yes we can in DC

N Street Shelter shelters homeless women and is part of Luther Place, a social justice community and church. While I can't wait to read what Hamline students write, I figured to start off this 2009 on site blog with a comment about DC in 2009.
Last time I was here with a CSI group to this very place was in 2002. DC is so different. Yes there are people living on the streets, in the metro entrances. Yes, there was a soup kitchen in a park between here and the White House. Yes, the grass on Smithsonian mall is patchy and in the breeze it gusts and stings.
Yes also to the excitement that is palpable, the pictures of Obama eating a Chili Dog at Ben's Chili Bowl, which like this church, opened its doors during the riots after the assaisination of MLK Jr, the steady thrill that the President's motorcade is in the neighborhood, and the poise of the people protesting on the anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war, yes, DC seems different. It feels anchored in the long struggle for racial justice and that grounds the thinking and the work about the economy and the other struggles for justice in our time.
Thanks for reading and keep popping in as students begin to blog.