Tag: poverty
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The Not-So-Calm Before the Storm: Jesmyn Ward’s Katrina Story
Katrina doesn’t arrive until Salvage the Bones is almost over, but the hurricane has always been coming. She broods over the whole of Jesmyn Ward’s epic 2011 novel, even when the only one who seems to know she’s on the way is Esch’s Daddy, whose preparations seem excessive to his four children living with him…
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Love and Grit in What Used to Be America: Sarah Smarsh’s Heartland
This used to be America. This rural landscape I walk through, drive through, every day is what American dreamers used to look to as the source of our national ideals. Field workers and farmers were the backbone of our strength. “Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass…
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How to Get Out of the Inner Circle: Ministry with the Poor
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” [Philippians 2:5-6, NRSV] This, I believe, is one of…
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“Pessimism, Hopelessness & Doom” – Traveling the Virginia Extremes with August Wallmeyer
August Wallmeyer paints a distressing picture of rural Virginia in the 21st century. His little book, The Extremes of Virginia, which highlights the realities and common challenges of three regions of the Commonwealth—Southwest, Southside, and the Eastern Shore—gets your attention quickly. You start to see why he calls the regions “the Extremes,” and it isn’t just because…
Heartlands 