I am a New Orleanian and those of us who consider New Orleans home only have to leave our city for a few days to understand the spirit of place that is community. But spirit alone cannot sustain community; along with the spirit of a place, community members need very real resources to thrive. In this regard, theorists MacIver and Page offer a good definition of community. In their 1949 […]
Darlene Wolnik | Food, farmers markets, and community
As a blue-collar kid raised in the downward-spiraling Midwest, I never really understood the idea of languorous family dinners, large holiday gatherings and impromptu get-togethers. My family, like so many others, broke into pieces early on with my parents’ divorce. Since earlier generations had died young, or moved to other states for employment reasons, my family was tiny to begin with, so the lack of relatives left no discernible hole […]
Linda Biehl | Radical forgiveness
In 1993, Amy Biehl, a 26-year-old Stanford University graduate, was a Fulbright scholar in South Africa, researching black South African women’s struggle for equality in the new constitution being negotiated to replace the apartheid government. On August 25, she left her office to drive three colleagues home to Gugulethu, a township outside of Cape Town. En route, she was spotted by a mob marching through the township, shouting ONE SETTLER, […]
Beth Goodman | The right to choose
In 2001, as my sister approached her 40th birthday, she decided to try one last time to give birth through in vitro fertilization—a process she had tried several times without success when she was married, a decade earlier. Although single now, her biological clock was ticking. She’d saved enough money as a self-employed floral designer to cover her medical expenses and planned to work through her pregnancy so that she could […]
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