Category: The Journey
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Keep knowing the radical hope of Azaleas for motherhood!
We didn’t go to church last year. We didn’t celebrate with other mothers or listen to the special Mother’s Day prayers from our Jesuit Priest. We didn’t even get the flowers we normally receive at the end of mass, a symbol of our Church’s reverence for today. The pandemic with all its adversities was to…
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Keep the healing power of writing for yourself also known as auto-ethnography!
I learned about auto ethnography the other day. Partly because I have been searching for meaning, including understanding for what I have being doing with writing as I do, every single day on this blog. Auto-ethnography I learnt, is a methodology that seeks to connect personal experience to cultural process and understanding, particularly from the…
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Keep Radio Diaries and their 25 year legacy in mind!
Before there was Humans of New York, there was Radio Diaries. For 25 years, Radio Diaries was the go to space for extraordinary stories of life, one person at a time, one history at a time. It’s a rare kind of journalism, Ira Glass, a famous NPR host proclaimed, one that makes us see what…
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Keep being light!
Some may never get your ways. That’s okay. Some may say it’s impact is not understood. That’s okay too. Some may say you work too hard and for nothing. That’s truly okay too. In fact not getting your ways or understanding what you do is perfectly fine. So long as you know who you are.…
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Keep imagining grace from micro aggression!
Micro aggressions are everywhere especially in academia. Uncovering them is key. Last week in discussions with a colleague, we shared how this word manifests in workplace environment. Not because we didn’t know it has always existed in academia, but to see it in full display made us cringe. It begins with small acts of exclusion.…
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Keep crowning Virgin Mary, mother of all families!
The month of May is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Today we crowned her head with roses, covered her body with blue scarf and adorned her fingers with a white and pink rosary. It’s subtle things like this that make my heart swell with love and pride for our church family in the Ville. We…
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Keep India in mind!
I have a friend in India. She needs your prayers. India is literally on fire. I asked how she was doing. Her parents are both in the hospital on ventilators. She is at home trying to breathe while remaining calm. Every thing is a mess and their is no help in sight. I asked what…
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Keep the duality of fragrant plantain lilies with life!
I am drawn to duality. The prolific Igbo author Chinua Achebe once described its importance in this way ‘where something stands something else will stand beside it. Nothing is absolute.’ Seeking a second point of view is essential for life. The intricate and deep structures that inform us are rarely examined when you take a…
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Keep blues skies on a clear day post this pandemic!
Blue skies on a clear day. Trees, confident ones too, standing tall next to the sun. All glorious, all majestic, is the sun, blazing, on a glorious day where the blues skies are clear. I imagine these words whenever I see this picture painted by my daughter. It was from her girls scout meeting this…
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Keep communities designing transformative interventions by communities themselves!
If we keep doing what we have been doing, the odds of getting the same results will be high. It’s for this reason I am drawn to grants that ask for innovation. Transformative ones too. Today, I sat through an NIH webinar focused on a transformative grant application to address health disparities and advance health…
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Keep flowering dogwoods’s full Calcium potential in mind with motherhood!
One of the key micronutrients for plants essential for stabilizing cell walls and membranes is calcium. It also acts as a second messenger helping plants sense and physiologically respond to environmental cues. So a soil’s calcium content is crucial for plants and their survival. Enter flowering dogwoods, a key source of calcium. One of gems…
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Keep thriving like Bald Cypress trees!
We had a quiet earth day today. Maybe it’s the emotions from the week, the guilty verdicts, and accountability for a black life that mattered. Maybe it’s a mother plea for her son, gone too soon. Maybe it’s the fact that we find ourselves here again this time for a 16 year old girl. Maybe…
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Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor 