How did a small group of citizens persevere for so long to block an interstate route through the park? They cultivated relationships with the place, through walks in the forest and picnics by the lake. Close connections led to enduring affection.

Why did we, in Memphis, not have power service interruption? The simple answer is that Tennessee did not receive the brunt of the severe weather like other states did.

The gallery resonated deeply with what we’re experiencing right now, outside the walls, in real time.

During this Lent, the Prophet Isaiah’s strident call — given in God’s name — asks us to do our fasting by “releasing those bound unjustly.” May that perspective lead us in our national debate on raising, for the first time in 12 years, our federal minimum wage.

This week, the city’s Division of Parks and Neighborhoods will unveil the first Parks Master Plan in more than 22 years. The 10-year plan is ‘based on countless hours of community engagement and research.’

The state granted the oil pipeline a permit. The Army Corps of Engineers approved a fast-track permit for the project. And here’s the detail that astounds: Neither the state nor the feds consider groundwater or the aquifer.

While cities across the U.S. are moving toward roads for all users and equitable, place-based strategies promoting safety and access, Memphis is often stalled and focused on crime and punishment or bending to the will of the auto-centrics.

Once we have gotten to know the people who have called Memphis home through the good and the bad, we can start to understand this place we inhabit together.

“Memphis needs the trusty Mid-South Coliseum right now, and it’s within our means to call its name from the end of our civic bench once again.”

‘The point is not to determine the merits of public education versus private education. Why can’t we champion both?’

Carrying Christian symbols in the midst of violent attacks and mob rule insults our Christian faith. Crosses and signs saying “Jesus Saves” are blatantly out of place as our nation faces insurgency and rebellion.

You’re entrusting a tax preparer with sensitive information, so it’s important to do your due diligence in choosing one.

Scott Morris: “The year of COVID-19 taught me that there might not be time for all the fanciful dreams we put on hold.”

Perhaps one lesson from 2020 is that helping other people requires thoughtful consideration for what someone else actually needs and wants. It’s a deeper kind of call and response, and it might require breaking established habits.

We can pledge not to go “back to normal.” Normal, in the best of times, found us donating to GoFundMe campaigns to cover emergency medical bills of folks in our music community. Normal was $100 a gig for musicians. Normal is the system that’s broken.

With the continuance of the COVID crisis, the intangible economy has come to pretty much a grinding halt. There is little or nothing to offer the world because group experiences are on hold. You see it with football, basketball, concerts and movies.

Virtual learning does not mean that our kids have to be in front of a screen all day. Work with your teachers to try to have arts and crafts, distance activities, exercise, and, yes, breaks to go outside.

Stax Music Academy fostered small group sessions to help students cope with the stress of living in the time of a global pandemic.

“We can seize this opportunity to become more whole, more grounded than we used to be.”

Trump’s inexplicable refusal to accept the outcome of a fair election, combined with the shameful complicity from elected Republican leaders, is driving our country to the brink of chaos.

Whether it’s for psychological refuge, racial healing, creative expression or illumination of those in the shadows, it’s undeniable that we need the arts in our lives.

Julia will not remember her long days in the ICU, nor our experience this year of COVID-19, nor even the beauty of her baptism. But all who love her will.

To celebrate the work artists and arts organizations have created in 2020 despite the pandemic, ArtsMemphis is introducing Arts Week Dec. 7-13. ArtsMemphis provides grants to 70 arts organization, and this year supplied emergency funds to individual artists.

So many of us are feeling raw and on edge, more so than usual. Now, more than ever, talking to a professional counselor might be life-changing.

‘The cries that the ESA program will gut classroom funding and leave the most vulnerable students with fewer resources is antithetical to both the purpose and benefits of the ESA program.’