Margot Starbuck, author, most recently, of Small Things With Great Love: Adventures in Loving Your Neighbor, is itchy to live a Jesus-propelled life of love, especially among those on the world's margins. Which only rarely requires the screaming. Read more from Margot on her blog, MargotStarbuck.com.
Posts By This Author
Raising Black Boys in America: An Interview With Leroy Barber
Father and son embrace. Photo courtesy stefanolunardi/shutterstock.com
Howard Thurman says three things, in Jesus and the Disinherited: One — God is on the side of the oppressed and the poor. Know that God is on your side. Two — Dishonesty takes you out of the conversation. And if you live an honest life, if you have integrity, you can sit at the table. In areas of race, people look for holes in your character as excuses for you not to be at the table. Three — Hate is useless. Don’t let hate sink into your soul, because hate will destroy you. And respond with love even if it’s hard. So I try to teach my boys that, and raise them that way.
Margot's Monday Minute: On Neighbors and Neighborliness
Thank a Nun: Whimsy, Color, Theology, Social Justice and Sister Corita
Sister Corita Kent. Image via www.corita.org.
Bright bold text danced across expansive white-framed serigraphs lining our college student center. The first moment I set foot on my college campus, Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Calif., the artwork of Sister Mary Corita Kent captured my heart and imagination.
One playful print, about the bread of life, features the signature bold red yellow and blue Wonder Bread wrapper.
Another featured Beatles lyrics: “I get by with a little help from my friends.”
One, playing on the name of the West Coast grocery chain “SafeWay,” points to the One who called himself “the Way.”
Another — the commentary of one Roman Catholic upon another?— employed Scripture to reference JFK: “There was a man sent from God whose name was John.”
Yet another, in patriotic red, white and blue, features the words of Camus, “I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice.”
At 18, not yet knowing myself to be called as a bearer of color and words and truth, my voice was unleashed by the prophetic artwork of Sister Corita.
++ Join us in showing our appreciation for Catholic women religious (aka nuns or "sisters") on Thank-a-Nun Day, May 9. Click HERE to send a thank-you note online. ++
"Honor Killings" is a Deadly Oxymoron
Mass protest against 'honour killings' of women in Lahore, Pakistan on November 21, 2008. (Photo: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images)
The recent conviction in Canada of Afghani-Canadian parents and son, in the highly-publicized legal case hinging on what has been described broadly as “honor killings,” has exposed the horrifically demented practice to public scrutiny.
Though the three defendants — Mohammad Shafia, his wife and son — denied responsibility for the death of Shafia’s three daughters and first-wife, the Canadian court decided otherwise.
Recordings presented during the trial included wiretaps in which Shafia called his dead daughters “treacherous” and “whores” because they dated boys and wore what Shafia considered to be suggestive clothing. When the verdict was announced, Ontario Superior Judge Robert Maranger determined that the murders of the four women —ages 13, 17, 19 and 52 — were, in fact, motivated by warped (some might say, rightly, “sociopathic”)ideology. As he ruled, Maranger said:
"It is difficult to conceive of a more despicable, more heinous crime. The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honor.”
Mohammed Shafia’s distorted concept of honor is one that is shared by far too many around the globe. It says that the murder of women and girls — those ones who don’t play by the family rules — restores the honor the family has been deprived of by virtue of its female members’ behavior.