Writer Ellen Morris Prewitt Blog

The Howard Thurman Walk

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on July 4, 2023. Posted in Featured, General, GOD. 6 Comments on The Howard Thurman Walk

I started this July the 4th morning with a walk. A join virtual walk. My Contemplative Justice group yesterday decided to walk together wherever we were at eight o’clock this morning. We’ve been reading the work of the mystic Howard Thurman, whose original entry to God was leaning against the trunk of an oak. This morning, we would do...

Releasing Those We Love to God

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on July 2, 2023. Posted in Featured, General, GOD. 6 Comments on Releasing Those We Love to God

We read the “Abraham almost kills Isaac” story in church today, and I have thoughts. Mostly on what this Genesis story says about releasing those we love to God. Mother, her children, and God When my mother was a young widow, she had her children baptized. She had returned to her native Mississippi where she’d given birth...

What Makes You Come Alive?

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 24, 2023. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 4 Comments on What Makes You Come Alive?

It dawned on me (ha, ha—pun alert) sitting here staring out the window at the breaking morning light (what has happened to me? why am I waking up so early? who the hell knows): I have sorta/kinda become the family historian. How can I not admit this when I recently THREE times told to family members the story of the Mississippi ancestors, a story...

Mississippi on LGBTQ+ Rights

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 8, 2023. Posted in General. 6 Comments on Mississippi on LGBTQ+ Rights

I was standing in the line to the canteen on the City of New Orleans train. The news was still fresh: our armed services had lifted their “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Now official policy would allow LGBTQ+ folks to serve their country without lying about who they were. A sailor wearing his white uniform stood two people...

Death is a Comma

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on June 7, 2023. Posted in Featured, General, LOVE. 9 Comments on Death is a Comma

When you lose someone you love, it frightens you. Not just for the loss of them. Your grief opens up the possibility that you will lose everyone you love. But if everything is process, nothing is broken, and maybe nothing needs to be fixed. Rachel Naomi Remen We humans give tiers to love. Those that are more important, and even most important....

White Christian Fear of Racism

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 4, 2023. Posted in Featured, General, GOD, Racism to Reconciliation. 7 Comments on White Christian Fear of Racism

I’ve hit a conundrum I can’t understand. I’ve been Christian since the moment my mother hit her knees and, against every fiber in her being, gave up her motherly control over me to have me baptized as “God’s own forever.” As such, I know sin as separation of God. I also know the good news that repentance leads...

The Bishop Came to Our House

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on May 1, 2023. Posted in Featured, General, GOD, LOVE. 8 Comments on The Bishop Came to Our House

Yesterday, in church, the Bishop came to our house. She wore her gold hat and white robes. She carried a carved shepherd’s crook, because she is the shepherd of our souls here on earth. At her side stood a tiny woman called the Bishop’s chaplain, as if the Bishop gets to travel with her BFF spiritual friend always. The Bishop was...

The Devil You Know

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 25, 2023. Posted in Featured, General, In the Name of Mississippi novel, Racism to Reconciliation. 7 Comments on The Devil You Know

I saw the book at Novel Bookstore in Memphis. Its vivid orange and black cover drew me in. I realized the author was Charles Blow, who I had followed on Twitter before I got off Twitter. I always liked what he had to say. In the back of my brain, I seemed to recall he had moved from somewhere in the North to Atlanta. I picked up “The Devil...

Matters of the Heart

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 23, 2023. Posted in Featured, General. 4 Comments on Matters of the Heart

We kids loved Pogo. The old comic books were stacked in the attic of our duplex on Belhaven Street. They lived there with everything else from Mother’s “Before Us” life. Her heavy bowling ball from her competitive bowling days. Her very own ice skates she wore to glide on lakes so frozen you could drive a car across them. That...

White People’s Fake Fear

Written by Ellen Morris Prewitt on April 20, 2023. Posted in Featured, General, Racism to Reconciliation. 11 Comments on White People’s Fake Fear

One of the major rites of passage in my young life was finally getting old enough to shop with my friends in downtown Jackson. We spent many a Saturday morning planning where we would shop as we walked up and down Capitol Street, the city’s main commercial artery. The plan was to ride the bus from our Belhaven neighborhood to downtown—all...