She rises up out of the depths, this mysteriously strange human with a beautiful name—Temma Day—coming from heroines and ancestors. With a shock of sand-colored hair, and eyes that change color with the day, she sees nothing and everything at the same time. Emerging into a vast valley, bending with the earth and the grass, […]
It hardly ever happens that I walk out of a movie theater after viewing a film and want to turn right back around and see the same film once again. Yesterday evening was one of those rare occurrences. I experienced such a strong desire to make a 180 degree turn back into the movie theater. […]
It’s now two days since Temma’s “big birthday bash”. It was a wonder! Close to sixty-five friends, neighbors, and family came out to celebrate Temma’s forty years of life, and many others who wanted to be there but could not make it. I have a little more time to reflect now than I did in […]
“It’s like a crossed over a bridge this week,” I said. I was trying to describe to a friend my experience at The Glen workshop sponsored by Image magazine in Seattle, Washington. “Like walking a bridge, I crossed over–from one space of grief, high stress, and feeling lost–into a space of creativity, support, and direction. […]
“What are they?” I whispered to myself as I walked down the side path to the lake in Busse Woods in order to get a closer look. They were birds lying, folded in, like lumps of white. Every once in a while I could catch a glimpse of black when one of the lumps would […]
A Feature Review of Womanist Midrash Volume II: Reintroducing the Women of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and KingsWilda Gafney Paperback: WJK Press, 2024Buy Now: [ BookShop ] [ Amazon ] [ Kindle ] Reviewed by Sherrie Lowly in The Englewood Review of Books https://englewoodreview.org/wilda-gafney-womanist-midrash-vol-ii-review/ To enter the life of a person marginalized, voiceless, and labeled as meaningless– to walk in solidarity with […]
Who knew or could even guess that I would become the mother of an adult-child who seems to love going to the shopping mall? We think it is the combination of the smooth, carpeted, wheelchair ride, the bright lights, the cacophony of sounds including the background shopping Muzak, that make it one of Temma’s favorite […]
“If you stare at a painting long enough, you begin to see things you never saw before,” Tim says. We’re standing before the painting The Lamentation of Christ, by Rogier Van Der Weyden that hangs in the Uffizi Museum in Florence, Italy. With an open drawing notebook in one hand and a pencil in the […]
This morning I heard a sermon on Patience, one in a series on the Fruits Of the Spirit. It was a good sermon with good worship. Recently, when I’ve been asked by friends, “How can I pray for you?” I’ve responded with one word, patience. When a trusted, longtime friend and I made our yearly […]
The image is of my daughter, Temma Day, a painting done by her father when she was about two-years-old. Temma had this shock of hair even when she was first born. She is struggling to lift up her head, her physical therapist put her on her stomach to help her, resting her hands on the […]
Writing From the Margins 