I hope to see you at some point during the conference, Julie, and just know that I have a separate folder in my email just for “J Hester Writing.” I return to your notes and the prompts and am so grateful you use your gifts in service of the rest of us. I think, like Naomi Shihab Nye, you help make a world we all want to live in. Writing can and does heal! (And I, too, must always have my own room.) I’ve not been to Montgomery—saving that one—but the Civil Rights tour here in B-ham is profound.
Welcome to Birmingham! Growing up here in the 1960s, I had a front row seat to the Civil Rights Struggle (what a euphemism!). The bombing of the 16th St. Baptist Church had a profound effect on me..the girls were my age, doing exactly what I was doing that Sunday morning: sitting in my Sunday School class in the safety of my church. But evil invaded their sanctuary, not mine. It is still as hard to understand how such hate could exist now as it was then. One of the things that struck me in visiting the Civil Rights Museum was how, despite different circumstances, is how much we had (and still have) in common - faith, music, food, clothes, love of family and friends….Perhaps if we could focus on our similarities not our differences the world would be a better place.
I hope to see you at some point during the conference, Julie, and just know that I have a separate folder in my email just for “J Hester Writing.” I return to your notes and the prompts and am so grateful you use your gifts in service of the rest of us. I think, like Naomi Shihab Nye, you help make a world we all want to live in. Writing can and does heal! (And I, too, must always have my own room.) I’ve not been to Montgomery—saving that one—but the Civil Rights tour here in B-ham is profound.
Welcome to Birmingham! Growing up here in the 1960s, I had a front row seat to the Civil Rights Struggle (what a euphemism!). The bombing of the 16th St. Baptist Church had a profound effect on me..the girls were my age, doing exactly what I was doing that Sunday morning: sitting in my Sunday School class in the safety of my church. But evil invaded their sanctuary, not mine. It is still as hard to understand how such hate could exist now as it was then. One of the things that struck me in visiting the Civil Rights Museum was how, despite different circumstances, is how much we had (and still have) in common - faith, music, food, clothes, love of family and friends….Perhaps if we could focus on our similarities not our differences the world would be a better place.