldogs. It was a disturbing show. The callous disregard for human life, the exaltation of violence and the desire amp up absolute fear in the general population made the Bulldogs a kind of urban terrorist organization. But watching their violent…