Woman Behind The Pulpit

  When I was a little girl, I would often go visit my grandparents on the weekend. While there, I had the privilege of drinking fresh well water.  Now, I don't know about you, but I loved the natural flavor that came from well water. I loved the fact that there were no added chemicals to clean it or enhance it. It was just good, pure, untainted, drinking water.  From the time I was a little girl, I became a bit of a water snob. Unless it is well water, I hate drinking from the tap. I can smell the chlorine (even though it has been filtered out) when I turn on the sink in a city. City water just does not taste as pure--as fresh. It is tainted. I have always preferred drinking from the well.  But most people don't have wells on their property nowadays. Why? Well, because they require work to install. In order for a well to produce good drinking water, someone has to dig deep into the ground. They can't just dig until they hit mud either, they have to continue to dig until inc

People get very responsive when they hear someone speaking about Privilege. They think that the word “privilege” means that there is an implication that the life of the privileged person was not hard—but that is not the case at all. As a former foster child, I want to share with you how many people have experienced privilege that I will never know. When I was a little girl, my siblings and I experienced high levels of neglect and abuse. My baby sister was hospitalized a couple of times due to malnutrition, I experienced physical abuse at the hands of my older brother (and at one point when I was seven was cornered and strangled by him), and my other sister—who was only three years older than me—had to grow up far too fast and be “mom” to my younger sister and me… because our biological mom was mentally absent. My younger sister, although she does not remember most of what we experienced with our biological mother, experienced lasting effects from her lack of care. For years follo