Drick Boyd's Blog
American Oligarchs
What is an Oligarch? Like many others, I have been gripped night after night by the evening news reporting the latest attacks and devastation being inflicted on the people of Ukraine by the Russian military. I am supportive of the efforts by the nations of NATO to...
A Pacifist Response to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine
A Sermon Before Desert Storm In January 1991, I was the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Winona, MN. Early in that month President George H.W. Bush announced that the U.S. military would be deployed to the country of Kuwait, which had been invaded by Iraq, its...
An Open Letter to Rep. Liz Cheney
NOTE: Below is a letter I am sending to Rep. Liz Cheney (R- WY) who was recently censured by the Republican party for serving on the House of Representative Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building with a particular focus on the...
Selma Now and Then
In June 2013 I visited Selma, Alabama as part of a Civil Right Rights bus tour organized by Dr. Todd Allen of Messiah University. Our tour guide on that portion of the trip was Joanne Bland. Joanne was 14 years old when the famous confrontation on the Edmund Pettus...
In Memory of bell hooks
Gloria Watkins, better known as bell hooks, died today (December 15, 2021). She was 69 years old and had been suffering from a chronic illness. She was an author, social critic, teacher, and prophetic voice. Whenever I read her writings, of which there are many, I...
Truth on the Scaffold and The Big Lie
What is Truth? This past Sunday (November 21) was Christ the King Sunday in the Christian liturgical calendar. Christ the King is the last Sunday before the beginning of Advent, the four Sundays leading up to Christmas, and the celebration of the birth of Jesus. The...
My Prayer for Kyle Rittenhouse
I am praying for Kyle Rittenhouse. Like many people, I followed the trial of this 18-year-old man who traveled from his home in Illinois armed with an AR-15 and medic’s kit, ostensibly to help stores from being damaged by potential rioting. But instead, he got...
Jon Gruden, Zero-Sum Thinking and The Big Lie
The Resignation of Jon Gruden On Monday, October 11, Jon Gruden resigned from his position as Head Coach of the Las Vegas Raiders in the NFL (National Football League) after the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times revealed emails in which Gruden repeatedly made...
Morality, Ethics and the Big Lie
In his collection of meditations, Deep is the Hunger, Howard Thurman asks this question: “Is this a world with moral meaning at the center?” He goes on to say that this is not a question that can be answered with empirical research or an accumulation of data....
Seeing The Light, Being the Light in the Era of the Big Lie
“For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.” Amanda Gorman Light and Darkness At the end of September, I visited Minneapolis, Minnesota on personal business, and took time to visit the George Floyd Memorial in...
The Big Lie and Our National Dark Night of the Soul
The Womb Not The Tomb On New Year’s Eve 2016 Rev. William Barber, co-founder of the Poor People’s Campaign, sponsored an interfaith Watchnight New Year’s Eve at Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C. For many gathered that evening, there was a somber and sober...
Reflecting on September 11 – Twenty Years Later
Almost anybody 30 years or older probably remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard that the World Trade Center had been attacked on Sept 11, 2001. I was teaching a class of first-year students and some other students ran into our class,...
Countering “The Big Lie”
When apparent stability disintegrates, as it must — God is Change — People tend to give in to fear and depression, To need and greed. When no influence is strong enough to unify people they divide. They struggle, One against one, Group against group, For survival,...
What Do We Say About Afghanistan and Haiti
Over this past weekend I was stunned and horrified as I watched the reports from Afghanistan and Haiti. I suspect many of you were as well. What are we to do and learn from these tragedies? Afghanistan In the case of Afghanistan we saw frantic and terrified Afghans...
A Plea and Confession to Anti-Vaxers and Anti Mask-ers
If COVID has shown us anything, it is that despite our differences, we are connected, we are contagions for one another, we are linked to each other at the most basic, biological level.