“Over the past several weeks, I have been carrying the poignant weight of communal grief. The season began with the passing of Claudette Colvin, the forerunner to Rosa Parks, whose story has too often been marginalized by the historical conditioning that allowed space for only one “acceptable” Negro woman at a time. On March 2, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus nine months before the Montgomery Bus Boycott began.

Mother Colvin passed on January 13, 2026, and was laid to rest on January 24. Unlike Mother Rosa Parks, she did not lie in state at the Capitol. While people gathered from across the country to honor her life, presidents did not attend her service. Yet…”

“What if we saw the neighborhood as a kind of church—a place to love and care for folks? What if our neighbors weren’t strangers living behind closed doors, but humans given to us by the Divine to be in mutual care with? That kind of care doesn’t mean trying to change someone or give them what we think they need. It means slowing down enough to listen—to hear what people actually say they want and respond with love.”

I had a dream that Randy Woodley was leading a group of people in the art of pigeon washing. Soap suds and brushes. The most sudsiness lather was needed. Bubbles floated around our heads. The birds were alive and receptive to the cleaning. Quite calm, cooing tender. Alive in our hands. 

A large group of people were participating,  diverse in both ethnicity and age. While I could not identify their faces, it sure seemed like the array of people Dr. Woodley draws to his unique ways of teaching. 

We were eager to learn and participate.