United States of Cars
for K. M. Schwartz Be cool in your car Make out in your car Drink tequila in your car Listen to Led Zeppelin cranked in your car Go from point A to point Z in your…
Author: Mark J. Chmiel
Sumud
Another sunny Ramadan morning in Rafah We head out to meet some people in Block J It, too, had been battered during Israel’s Operation Root Canal A few weeks before we internationals arrived We attract…
Word of the Day
Saudade, noun, Portuguese, pl. Saudades 1. longing, yearning, ardent wish or desire 2. homesickness, nostalgia.… Estou cada vez com mais saudade de voce = I miss you more and more every day. Meu coração tem…
Share the Wealth with Julie Johnson–Creative Serving: Giving Back to St. Louis with Photography and Art
Julie Johnson is a photographer and public school teacher in North St. Louis County. She owns a card company called STL Heart Cards. She captures off the beaten path spaces, people, and experiences in St….
Faces
I wrote last year of the ‘third way,’ and of the daily living being the test of sumud. It is a test I failed, perhaps because I didn’t have the kind of hope necessary for…
Photography as a Way of Life
for Oliver, Cami, and Julie Sebastião Salgado, From my Land to the Planet Contrasto, 2014 I first heard the name of Sebastião Salgado from Mev in the early 1990s. She esteemed him more than any…
A Visit with Fernando Cardenal by Bryan Melcher
Bryan Melcher received a Mev Puleo Scholarship to study and work in Nicaragua this past summer. We met up this week at Café Ventana and he shared some of his stories. He mentioned he and…
Share the Wealth with SLU Puleo Scholars: Learning a Theology of Accompaniment
Three students from Saint Louis University will share stories of growth, challenges, and joy about their summer studying liberation theology and accompanying the people that they encountered in Nicaragua. Meg Buckley is a senior studying…
When Grades Are Everything
Dear Henry Once I had a student who was my age Shameeka Smith was in her second marriage Getting her BA And taking good care of herself She appreciated the class Because we wrote freely…
Leah and Wangari
In this morning’s class, we read the passages below from Wangari Maathai’s memoir, Unbowed. Leah then spoke about her country of Kenya and answered our many questions. She told us that when she was a…