Posts from Preachy

I started hating this tradition. In doing so, I ran from myself, more worried about whether my authentic self was acceptable. I would make faces and moan about how annoying the process of applying and removing Mehndi is – just like my British friends do now – while also secretly loving how beautiful and elegant my hands looked.

From Salawu Olajide, our colleague at Olongo Africa, who is also the author of Death to the Baobobs!

The women in my church took their fashion style from 1 Timothy 2:9: “I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes…” This verse had been used to admonish us, over and over. So much so that I only wore small studs in my ears during weekdays while going to work and removed them when attending church on Saturdays. My only visible sin was my plaited, uncovered hair.

Last fall, with the arrival of the rainy season we were told to expect, I began washing the dog’s feet at the apartment door after mornings in the dog park. We bought a raw aluminum bucket at the hardware store, and I used that and a rag. Anticipating our return from the park, my wife […]

Each Friday, the folks at Preachy will offer you something of a reflection for your weekend. This Friday, we present our re-casting of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies cards. We call our version Opaque Strategies. Here is Opaque Strategy number nine: Watch something rot. It might do you some good. Or not.

I. What defines Ìdí-ẹgbẹ́ as Ìdí-ẹgbẹ́ is the huge baobab tree there. I can’t guess its age, but by the hypothesis by which science uses to predict the age of ancient trees, we can agree it is centuries old. Everybody met there including Sunday Alálùjọ̀nú, its devotee. Ìdí-ẹgbẹ́ is called Ìdí-ẹgbẹ́ because it used to […]

Each Friday, the folks at Preachy will offer you something of a reflection for your weekend. This Friday, we present a Space Object of the Month, in which a Preachy co-editor invites you to learn how to use his telescope (with him): Items I will try to find: The Perseid Meteor Shower Why?: ’Cause … it’s pretty damn easy to see

There is one very short spectrum when it comes to the way people view misfortune. There are those who look at it as mere bad luck, and there those who see it as a repercussion for the wrongs they may have done in the past. And there is a third group: those who attribute it to the work of Satan. This group is where my parents belong.

Each Friday, the folks at Preachy will offer you something of a reflection for your weekend. This Friday we offer a playlist about transitions.

I lived in fear of the idea that if I didn’t abide by both customs I’d be disowned as a young adult from one of the lives that was defined by them. This tension defined how I grappled with the Christian faith, not in terms of understanding scripture, but rather in the spiritual connection I have with God.

Each Friday, the folks at Preachy will offer you something of a reflection for your weekend. This Friday, we present our re-casting of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s Oblique Strategies cards. We call our version Opaque Strategies. Here is Opaque Strategy number eight:

This post is co-published in partnership with our Brick House colleagues at Olongo Africa

I remember feeling as if my worldview expanded dramatically after leaving the bubble of private Catholic school. In public school, I met people of all backgrounds and was introduced to atheism, agnosticism, and evolution. My new friends influenced me to break the rules and challenge the norm in several areas of my life. I preferred what I found there.