Circuit Writer

I’d like to dedicate this blog post to Bobbie Tetley, my high school AP American History teacher who instilled in me a love of history, and even though I am on the eve of completing graduate school, she remains one of the most challenging, demanding, and respected voices not only of my educational career, but of my life.  Thank you, Mrs. Tetley.  – cwc

————

This first came to my attention through an action alert from the United Farm Workers, an organization I’ve become connected to through my denomination’s participation in the National Farm Worker Ministry.  I received an email asking me to “Stop Texas from erasing Cesar Chavez and Hispanics from school books.”  It provided information about an upcoming session of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) that will be voting on new curriculum standards for social studies for the state of Texas.  UFW asked me to compose an email to Gail Lowe, the chair of the Texas SBOE demanding that they not further marginalize the voices of Latina/os within the history curriculum. continue reading…

This is the pastor’s column for The Tahlequah Christian for the week of January 10-16.

You know, I’ve come to a realization as of late. I’ve realized that we don’t always agree. Now before you set aside the newsletter and quit reading, that’s not the realization. It’s what comes after the disagreement that makes for the realization.

But I’d like to set the stage before I share. One of the places I’ve noticed we don’t always agree is in our times of study. Book studies, Sunday School, other discussions: we all have our differences of opinion, and like good Disciples, when it comes to the faith, we have our differences of interpretation and practice. And in our general board, although I think I can still count on one hand the number of votes that haven’t been unanimous, our discussions show that we’re not some monolithic body where everyone is on the same wavelength. We all bring our ideas, patterns, and histories to our discussions, and sometimes that can cause a little friction. continue reading…