Monday, February 9, 2009

Saints Wanted

I'm thinking of doing a series on modern saints for Lent. Our Bible study will be on discipleship so it would be nice if the sermons somehow linked with the Bible study.

I'm thinking MLK, Oscar Romero, Dorothy Day, Clarence Jordan, Millard Fuller. Are there other ideas? I'd like to use less well known folks. There's lots of good stuff to say about Millard who has just gone on to his reward but there are some real negatives in his background. Of course there are negatives to anyone. I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions for other folks. I'd like to tie something in the life to the scripture, but I figure with four texts to choose from, I can finesse anything. Any women come to mind? MLK is such an obvious choice, I'd like someone else. On the other hand, four southerners (counting Archbishop Romero may not be quite kosher) is a real positive. And does someone have a good book on Dorothy Day? Or Clarence Jordan?

1 comment:

Dr. Laura Marie Grimes said...

Fanny Lou Hamer comes to mind, and there are a lot of other women of color that could be a great alternative to MLK. Don't know them all but right now a lot of the Black bloggers are doing some wonderful things for Black History month. Above all I would suggest visiting Diary of an Anxious Black Woman (linked on my blog) and checking out her daily series of great Black women from last Feb.--it's on the sidebar.

There are a lot of good things about Dorothy Day and one of the best is her autobiography, The Long Loneliness. The recent movie about her also did a very nice job and included some of the parts she left out (e.g. the trauma of an early breakup and pressured abortion, which makes sense of why her daughter's birth was so tremendously healing later).