Author Archive
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
You Can Help George Win a Van
Thursday, May 3rd, 2012
One year ago this week, as the birds were hatching on our porch and the rose bush was in full bloom, our friend George was shot, just four blocks up the street. The bullet that hit his neck lodged in his C-7 and paralyzed him from the chest down. For eight months, George lay on his back in a hospital bed. Most of the medical and social work professionals who worked with him said George would never live outside of an institution again.
But George said, “I’m gonna drive.”
After working hard in rehab, George came home to stay with us at Rutba House in early February of this year. With good medical care, determination, and the patient love of lots of friends, he’s made steady progress–getting out of bed, learning to use a wheel chair, even hoisting himself in and out of our family van. But all along, George has maintained, “I’m gonna drive.”
Should This Family Be Illegal?
Thursday, April 19th, 2012
A decade ago, when we moved to Walltown and were getting to know our neighbors, my friend Andy Marin moved to Boystown in Chicago. Like me, Andy is an evangelical Christian. In the churches where he came to faith and learned what it means to be a disciple, he had been told that homosexuality was a sin. In the locker room where he hung out as an athlete, he’d learned to make fun of “fags.” But when Andy learned that some of his closest male friends were gay, he had to re-think his easy assumptions about Christianity and homosexuality. Andy realized that though his struggle was personal, it wasn’t private. It was a crisis at the heart of evangelical Christianity.
So, for the past decade Andy has lived in the midst of Chicago’s LGBT community, learning from his neighbors what it means to be gay in America and facilitating a dialogue between the religious and LGBT communities. His work with the Marin Foundation has been celebrated as both biblically faithful and missionally engaged.
A Nonviolent Response to Joseph Kony
Wednesday, March 14th, 2012
Armed with the power of social media, some young North American activists set out this week to take on one of the most violent rebels in the Great Lakes Region of Africa–Joseph Kony. They’ve called their campaign KONY 2012, and they’re determined to get rid of Kony and bring the children he’s abducted home by the end of this year.
I commend these folks for their insistence that the church stand against injustice. And, at the same time, I join those who ask: is nonviolence not an option?
Is it possible to respond to Kony with the power of Jesus’ nonviolent love?
Waiting with Mary: “Being” Rather Than “Doing”
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011
Before Leah and I moved to Durham to start Rutba House in the summer of 2003, we spent a long weekend at Mary’s House Catholic Worker, a hospitality house for homeless families in Birmingham, Alabama. We knew we wanted to start a community of hospitality and peacemaking, but we had no idea how to do it. With patience and good humor, Jim and Shelley Douglass answered our questions… and taught us several new ones. They showed us how hospitality can shape you over a lifetime, and they gave us courage to face the mystery beyond our questions. We didn’t come to Durham knowing how to live a life of hospitality, but we knew by grace that is was possible.
Waiting For St. Benedict: Where Does Occupy Wall Street Go From Here?
Monday, October 24th, 2011
A couple of weeks ago, the Occupy Wall Street protests looked like a typical gathering of disgruntled young people, not unlike protests outside WTO or World Bank gatherings over the past decade. But as this movement has grown, its public image has quickly become more diverse. I saw a picture last week of a middle-aged woman holding a sign that said, ‘You know things are bad when a librarian starts protesting.’ An article yesterday quoted a retired woman from New Jersey who said she knew she had to go to Wall Street when a friend sent her a note about it on Facebook. She arrived to find hundreds of people like her.
Choose Life for Troy Davis
Wednesday, September 21st, 2011
Despite 650,000 signatures, a letter from over 50 members of the US Congress, and a personal plea from former Georgia governor and US President Jimmy Carter, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency to Troy Davis yesterday. He is scheduled for execution at 7pm today. Within our broken criminal justice system, it appears that all appeals have been exhausted for a man whose guilty verdict depended on evidence that was later recanted in a case where nine sworn affidavits now implicate another man. But Troy Davis issued a statement this morning saying, “I will not stop fighting until I’ve taken my last breath.” What Troy knows is that all of us still have the power to choose life.
