Featured Ministry The Alban Institute builds up congregations and their leaders to be agents of grace and transformation to shape and heal the world through publishing, workshops, online activities, education, consulting, research etc. More Current Articles in Holistic Ministry: • Desmond Tutu Announces Retirement by Al Tizon • Nonviolence in an Age of Terrorism by Al Tizon • To the Foul-Mouthed, I Became Foul-Mouthed in Order to Win Them by Al Tizon • Edinburgh 1910: 100 Years Worth of Changes by Al Tizon

Urban Verses is the fruit of 10 years of one California-born, Amherst-educated white-Asian woman's life, work and worship in the predominantly African-American neighborhood of west Jackson, Mississippi. What began as short-term urban ministry "project" turned into a call to community and the building of a new life alongside the people of Jackson's Voice of Calvary Fellowship. Urban Verses explores in poetry and fiction such topics as inner-city living, reconciliation, parenthood, love, theology, and more. Retellings of biblical stories, tributes to present-day heroes, laments about crime, musings about identity and relationships-whatever the subject, each vignette offers a contemplative glimpse into the mind and heart of a young woman of faith seeking to understand and live out God's deep concern for the city, for the poor, and for reconciliation.

Here's one of her poems:

Location

They say I'm brave to live here-
A courageous soul, more so than most
And I believe that they intend it
As a compliment to me
But what they fail to understand
Is the grave insult implied
To those I choose to live among
If being their neighbor
Makes me a hero

Why should it be harder
For me to dwell beside
A family who differs from mine
In hue and size of paycheck
Than it is to share a street
With those who show no sympathy
For the differences and weaknesses
Of others?

What would they say
If they knew the truth-
That the suburbs with their perfect lawns
Their swimming pools and soccer moms
Terrify me
Far more than the dangers
(Real and alleged)
Of my beloved 'hood?
What would they say
If they discovered this fact-
That I am not brave at all
Just more at home
Where I can be
As broken as the next?

Intrigued? Click here to order your copy of Urban Verses.