KtBlog
musings, news, events, and your letters to the editors
Victim-Blaming After the Zombies Come
Is preserving our own beliefs better than reaching out to help others no matter what the personal cost? I contemplated this thorny issue watching “JSS,” the second episode in season…
Words to Live By
I got another tattoo. A black and gray owl with wise eyes rests on my right bicep. A locked heart lays on its chest. Its claws grasp the key. I…
Breaking Up With White Jesus
It’s December of 2014. 2am, 3am, 4am, 5am, I thrash and turn over in bed and click on my phone, know I should not click on my phone, click on…
Netflix Knows Me
I was browsing Instant Watcher last night and this crazy thing happened. There were all these movies that were literally about me! I was like “what is the Universe trying…
Is Tom Leaving Scientology For Suri?
Could be? Who knows? I don’t want to set myself up for heartbreak again. I love too much and I hope too much and I never ever give up on…
Battle Flag
I’ve lived my entire life in the South, first Georgia and now North Carolina, but I’ve never paid much attention to the Confederate battle flag, the so-called stars and bars.…
Defying the Certainty of the Christian Right
Earl Taylor, with his white hair, lean figure, and suit, has a mildly aristocratic appearance. He carries himself and speaks in a mild manner–admittedly, there is also something of the…
Just Give Me That Old-Time, DIY Religion
For the past two years, I’ve been deep in conversation and research about the phenomenon of “nones”–the rising number of religiously unaffiliated Americans. Although the word “none” appears in my…
A Playlist for Seekers and Doubters
Music has consistently been a vehicle for my ponderings and prayers about and to the Divine, or lack thereof. These are a few songs that have stuck with me, organized…
Look For The Signs
The Messengers is another supernatural mystery from a network, the CW, known for vampires, zombies, demons, angels, and other monsters that go bump in the night. I watched the first…
Dear Cruelest Month: Spring Isn’t Arab
Once upon a time we lay in bed trying to imagine what shelling sounded like. We being me and the man I loved. Ah, those early days of my Orientalism…
On Labels and Returning to Church
This past winter I started going to church again. Emotionally exhausted and spiritually drained from current events and personal circumstances, I made a point to actually set my alarm and…
Demolishing the Cycle of Hate
The city of Sandy Hook, Connecticut, recently razed the home of the infamous 20-year-old gunman who in 2012 murdered 20 first-graders, one for each year of his life, as if…
Stop Casting ‘Religious Freedom’ Stones
Every so often we see news reports from faraway places like Pakistan, where some Muslim tribal elders have condemned someone, usually a woman, to be stoned to death. Quite rightly,…
Cinderella: The Magic of Kindness
I grew up with Disney princesses: Ariel, Jasmine, Snow White, Aurora, and Cinderella. I watched and rewatched these fairy tales on-screen, not just as entertainment, but also as possibilities for…
The Perpetuation of Prejudice: The Chapel Hill Shootings
The wind is bitterly cold and blows sharply in the night. Somewhere above us, a bird caws a long and solitary cry that echoes across campus. Thousands of students, faculty,…
