During the days I was in Texas before my dad died, my friend Christy sent me a record by Darden Smith called Love Calling. The whole album is filled with songs of informed hope and determined love. Her offering was truly a gift I needed in those moments. One line from the title track says,…
One of the traditions in church I don’t take easily is that of changing the lyrics of hymns — for whatever reasons. Down the years, however, those who have served on the committees who have collected and compiled the hymns have felt free to alter the texts (as they call them) and move on by…
Many years ago, my friend Billy Crockett and I read an article about a ship captain who, with his crew, abandoned ship when it began to sink, leaving the passengers on board. The story led us to the song title, “Down With the Ship,” which ended up being a song about Martin Luther King. When…
today we walked to the farmers’ market sunshine flowing like a cape some are gathering in washington to hope and dream out loud linda ronstadt said she has parkinson’s and will never sing again I watched a little boy of joy dance in the middle of the coffee shop marks three weeks since my dad…
One afternoon, when I was in fifth grade, my father bent down to pick up an ice cream freezer in the carport of our home in Lusaka, Zambia. The freezer was well-used and I have fond memories of sitting on a towel folded across the top of the gears as Dad cranked the handle to…
the first poem I learned was for my father and was the first poem he ever learned: missing has anybody seen my mouse? I opened his box for just a minute just to make sure he was really in it and while I was looking he jumped outside I tried to catch him, I tried,…
I spent the morning working on this slideshow. The music is from the “True Grit” soundtrack. Peace, Milton
My father, Milton Cunningham, died August 3, 2013. He was a little over a month away from his eighty-fifth birthday. What follows here are what I said at his memorial service last Wednesday, including a poem I wrote for him entitled “The Skin You’re In.” I’m sure many of the words I write over the…
I spent another Monday in Raleigh this week — my third one. The North Carolina Chapter of the NAACP has sponsored the events, which have become known as Moral Mondays, as a response to the damaging laws being passed down by our state legislature during this session which include cutting unemployment benefits to 170,000 of…
I preached at our church yesterday. I went a little “off book” during the sermon, so the manuscript is the best recreation I could do. _________________________________ Luke 7:36-50 “Forgive Us Our Debts” A Sermon for Pilgrim United Church of Christ, Durham NC June 16, 2013 The listserv in our old neighborhood was active Friday afternoon….