Forney Charities
Improving communities by helping residents, one person at a time.
Category: Uncategorized
You’ve Gotta Work the Program
I remember when I had come to my first parish out in the desert, a little town called Inyokern. It was so small I remember driving through the main section of town and across the railroad tracks. My wife with a quaver in her… Continue Reading “You’ve Gotta Work the Program”
Resurrection is Living Water
When we last gathered, the sun had been obscured in deep darkness. Subterranean tremors shook the land. All that was stuck became unstuck. And the ghastliest spirits were let loose to roam the land. The veil separating holy and profane was rent in two. … Continue Reading “Resurrection is Living Water”
Lord, Have Mercy
The crowd which welcomed Jesus and his merry band into the streets of Jerusalem is the very same crowd that, at the end of the week, would scream, “Crucify. Crucify. Crucify. Giddy and bursting with excitement over a possible comeuppance for their Roman occupiers,… Continue Reading “Lord, Have Mercy”
We all Rise, Together
As a young woman, Diana Harvey Johnson, now seventy-four, marched up the steps of the courthouse to register to vote. There she was confronted by a white woman who pointed to a Mason jar on the counter. “How many butterbeans are in that jar.” … Continue Reading “We all Rise, Together”
“The Ten Suggestions?”
Helen and Henry Howard, an elderly couple, ran the little Union 76 station and café attached to it. It was just a wide spot in on the highway through Johannesburg, one of the three former mining towns served by the Randsburg United Methodist Church,… Continue Reading ““The Ten Suggestions?””
Stuff Happens
Isabel Wilkerson, author of Caste, opens her book with the recollection of a old black and white photo of Germany in the 1930s, a rather famous photo taken at a Hamburg shipyard in 1936. The photo is of some hundred shipyard workers lined up… Continue Reading “Stuff Happens”
Into the Valley of Despair
Bishop Michael Curry, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, in his new book, Love is the Way[1], tells the story in the opening pages of a woman with a mission who became an integral part of their family. Michael’s mother died when he… Continue Reading “Into the Valley of Despair”
Touch me, Heal me
Anyone familiar with the 12-step recovery movement would recognize this introduction: “Hi, my name is Joe, and I’m a recovering QAnoner.” I case you’re wondering about QAnon; it is a loose collection of conspiracy beliefs centered around Donald Trump and the Republican Party and… Continue Reading “Touch me, Heal me”
Not Knowing Left from Right
I remember when we lived in downtown Los Angeles, Jai and I were the dorm parents at what had been a boarding house, Dorcas House, next to the church. College-age women who were interns at the summer program and for our tutorial programs we… Continue Reading “Not Knowing Left from Right”
Faith and Habitations of the Mind
I remember as a young boy awaking one morning to a disagreement between Grandma and my brother who was then in the first grade. It seems she had been going over some of his science notes with him and he was attempting to tell… Continue Reading “Faith and Habitations of the Mind”
Forney Charities 