by Toni McNaron | Mar 27, 2020 | Uncategorized
I believe John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, offers us helpful words for most of life’s puzzles and quandaries. In his preface to that poem, C. S. Lewis said that anyone who sits down to read this work is a different person when they get up from...
by Toni McNaron | Mar 3, 2020 | Uncategorized
Sunday found me in the pew at my church listening to the first reading from the Bible. It was the official creation story found in Genesis, all about Adam’s being created by God and then later Eve’s being made by taking a rib from Adam’s side. My...
by Toni McNaron | Feb 20, 2020 | Uncategorized
On this date in 1931 a baby girl was born in Lorain, Ohio, who would grow up to become a writer who changed not only how we think about black history and people but how we think about language in the service of fiction and reality. Yes, I mean Toni Morrison. We lost...
by Toni McNaron | Feb 9, 2020 | Uncategorized
A friend sent me a fascinating and gripping article about the black woman director, Dee Rees. After years of doing strong work in theater, e.g., “Pariah,” “The Last Thing He Wanted,” and the powerful “Mudbound,” Rees is currently...
by Toni McNaron | Jan 30, 2020 | Toni's Blog, Uncategorized
We all have been thrilled if we’ve watched people let groups of doves fly into the sky to mark some special personal occasion like a big birthday or a special rite of passage. Sometimes these white flyers have been part of a celebration of a life that has...
by Toni McNaron | Jan 14, 2020 | Uncategorized
At my church this past Sunday, the choir sang a powerful piece composed by Pavel Tschensnokoff, a Russian composer living between 1877 and 1944. The title is “Salvation Is Created” (1912) and the only words are “Salvation is created in the midst of...
