Writer Ellen Morris Prewitt Blog

#MLK50: What was the Civil Rights Movement?

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 2, 2018. Posted in General, Racism to Reconciliation. 7 Comments on #MLK50: What was the Civil Rights Movement?

Here in Memphis, we are about to roll from Holy Week and Easter Sunday into the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s assassination. In preparation for this, I’ve been reading Where Do We Go from Here, Dr. King’s last book published in 1968. This phrase—Where Do We Go from Here?—is the tag used by MLK50...

We are Risen

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 1, 2018. Posted in General, GOD, LOVE. No Comments on We are Risen

On Easter morning, we sing a song of “He is Risen,” and thus miss the point. We are risen, a Resurrected people. This Easter season (yep, there’s an Easter season—50 days of it) I will walk eyes-open every day for images of Resurrection. The season is one of joy. Y’all know me—the images will be my own. Happy...

Forgiveness Reiki

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on March 29, 2018. Posted in General, GOD, LOVE. 4 Comments on Forgiveness Reiki

I knelt at the altar rail. Recently out of the hospital, I was frail. I stood 5’5″ and weighed 92 pounds. I was 26 years old. The other supplicants—ordinary men and women who had taken their lunch break to attend St. Andrews Episcopal Cathedral’s noontime healing service—gathered around me. They laid hands on me. The priest, a...

Activists Weren’t Born that Way

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on March 24, 2018. Posted in General, GRIEF, Racism to Reconciliation. 4 Comments on Activists Weren’t Born that Way

When I wear my Black Lives Matter t-shirt, I’m self-conscious at first then I forget about it until a middle-aged white man keeps staring or a woman my age stares and looks away and stares back to make sure she’s seen what she thinks she’s seen. And then I feel a bottomless well of pride for the activists who speak up and...

The Fog

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on March 18, 2018. Posted in GRIEF, LOVE. 10 Comments on The Fog

They are elderly and beloved. They drove from Jackson to the coast, as we once did when I was a child. When they arrived, we piled into the car and toured, the way folks once piled into automobiles and went motoring when that was considered the thing to do. We laughed and remembered days that stretched back to when they were children. Some...

Beware the Crazy Toilet

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on March 14, 2018. Posted in General. 9 Comments on Beware the Crazy Toilet

I wasn’t asking for much. I only needed to pee. But the toilet had a mind of its own. It kept flushing. An automatic flusher. Annoying, show-offy, overachieving toilet. Making that whooshing noise then shooting water into the bowl like a Yellowstone geyser on steroids. I jumped up. If you think I’m gonna sit there and let a mad...

Bead by Bead: The Ancient Way of Praying Made New

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on March 13, 2018. Posted in General, GOD, Writing. 4 Comments on Bead by Bead: The Ancient Way of Praying Made New

My definition of the Holy Spirit at work is when you think you’re doing a very important x, but, unbeknownst to you, the true point of your activity is y. You trundle along, doing your x, and all the while, God is doing y. Suddenly, a beautiful thing blooms into being, something you had no idea was in the works, and all you can do is stand...

Latest Edition of Weird

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on March 7, 2018. Posted in General. 4 Comments on Latest Edition of Weird

It takes a lot to break through my dedication to finishing an ongoing project and write a blog post these days, but the last 24 hours have succeeded. Or, as I like to think of it, The Latest Edition of Weird in My Life: Today when reading the front page of the local newspaper, I learned how mules chew (sideways, if you feel I’m...

The Pope’s Cat

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on February 25, 2018. Posted in General, Writing. 6 Comments on The Pope’s Cat

When I read a book to my grandsons, I read from the beginning. Specifically, we pause and read the page containing the author’s name and illustrator’s name (I’m sure there’s a fancy word for this page, but I don’t know what it is.) I start here because I want the boys to understand that who wrote the book is important and who illustrated it...

Mardi Gras Day

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on February 13, 2018. Posted in General, LOVE. 5 Comments on Mardi Gras Day

It isn’t what you’ve seen on YouTube. It’s not drunkenness and lifting tops. It’s exuberance and cleverness and so much work spent on costumes simply because being alive is an amazing wild ride. I wore a diorama of myself. That’s my book, THE BONE TRENCH, in the diorama. It may never get sold, so I made one...