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People long to belong
Reminder! I’ve moved my blog to a substack newsletter! Read my latest newsletter on belonging and subscribe (it’s free!) to follow me there. Grateful for you! Teri
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Something to Say has moved!
Dear friends and followers of my “Something to Say” blog, I’ve finally made the transition from blogging to newsletter-ing! My Substack newsletter, “Encouraging Courage” is where I’ll be writing monthly posts about how I am living my values, pushing past fear and practicing liberative work. I’d love for you to join me on Substack. Follow…
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Book Review: Sanctuary, Being Christian in the Wake of Trump
On June 1st, twenty priests gathered around St. John’s Episcopal Church in downtown Washington D.C. to offer water, snacks and hand sanitizer to those demonstrating and denouncing police brutality after the death of George Floyd. These priests were among those tear-gassed and forcibly removed from the area so President Trump could walk across LaFayette Square…
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Family Politics
In a recent phone conversation, I proudly told my dad about my first book contract, which followed three years of hard work. “That’s great!” he said. “What’s it about?” Sheepishly, I responded, “Well, it’s called Ten Risks Privileged People Should Take.” “Just so you know,” he said, “I would not buy that book with that title.”…
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Teaching Empathy during COVID
Empathy is a trait that serves us all, especially during a public health crisis. All around the country, school boards are struggling with decisions on how to best educate our children through a public health crisis. Our family, my husband and I and our two kids, attended a recent school board meeting where it would…
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Book Review: Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints
I’d heard of Daneen Akers’s new book, Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints in a Facebook Writer’s Group. So I was excited to get the chance to review the book through the Speakeasy network. When I received the book in the mail, I was struck by how large it is. This is a beautiful 8 x…
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Book Review: Spiritual Truth in The Age of Fake News
I recently joined the Speakeasy blogging book review network because, well, I LOVE FREE BOOKS, and I’m interested in helping to promote books by women clergy and BIPOC. Spiritual Truth in the Age of Fake News by Episcopal priest, Elizabeth Geitz, was the first book I chose to review through this new network. Through a…
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Theater as a Resource for Ministry
More and more, I have been turning to theater to resource my ministry. Before being cancelled by COVID-19, I had planned on students acting out a scene from “The Revolutionists” in our college’s Baccalaureate Service as a way to set up my sermon entitled, “No Time for Fiction or Fear”, playing off the last line…
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Why is dystopian fiction a comfort right now?
I just finished reading Ling Ma’s novel Severance published in 2018. It blew my mind. Here’s a quick synopsis: Shen Fever, a virus originating in China, has spread globally and shut down the world. A small group of survivors find each other, including the main character Candace Chen. They hole up in an abandoned mall as…
Teri McDowell Ott 