streets

Jennifer Grant 9-19-2011

218097_19360164080_551149080_224360_2855_nCould my mission really be confined to seeking the best for the children to whom I gave birth? Or, as a Christian, should I define "family" more broadly? I'd see images of women and children suffering around the world, and those puzzling verses returned to my mind. Maybe, instead of obsessing over the happiness of my babies, I should stick my head out of the window, so to speak, look around, and ask, "Who is my family?"

It didn't feel right to simply shrug my shoulders and blithely accept my good fortune as compared to that of people born into extreme poverty. I'd buy my kids their new school clothes and shoes and then think of mothers who did not have the resources to provide their children with even one meal a day. I'd wonder: what's the connection between us? Does the fact that $10 malaria nets in African countries save whole families have anything to do with my family buying a new flat-screen TV? Should it? Is there any connection between me, a suburban, middle class mom, and women around the world?

Evan Trowbridge 9-06-2011

[Editors' note: This post is part of a series over the last few weeks on youth homelessness. In the September/October issue of Sojourners magazine, the Ali Forney Center and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) ran an ad to raise awareness of the serious problem of LGBT youth110906_carl homelessness.]

Fact 1) About 40 percent of the homeless youth in the United States identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.

Fact 2) One in four teens rejected by their families becomes homeless.

Fact 3) Parents who identify as strongly religious are three times more likely to reject their children.

Yet for Carl Siciliano, founder and president of the Ali Forney Center, these aren't just facts -- they are his daily life.

Jeannie Choi 8-12-2011

'Sunlight behind clouds 1, Cumbria, 2010' photo (c) 2010, John Davey - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/Here's a little round up of links from around the Web you may have missed this week:

  • Sandwich coasters are fun.
  • Voters put corn kernels into jars with their favorite Republican presidential candidates.
Gary M. Burge 8-02-2011

I prefer my revolutions to be simple: A corrupt dictator/tyrant, an oppressed population, inspired reformers who risk their lives, calls for democracy, waves of marchers in the streets, background music from Les Misérables. The stories from Tunis and Cairo were epochal. The Arab spring was in full bloom as calls for participatory government could be heard from every corner of the Middle East.

Then there was Syria. The Assad government has been infamous in its intolerance to dissent. It is a military regime whose 30-year leadership under Hafez al-Assad (1930-2000) established it as one of the most severe in the region. In 2,000, after the death of Hafez, the world was intrigued to see his second son -- Bashar al-Assad -- ascend the throne. Bashar was an ophthalmologist who had studied in London, but because of his older brother's death in a car accident in 1994, he was called to follow his father. Bashar speaks English and French fluently and has been as critical of the U.S. as he has been of Israel.

Eugene Cho 6-09-2011

Have you heard the story of Sung-Bong Choi? I absolutely love these kinds of stories. And it's not that I just love these kinds of stories, I need these kinds of stories. Perhaps, we all need these kind of stories.

The scenes were stunning: Hundreds of demonstrators pouring across the fence between Syria and the Israeli occupied Golan Heights.

Nadia Bolz-Weber 5-20-2011
Is it just me, or does anyone else think it's kind of weird how we've named Thomas, "Doubting" Thomas. We don't give the other characters in the New Testament little nicknames ...
Maryada Vallet 4-26-2011
This week marks the one-year anniversary of the signing of SB 1070 in Arizona, the controversial bill that mobilized thousands around
Hannah Lythe 4-07-2011
[Editors' note: As part of Sojourners' campaign to end the war in Afghanistan, we will run a weekly Afghanistan news digest to educate our readers about the latest new
Alex Awad 4-05-2011

People can take a certain amount of oppression. However, when it gets beyond their ability to tolerate, they rebel.

Before last week, we'd rarely thought about unions or union rights, but living in Madison these days, it seems that we hardly make it through an hour without hearing the words "unions" and "collective bargaining." In the past week, we've tried to give ourselves a crash course on what e

Nathan Schneider 2-11-2011
Throughout the coverage of the uprising in Egypt, we've been repeatedly told that Egyptians trust their military more than any other pa
Sheldon Good 12-13-2010
Anxiety set in for many people in Haiti long before Dec.
Randall Amster 8-16-2010
The clock nudged toward midnight on a cool Arizona summer evening.
Maryada Vallet 7-09-2010
"Maybe I would be better off just crossing again and going to prison for many years." Upon hearing this, an instant knot forms in my gut.
Allison Johnson 3-26-2010

More than 200,000 people descended on Washington, D.C., for the March for America last weekend.

Jim Wallis 3-18-2010

On Sunday, a major march for immigration reform will take place in Washington, D.C. Tens of thousands of people will gather to call on the White House to lead, and put forward an immigration reform bill whose time has come.

Lisa Dougan 3-09-2010

My alarm went off at 5 a.m. today. As I sat up and unzipped my sleeping bag, a gust of Oklahoma wind bitterly ushered me into a new day. Drops of rain splashed my face, extinguishing the last few embers of my sleepiness.

Jeannie Choi 3-08-2010
This weekend I have the privilege of representing Sojourners magazine at the annual