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Christine Black

Christine E. Black's work has been published in The American Journal of Poetry, New Millennium Writings, Nimrod International, The Virginia Journal of Education, Friends Journal, Sojourners Magazine, The Veteran, English Journal, Amethyst Review, St. Katherine Review, Dappled Things, and other publications. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and the Pablo Neruda Prize. She teaches in public school, works with her husband on their farm, and writes essays and articles, which have been published in Adbusters Magazine, The Harrisonburg Citizen, The Stockman Grass Farmer, Off-Guardian, Cold Type, The Free Press, Joyful Dissent, Global Research, The News Virginian, and other publications.

healing culture

Healing the Culture with Poetry and Song

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We now endure times of deconstruction that feel unprecedented, crises of confidence in almost all parts of our culture. With institutions crumbling, we may also question the language, the words, that built and sustain these institutions. Many words no longer mean the same or have the same associations — “Left” and “Right; “Liberal” and “Conservative;” “safe” and “free.” Relationships rupture.  This rupturing may create openings for new meanings, associations, and alliances.


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bureaucratic doublespeak

Bureaucratic Doublespeak Gets People Killed 

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Orwell argues that these language patterns destroy truth and beauty and clarity; they cloud thinking and collapse culture with their obfuscations. When reading or listening to such speech, we find ourselves mired in the muck of sloppy language that confuses, disorients, and depresses, and in the extreme, such language gets people killed, because if we don’t question it, allow it to frustrate and anger us, it lulls and numbs our minds.


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ruination of children

The Ruination of Children

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 With the flip of a switch, the real world they knew ended. When they were confined to their rooms and houses, friends and music, color and life, humor and competition, all lived inside screens. Why wouldn’t they turn there to those worlds when this world could collapse in an instant? No wonder screen worlds seem better than this one. Are fake worlds better? How will we repair this one?


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local alternatives

What a Local Alternative Is Really Like

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Demand for local processors has swelled in the last three years because shutdowns and lockdowns scared people about food sources being jeopardized and supply chains disrupted, so they sought local alternatives. With economic uncertainties looming, families and friends processing their own, or neighbors’, farm animals may become more common.


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The Work of Human Hands

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While people stayed in houses, sewage plants and wastewater treatment facilities continued to operate. People had to work at power plants to supply electricity to homes. Hands had built cellphone towers and satellites to enable phone and Internet reception. More hands maintained the towers and satellites. Before 2020, we may not have remembered or seen these real people with real hands doing real work in the physical world. Their lives mattered then and they matter now – even while many others stayed home or are still staying home. 


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The Speakeasy Churches of 2020 

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They were meeting; I did not have to wear a mask. They even had Bible study on Wednesday nights, where I could sit with others, all unmasked, and listen to talk of Biblical stories and themes that had sustained people for centuries – stories of mercy and perseverance, of holding onto hope in terrible times, when such hope seemed impossible; stories of miracles arriving through the darkness.   


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The Urge to Shame, Purge, and Exclude Diminishes Ourselves

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In these times of summarily rejecting people we disagree with or treating those with differing opinions as dangerous or diseased, I have felt led to remember what I would have missed if I had rejected certain people with whom I disagreed on significant issues but from whom I had also received wonderful gifts.


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