The Gift of Words

He’s been gone for over fifty years, but I can still see him as though I had been in his presence only yesterday. I can still hear his...

It’s that time again when we get a little more reflective than usual. We look over the past 365 and smile to ourselves for what we got right and shake our heads over some of those decisions that got away from us. We may not make any resolutions, but we may make initial plans that we’ve been putting off. Somehow the dropping of the ball at Times Square gives us the impetus to make sure that this time next year a least something works out differently. We may decide too many inc

We unwittingly put so much onto our bodies. It takes a science degree to understand the list of ingredients lotions and hair care...

Besides board games and double Dutch, summers also meant Mitch, the good humored ice cream man. We always heard his truck music before he...

So often writers complain that they’ve lost their inspiration to write. They don’t feel creative. The white page just stares at them, and...

We numbered a family of five when my parents purchased a three-story brownstone in the now gentrified neighborhood of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The house was on a one-street block of stoned, row houses. Three houses retained their front gardens. Everyone else smothered any potential for rose bushes or hedges under a slab of cement. This made it easier for most families. The only gardening they had to worry about centered around the children they planted. And in 1953, there wer

In the community where I spent my formative years, I'd pass many schools, liquor stores and bars, but I'd also pass a church on just about every block. On one main thoroughfare, I’d pass a pretty large Catholic church with a stone building crowned with two huge towers . A few blocks away, a Nazarene church with historic grey brick sat behind a wrought iron fence. Then I’d pass at least two store-front churches before I arrived to mine, all within ten, short, city blocks. Beth

I had acquired the credentials I needed to become a high school English teacher and then an administrator. Each year I worked to implement a new Comprehensive Educational plan and before I knew it thirty-two years had gone by. I looked back over the years with satisfaction. Muscles for the hustle: Arthur Ashe monument at Corona Park, NYC (Photographer, MJM). I had served with distinction in one venue but that journey had concluded. My children had finished college and h

I had jitters when I first stepped in front of a classroom. I had jitters leading my first department meeting—and maybe my second and third. I also had jitters sharing my writing. I just had to push past them. As humans or divine disciples, we all have had doubts and fears from time to time. God can handle all that and move us forward anyway. He knew what I needed to keep me going, so I was able to keep it moving–uncertainties and all–from the moment I started until now. It h

I didn’t have too much surface space in my kitchen in Bed-Stuy, so when I cooked, I kept it simple. Yes, I used cutting boards and mixing bowls. But much of my cooking equipment was stored in pantries or cabinets. Walking back and forth was problematic, time was of the essence, so I kept equipment usage to a minimum. The kitchen table was my preparation space, but if family preferred sitting there instead of the dining room, I was cramped. Though oftentimes they become chef’s

I walked into the Garden Department of my local box store and there they were: Burpee seeds for arugula, carrots, and string beans and so many more––a farm-variety of seeds. My mother-in-law used to plant watermelon, collard greens and string beans from these packs in the lush soil by her home in North Carolina. My people have a peculiar relationship with seeds. Under duress, my ancestors, soil people themselves, were forced to prepare another’s soil, till another’s and and p