Public Spaces

About Public Spaces

Public Spaces chronicles two suburban émigrés' encounters with city people creating different kinds of local, public life. www.polidevo.com (https://www.polidevo.com/s/public-spaces?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Bryce Tolpen

Category

religion & spirituality · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

3 Dec 2023

Latest episode

19 Aug 2026

Latest episodes

18 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   19 Aug 2026

   The wounded organizer

   What happens when a community organizer’s difficult background—the one that leads them into mentoring and community organizing in the first place—returns and threatens to destroy their work? And when a community organizer’s life falls apart, what happens to the young people they’ve worked for years to mentor? Jason Williams knows. After two decades of mentoring boys and young men and helping to organize Birmingham’s inner-city neighborhoods and schools, his life fell apart. And in public, for all the world to see. He just published a book about it: Hypocrisy, Hedonism, Hope & Healing (https://www.lulu.com/shop/jason-williams-and-diana-klaube-and-michelle-barrington-and-dr-jh-williams/hypocrisy-hedonism-hope-healing/paperback/product-w42wgdk.html?q=Hypocrisy%2C+Hedonism%2C+Hope+%26+Healing&page=1&pageSize=4). I recently spent a day shadowing Jason as he mentored and taught in school and worked with inner-city teachers and administrators. Then I interviewed him about his 2022 crisis, what he learned from it, and how it has impacted his public work. I feel like Jason’s story and his insights require two very different podcast episodes. The first is a 14-minute audio episode, linked at the top of this page, that focuses on how different categories of people in Jason’s world treated him after his crisis. Spoiler: if you love the Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life, get ready for the real thing. The second is a video of our full, hour-long interview, which you can see by clicking the YouTube video below. The interview covers more about Jason’s crisis and its aftermath as well as these and other topics: * What is a street pastor? * How do many churches discourage the transformation that conversion begins? * Why is proper mentoring always a two-way street? * The course of a sudden identity crisis For a more complete registry of topics, see the timestamps listed below the video. Whether you’re religious or not, and whether you work in community organizing or not, I think you’ll relate to Jason’s story. It comports with Elias Crim’s insight about those who respond to the “moral beauty” of the poor: I’m not sure whether certain life experiences are needed in order to respond to moral beauty. But I suspect that everything depends on which one of the two great divisions of humanity you belong to—those whose hearts have been truly broken by the world and those not yet in that condition. Jason Williams’ heart has been broken twice over, once by his fatherless upbringing and again by the recent crisis that his upbringing helped to precipitate. The first led him to serve the poor. The second led the poor to serve him. Timestamps on the video version: 00:01 — Introduction to Jason Williams 00:28 — Why Jason wrote Hypocrisy, Hedonism, Hope & Healing 01:23 — How his midlife crisis changed his theology 02:00 — Intellectual information about God hadn’t filtered down to his heart before his crisis 02:40 — A newfound confidence versus a previous, feigned certainty 05:00 — How he was called to inner-city service, and how he struggled with that calling 07:17 — The zealous-Christian-to-pastor pipeline 08:18 — Titles pigeonhole us and aren’t flexible enough 08:57 — His realization that he didn’t love the people he was working with 12:27 — The polo pastor and the street pastor 13:06 — Not trying to win God’s favor by loving the poor or advocating for justice 13:47 — What’s a street pastor? Jesus as an example 15:50 — Street pastoring and community organizing 16:10 — The structure of street life 16:34 — Mentoring as the usually ignored central ask of discipleship 17:48 — Mentoring doesn’t involve fixing people. It involves encountering Jesus. 18:50 — The mentoring organization that he founded and ran for ten years 19:05 — The immediate cause of his crash in 2022 20:08 — The authentic Jesus versus the container system that purports to house Jesus 20:56 — Categories of people and how they reacted to his collapse 21:33 — His mentees called him to accountability 22:34 — The need to end top-down ministry 23:56 — It takes a village of years and relationships 25:23 — The book doesn’t tell people what to believe. It’s an invitation to examine our inherited and sometimes unacknowledged beliefs. 28:39 — Deep confidence versus shallow certainty (redux) 29:34 — The book as a mirror 31:14 — Two ways to get to bedrock: collision or crisis 32:53 — Modern Western churches as silos 37:12 — The rejected ones redeem others 38:28 — Why he couldn’t run away from his crisis 39:26 — When no one approves of you 40:26 — Having to sit in the unknown for a long time 41:10 — The effect of many churches’ distaste for psychology and philosophy 41:58 — The effect of Jason’s not having a father 42:24 — God’s invitation to the hard work to understand what was motivating him 42:54 — “Walking in the Spirit” as cooperating with God’s healing us of effects of abandonment and sexual trauma 43:22 — The attraction to religious spaces that support dissonance 45:14 — Behavior modification is not the path to change 47:41 — “My life is centered on what can be restored” 51:20 — Jason’s community organizing work 53:46 — After his collapse, he leaves the results of his work to God 55:06 — After his collapse, he’s more open to changing his mind 55:39 — The slow start of his new business Purifico, which hires Birmingham youth, and his reaction to it 56:33 — Jason has stopped coming to conclusions about things prematurely 57:33 — What “a living sacrifice” suggests 59:31 — How churches tend to conform themselves to business-oriented thinking 1:00:12 — If we think we know it all, we can’t be transformed by our mind’s renewal 1:00:50 — What it takes to speak to someone’s pain 1:03:22 — What Jason would tell a community organizer having a personal crisis 1:05:35 — Jason’s new book that he’s currently writing 1:10:09 — Why his pen name is “The Liminal” Other resources: Jason Williams’s and Gerrel Jones’s Barbecuing Sacred Cows (https://www.youtube.com/@barbecuingsacredcows) YouTube channel Podcast episode about Renew Birmingham (https://open.substack.com/pub/politicaldevotions/p/community-organizing-like-jesus?r=2xryfr&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web) Hypocrisy, Hedonism, Hope & Healing (https://www.theliminalwrites.com) website This episode’s title, of course, is inspired by Henri Nouwen’s 1979 classic The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/122882/the-wounded-healer-by-henri-j-m-nouwen/). The book’s publisher, Random House, writes that “According to Nouwen, ministers are called to identify the suffering in their own hearts and make that recognition the starting point of their service.” In this episode, Jason demonstrates the hard work in the streets and in the heart required for a community organizer to fully answer that calling. Get full access to Political Devotions at www.polidevo.com/subscribe (https://www.polidevo.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

2. 

   28 Jul 2026

   Katie Couric's copying me

   I spend my early mornings in the mulch, sitting against the air-conditioning unit. I have my smoothie, and I have my cat. Our house sits at the end of a cul-de-sac, but one back corner faces our neighborhood’s main drag. Our neighbors, in the cool of the day, walk their dogs along this drag. The cat and I have learned to ignore the dogs. Stretched out on the mulch, the cat no longer even flinches when the unit’s fan cuts on. But what do the neighbors think? We’ve partially hidden the unit with tall, willowy Pampas grass, but it’s easy to see us between the tall tufts. To complete the picture, I’ve thought about returning the neighbors’ discreet glances with my field glasses stored somewhere. The mulch is our cat’s idea. He had a rough upbringing, growing up with a hundred other strays in Nashville. When we got him in February, the shelter made us sign papers that we’d accompany him if we let him outside. The cat, for his part, wants our company constantly and won’t stray ten yards from our doors. He signals each morning when it’s mulch time. Together, Cat-Cat and I are getting domesticated. My world is contracting. I spend time in Birmingham and Nashville, but I spend most of my days in between, in the small town of Columbia. In my mulch. I feel like Jonah in that last chapter on the outskirts of Nineveh, that great city. It’s just him and his gourd and his God. Things are still happening in Nashville. ICE continues to persecute its Coptic residents. After a recent Coptic Orthodox service, one of the parishioners explained to me—in my capacity as a podcaster? Or as a white American?—that he and his people just want to live in peace. To the Orthodox Copts, I’m a member of a privileged class. Maybe Jonah, as a member of an oppressed people, doesn’t fit my predicament. I’m more like the aristocrat in A Gentleman in Moscow, a book I’m reading that my brother, also recently retired, recommended. In the novel’s first pages, the Bolsheviks sentence the Count to life in a Moscow hotel. The well-traveled Count spends several of the subsequent pages in the company of the hotel’s one-eyed cat. My world’s contraction has recently expanded. You’ve heard that Katie Couric had a several-hour memory-loss episode last month? So did I. When asked who was president, she thought it was Joe Biden (https://katiecouric.substack.com/p/a-day-ill-never-remember)? So did I. My episode came two days before hers. My siblings call her a copy cat. Like Couric, I was diagnosed with transient global amnesia. But because last month’s was my second episode, and because most TGA episodes are “one and done,” I’m seeing a specialist at Vanderbilt in September to (hopefully) rule out seizures. Meanwhile, I’m not allowed to drive. Never mind that I drove fine during my first episode fifteen months before. Never mind that Couric, by all accounts, acquitted herself well as a panelist during her episode, though she doesn’t remember saying a word. She’s jet-setting all over the place, I’m sure, while I’m spending more time in the mulch. There’s only so many times I can bum rides from Victoria or my dog-walking neighbors. First I was mulched. Now I’m also grounded. What if I found those field glasses? I could become a kind of suburban flâneur. Would that satisfy my public itch? The eighteenth-century flâneur, of course, didn’t hide behind tall grass but walked the streets. Flâneurs were jostled by the crowds, but their movements, unlike the crowds’ movements, weren’t hurried or purposeful. The flâneurs’ very aimlessness made “things reveal themselves in their secret meaning,” as Hannah Arendt describes the idea. Flânerie remains an urban epistemology, a kind of shell collecting cum conchology along the urban shore. Walter Benjamin, though, for whose writings, according to Arendt, “the flâneur became the key figure,” references a fictional character stationed at home like me to describe the flâneur’s attitude. The protagonist “cousin” in an E. T. A. Hoffmann short story watches people at market day from his apartment window. Looking at them through his opera glasses makes him feel superior. He is the subject, and his neighbors are his objects. But the difference between the cousin and the flâneur doesn’t end with the cousin’s opera glasses. The story’s mise-en-scène is all wrong, Benjamin says. The cousin’s not in Paris or London, where he wouldn’t have focused on particular people but on the masses and the peculiar world that frames them. And he’s looking from home, like me. Still, even on the city street, the nineteenth-century flâneur participates in the public sphere’s domestication. She feels at home, Benjamin suggests, because the streets feel like home. On the street, she recognizes various rooms at home that reflect her work and domestic life: ". . . he is as much at home among house façades as a citizen is within his four walls. To him, a shiny enameled shop sign is at least as good a wall ornament as an oil painting is to a bourgeois in his living room. Buildings’ walls are the desk against which he presses his notebooks; newsstands are his libraries; and café terraces are the balconies from which he looks down on his household after his work is done." Note the silence of Benjamin’s flâneur among his urban “rooms.” The flâneur sees and records, but he doesn’t speak. He represents what sociologist Richard Sennett finds dispositive in nineteenth-century public life: the gregarious, convention-following (and convention-transgressing) eighteenth-century public person has devolved into a silent spectator. As a result, “Observation and ‘turning things over in your mind’ take the place of discourse.” Our neighbors are friendly. One of my walking companions—someone with a vast capacity for friendship—has introduced me to any number of people. My walks with him are enjoyable social explorations. It’s a great neighborhood. But when I walk in my neighborhood, have I really left home? Does my conviviality with my neighbors make me less silent? All of the people I’ve interviewed for the Public Spaces podcast act locally. Many act to create communities in neighborhoods that have been ravaged by capitalism or racism or both. Other people denigrate some of these efforts, claiming that organized political action itself tends to encroach on the turf of family, neighborhood, and/or organized religion. Whether the localism in question feels more conservative or progressive, it may not go far enough in reviving the city. Sennett argues that, in the nineteenth century, localism was introduced to circumscribe people, particularly the working class, to ghettos within the city. In Paris, “the intermixing of classes within districts was reduced by design”—often by physical walls and differences in prices for food and homes. During the same century, London created the same class-conscious localism through distance between neighborhoods of different classes. City planners who champion localism may be inadvertently reinforcing this breakup of the city, Sennett warns: "The celebration of localism and of the small-scale neighborhood on the part of well-meaning planners today is an unwitting reinforcement of a new form of domination, a deprivation of the city, imposed on workers in the [nineteenth] century." Some forms of localism might leave out a vital aspect of citizenship, Sennett argues: "Now precisely what gets lost in this celebration [of the ghetto] is the idea that people grow only by processes of encountering the unknown. Things and persons which are strange may upset familiar ideas and received truth; unfamiliar terrain serves a positive function in the life of a human being. The function it serves is to accustom the human being to take risks. Love of the ghetto, especially the middle-class ghetto, denies the person a chance to enrich his perceptions, his experience, and learn that most valuable of all human lessons, the ability to call the established conditions of his life into question." As a volunteer at our town’s regional hospital, I try to learn something about people while escorting them to different parts of the campus. Around half of those I’ve escorted—and most of those I escort are older people—haven’t lived outside of southern Middle Tennessee. People in both my white neighborhood and my Black church sometimes talk about how this local phenomenon narrows people’s experience and keeps people from questioning their locale’s pervasive ideologies and mindsets. I often find a pervasive inability to identify privilege and systemic injustice particularly in “middle-class ghettos”—white, suburban neighborhoods. To discover the existence, much less the power, of invisible systems, people must take steps to transgress localism. People who transgress local boundaries are cosmopolites. Sennett defines the term in the context of a far more sociable public age than our own: "A cosmopolite, in the French usage recorded in 1738, is a man who moves comfortably in diversity; he is comfortable in situations which have no links or parallels to what is familiar to him." Surely this comfort level comes from seeking out similar situations earlier. Or in being forced into such situations: "Without inherited wealth or inherited feudal obligation, the cosmopolitan, whatever his pleasure in worldly diversity, of necessity must make his way in it." People who find the need to code switch or to speak one language at home and another at school or work are often cosmopolites by necessity. Maybe Jonah is my guy after all. God bids him to transgress national boundaries, and even when fleeing this God, Jonah transgresses them anyway. Robert Alter captures the cosmopolitan theme of Jonah’s journey: "Jonah engages with no Israelites in the story. First he has an exchange with the polytheistic mariners, then he addresses the Ninevites, and his closest connection is with two presumably insensate living things, a very large fish and a leafy plant. The God with whom he has such difficulties because of his Israelite nationalist mind-set is not chiefly the God of Israel but the God of the whole world, of all creatures large and small." YHWH is the God of the local and the international. He’s the God of cattle in sackcloth and of Cat-Cat in mulch. But in the Christian Bible’s pages, he’s chiefly the God of the bride, New Jerusalem, the cosmopolis coming to earth. Get full access to Political Devotions at www.polidevo.com/subscribe (https://www.polidevo.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

3. 

   9 Jun 2026

   Yes, but can it preach?

   One day I’ll write about my journey to a loving Black church in southern Middle Tennessee, but not today. My only preliminary today involves what a white man is doing in the pulpit of an otherwise Black church. When I started going to church here, I never dreamed of preaching or teaching. But you know how the Lord speaks? The Lord spoke to the pastor that I should preach. But I told her and the Lord no. Way too much bad historical precedent. People need their own spaces. She’d pause, taking in what I said, and respond, “No, the Lord told me . . .” So here I am, preaching to my friends at a beautiful church. Doing it fulfills, in a small and unexpected way, a longstanding dream. Why do almost all churches resist learning about and implementing at least some of the great political theology that has come out in the past almost hundred years? Are we still intent on ceding to oppressive governments the political callings that Jesus and his first disciples embraced? But dangerous times can lead us in new directions. My talk two Sundays ago focused on Louisiana v. Callais, decided less than a month earlier. We went over the Supreme Court decision’s effects: the immediate gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the longer-term eradication of Black officeholding. My focus was on St. Paul’s approach to the same kind of covenantal backsliding among the Galatian churches. In this video, I tie my recorded talk to the slideshow I was presenting then to demonstrate those parallels better. My talk distills my article on this subject (https://open.substack.com/pub/politicaldevotions/p/galatians-and-the-voting-rights-act?r=2xryfr&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web) and modifies it for the pulpit—and for an informed and practicing Christian audience. In truth, I didn’t really preach much the other Sunday. I taught. As I wrapped up, I knew that the pastor would need to give the call to prayer, to faith, and to action in response to the Court’s wholesale attack on African-American voting rights, and the congregation would need to discuss it. And that’s what we did. Above: a photo from my time at the May 16 All Roads Lead to the South rally in Montgomery, Alabama. Get full access to Political Devotions at www.polidevo.com/subscribe (https://www.polidevo.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

4. 

   28 Apr 2026

   First class, then justice follows

   Arabic is Nashville’s third most-spoken language, and around 80% of its speakers are Coptic Christians. Unlike members of almost every other U.S. Coptic community, most of Nashville’s Copts are working-class people. Yet most of these working-class Egyptian Christians are invisible to most other Nashville residents. This invisibility is disempowering and deliberate. Competing and flattening narratives from liberals and conservatives and even many U.S. Coptic Orthodox clergy members tend to discourage Nashville’s Copts from organizing and from participating in mutual aid. Enter Elmahaba Center (https://www.elmahabacenter.com), an independent Coptic community organization founded in 2019 by Lydia Yousief. It serves all of Nashville’s Arabic-speaking immigrants, refugees, and their children—and anyone else in town who asks for help. Elmahaba offers mutual aid, tutoring, college prep classes, art classes, civic engagement, case management, livestream informational sessions for new immigrants, Arabic and English classes, and an oral history project. Elmahaba Center also creates and sponsors art and cultural events around Nashville. (Because they’re Middle Tennessee’s only Arabic community organization, the’ll create and sponsor other programs as needs arise.) Elmahaba Center is unique because of its focus on an unserved community—the Arabic-speaking working class. Learn how Elmahaba Center navigates false and deficient narratives to support Coptic and Muslim working-class solidarity, often against the wishes of the workers’ religious clerics. Learn how Elmahaba’s leadership does so by living out a vibrant Coptic Orthodox faith. You’ll hear from Lydia, from two volunteers (well, three, counting me), and from Anthropology Professor Candace Lukasik, who has written about Elmahaba’s work in her recent book Martyrs and Migrants. You’ll hear parishoners singing in a Nashville Coptic Orthodox Church and volunteers talking about their work as they hand out diapers to Nashville’s young Arabic-speaking families. My thanks to Keria Nashed and Lydia for meeting with me and to Lydia for being my guide to the liturgy during my visit to Nashville’s St. George’s Coptic Orthodox Church. Get full access to Political Devotions at www.polidevo.com/subscribe (https://www.polidevo.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

5. 

   17 Feb 2026

   Copts between martyrs and migrants

   The genuine article, and with the video. — Bryce Coptic Christians who have moved from their Egyptian homeland to the United States face an unusual quandary. Since 2015, they have become for many American politicians and churches stark evidence of worldwide Christian persecution. But the dominant culture—including some of these same politicians and churches—in practice often categorizes Copts as the undesirable Other. Although Copts practice the most ancient extant expression of Christianity, many Americans find its liturgy illegible. And though many Copts left Egypt under the threat of persecution, many Americans cannot distinguish them from Muslim migrants from the Middle East and North Africa. How do Coptic migrants navigate between these narratives of exemplary martyrs and undesirable migrants? I interview anthropologist Candace Lukasik (https://www.candacelukasik.com), who writes about these issues in her new book published by NYU Press, Martyrs and Migrants: Coptic Christians and the Persecution Politics of US Empire (https://nyupress.org/9781479833221/martyrs-and-migrants/). I met Dr. Lukasik last fall at the Political Theology Network (https://politicaltheology.com)’s biannual conference in Nashville. She co-facilitated our section “Up/Rootedness” about place and migration, themes dear to my heart. After choosing the section, I found that I had migrated to a land of anthropologists, and I got a three-day practicum there on ways that anthropology can inform political theology (and vice versa). At first, our section seemed a bit like an Indiana Jones convention, full of professors who early in their respective movies seemed to trade in their tweed jackets and classrooms for fedoras and foreign fieldwork. Presenters discussed their extensive and often dangerous work in places such as Kashmir, the Columbian Amazon, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, and Egypt. I discuss some of that anthropological adventure notion with Dr. Lukasik, who has a different perspective. For her, anthropology is both an intellectual and a spiritual practice, and it backgrounds any distance and difference between her work at the university and in the field. While reading her book and interviewing her, I found that anthropology also has led her to remarkable friendships, a subtler and more gracious view of the world, and a conversion to the Coptic Orthodox faith. The video interview is lavishly punctuated with several of Dr. Lukasik’s striking photos from her fieldwork (see Photos & timestamps below). I hope the interview inspires your own desire to cross borders and to learn from and support those you find on the other side. Topics & timestamps 00:30 — Setting the scene of Martyrs and Migrants: the Copts as a Christian minority in Egypt and as an Egyptian minority in the United States; the Copts in the U.S. being understood as persecuted Christians and Middle-Eastern Other 01:35 — Lukasik’s book summary: What has migration to the West done for and to the Copts? What light does the Copts’ struggle shed on geopolitical issues? What issues about the practice of Christianity today do the Copts’ experiences raise? 04:30 — What drew Lukasik to her work with the Copts in Egypt and in the U.S.? Her background, her trip as a teen for an Arabic language program and her discovery of Coptic Christianity and its “in-between-ness” within Christianity. 06:30 — Her trips to Egypt and slow discovery of migration’s effects on the Coptic tradition 07:10 — Her growing relations with Coptic friends and families; her description of her fieldwork, particularly during the violence of 2017 09:00 — The effect of the martyrdom of the twenty Egyptian Christians and one Ghanaian in Libya in 2015 and subsequent violence in Egypt had on her ongoing work 12:00 — The effect of images of this violence on the Coptic diaspora and on transnational relations among Copts 13:10 — How fieldwork affects her teaching; how she presents anthropology to perspective students; how she has come to understand the interplay of classroom and fieldwork (versus Bryce’s “Indiana Jones” theory of the professor with the adventurous side students hear about but don’t experience); anthropology as attending to the messiness of the world 19:10 — The blend of her spiritual and intellectual journey involving her classroom, her research, and her fieldwork, including her conversion to Coptic Orthodoxy 20:45 — How the situations of Coptic Christians and Palestinian Christians compare with respect to the powerful Christian persecution narrative and the applicability of Lukasik’s concept of an “economy of blood.” The nature of narratives that make a people visible to empire. 24:50 — The “economy” of the “economy of blood” and the “blood” of the “economy of blood”; the “economy of blood” through theological and political lenses 29:20 — How asylum law as practiced with Coptic petitioners often differs from other, less legible Middle Eastern Christian petitioners because of the economy of blood 32:00 — The tension between the Christian persecution narrative and the need for specific harm in Coptic asylum application hearings to create legibility before the law 35:12 — Copts work in law enforcement often to create visibility within the police forces for Copts in the community and to help the forces differentiate between Copts and Egyptian Muslims. Copts work in law enforcement often in an attempt to keep Copts from being seen as the Other. 39:10 — Copts in law enforcement are somewhat like Irish emigres working for law enforcement to become legible as part of their new American community. A group’s distinction from Dangerous Others is part of becoming American. 40:42 — How the Coptic Orthodox Church serves as the governments’ point of contact with its Coptic population in both Egypt and in places like Nashville, Tennessee. The causes and downsides of such relationships: the church wants to play to the role that the broader geography expects of it, but that role is challenged by the needs and perspectives of poor and working-class Copts. 44:12 — The innovative work of Lydia Yousief and the Elmahaba Center in Nashville in community organizing and community support, work that makes up for the inattention to new Coptic migrants by the Coptic Church in Nashville 46:12 — The first Coptic migrants came to Nashville to build the next phase of Opryland 46:52 — How Tyson Foods covered up the exposure of Coptic workers to COVID; how the church discouraged the Tyson workers from unionizing and from forming coalitions with other migrant workers 47:22 — Elmahaba Center interrupts the neoliberal emphasis on who are—and who are not—members of the Body of Christ by emphasizing community needs and the need for different perspectives that a community carries Photos & timestamps 00:31 — Cover of Martyrs and Migrants 05:44 — Candace Lukasik in 2009, visiting around 40 monasteries over four days (https://www.axiawomen.org/wow/candace-lukasik) with a Coptic Orthodox youth group in Cairo 09:36 — Coptic martyr blood behind glass at the Coptic Cathedral in Cairo 16:34 — An image on martyrdom in a Coptic church that Dr. Lukasik used in her class the day before the video. The image is from the bombing near Saint Mark’s Orthodox Coptic Cathedral in Cairo in December 2016. 17:56 — An image on martyrdom in a Coptic church that Dr. Lukasik used in her class the day before the video. The image is from a commemoration room at the Cathedral for the 21 martyrs of Libya. 19:31 — Bahjūra from a rooftop 26:43 — Image from a church in Upper Egypt. It might be seen as a metaphor for thinking about the economy as part of inclusion in the Body and reflection of the outside 27:44 — U.S. and Egyptian flags in a Staten Island home 29:07 — A Coptic Church in Jersey City 30:37 — One of the computers Copts use in Upper Egypt to enter in Green Card Lottery information 31:06 — A white board where Coptic migrants take their photos to apply to the Green Card Lottery in Upper Egypt 37:28 — “Honeywell Security / Proud to be a Coptic American”: issues of security and inclusion 43:47 — An image of St. Mina in a Nashville gas station where Copts work Get full access to Political Devotions at www.polidevo.com/subscribe (https://www.polidevo.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

6. 

   3 Feb 2026

   Community organizing like Jesus

   You live in a neighborhood that’s been overlooked and oppressed for years. Neighbors are turning against neighbors, refusing to lend money or otherwise help one another out. Your neighborhood is a joke to the larger community. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Come and see four inner-city neighborhoods in Birmingham, Alabama. Or hear them, rather, in this 18-minute podcast episode. Gerrel Jones has discovered Jesus as an effective community organizer, and his Renew Birmingham and its extraordinary team of staff members and volunteers are putting Jesus’s community-building principles to work in the four poorest neighborhoods in Birmingham. Renew’s story, its approach and its outcomes will challenge you to help communities in new ways—and perhaps to understand Jesus and his mission in new ways, too. Above: Gerrel Jones, Renew Birmingham Founder and Executive Director Resources: Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America (https://www.amazon.com/Makes-Me-Wanna-Holler-America/dp/0679740708/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2J2V5KTC0A4CC&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.OIbe6r_Hr47sSpNFMuXpWiL89dOnBEx27cO1A5rCTGnBpLmWRT9qQUxzXTmFhEf3Okla2w8V2nMQznzXEgeRhU9Ij4EV4bVpyifOptcRnfI.lymNgaD_PEkuiE4B1y6z_gsgBAleb_BsNd1mkjLOb1Y&dib_tag=se&keywords=make+me+want+to+holler&qid=1769806783&sprefix=make+me+want%2Caps%2C206&sr=8-1) by Nathan McCall Gerrel’s plug for Makes Me Wanna Holler: Man’s Search for Meaning (https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl/dp/0807060100/ref=sr_1_2?crid=JGSXXE3PTH6Q&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.phUc2adLzv8edJKcJfYGiYmYQA_wfSFAPr6oNqdjFnbKjiy95ci0EjAEVKg9W5EE4fQa9I_2MS5VlYdkPUjFnJEOXjGesdwAZ7_KvFyWBziha5tXeQbDq-vkNHgRfZ662Bgqu5Wa31wYFU7Sc9LkZ1sWOjHcbDbv_Pyu2BOO1h3ktqAMKRCpR1b5vuelS2pO2xkdFgWfqCJzvP_2ny0fLOPkaqOH4Yx7KdiOBxRyZoI.YHMoJ70KU5IPCCeko0UM7EKLehot-KxBI_qmjm7Zj6s&dib_tag=se&keywords=victor+frankl+man%27s+search+for+meaning&qid=1769807010&sprefix=victor+fran%2Caps%2C221&sr=8-2) by Viktor E. Frankl Gerrel’s plug for Man’s Search for Meaning: Jesus and the Politics of Roman Palestine (https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Palestine-Center-Library-Justice/dp/1666707422/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0) by Richard A. Horsley Jesus and the Politics provides an excellent theological and historical framework for understanding Jesus’s work as a community organizer. From the publisher: “Learning from anthropological studies of the more subtle forms of peasant politics, Horsley discerns from these sources how Jesus, as a Moses- and Elijah-like prophet, generated a movement of renewal in Israel that was focused on village communities.” Renew Birmingham’s website (https://renewbham.org) Connective Tissue’s great interview of Gerrel Jones (https://connectivetissue.substack.com/p/putting-the-neighbor-back-in-the?utm_source=publication-search) Above: Jason Williams, Renew Birmingham Youth Program Director Get full access to Political Devotions at www.polidevo.com/subscribe (https://www.polidevo.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

7. 

   5 Aug 2025

   Neighborhood public media

   Wes Tank of Milwaukee and Dewey Tron of Arlington, Virginia have left traditional, corporate video directing behind in favor of showcasing their cities’ neighborhoods. As government funding for traditional public media and secondary media classes becomes uncertain, could such private media expertise at the local and micro-local levels create new means of audio and video expression in public spaces? Above: Still from Reimagine Milwaukee Day | Imagine MKE (https://vimeo.com/930993843?share=copy), video by Wes Tank. Our first video episode includes a ten-minute introduction highlighting Wes’s and Dewey’s community video work. The episode moves into an hour-long conversation among Wes, Dewey, and Bryce about their media work, their communities’ needs, and the trends in media production that affect communities at the neighborhood level. The conversation is also sprinkled with relevant portions of more media from these local talents, Dewey and Wes. Wes owns Tank Think (https://www.tankthink.org), a media production company that supports Milwaukee’s arts, literacy, government, health, and social justice. He also co-owns with Sara Daleiden (https://www.polidevo.com/p/listening-for-a-places-public-calling?r=2xryfr&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false) the Washington Park Media Center (https://www.washingtonparkmediacenter.com), which trains neighborhood media people through an audio-visual club and mentoring. Catch Wes’s Vimeo channel (https://vimeo.com/tankthink) for his professional videos and his YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcuLSr4UhAU8Rdegc264srg) for his more insane videos, including his viral videos setting Dr. Seuss’s work to rap. You can watch the complete version of Reimagine Milwaukee Day / Imagine MKE (https://vimeo.com/930993843?share=copy) here. Dewey is a director at Studio PAUSE (https://www.studiopause.com), which serves two communities in Arlington with art studios, galleries, and educational centers for the public. Dewey has documented the diverse Columbia Pike corridor for many years as a member of the Columbia Pike Documentary Projec (https://www.polidevo.com/p/the-pike-the-power-of-humanitys-kinship?r=2xryfr&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web)t. He recently directed the “We Are Barcroft” video series (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqiIfrUoMuQetZLinXxIkr8KTKjXMbHQo) celebrating the lives of several Barcroft residents from different backgrounds. Check out his work on his professional site (https://www.deweytron.com) as well as his experimental work on his YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@DeweyTron). You can watch the complete version of the Columbia Pike Documentary Project Video (https://youtu.be/hUzIIRSi_ik?si=8Scnp0esSQQwboVZ) here. Above: still from Nazneen Aktar — Like a memory in a frame (https://youtu.be/0GQP44k8HOs?si=6q3t518GZFhS3G5T) from the “We Are Barcroft” oral history video series by Dewey Tron. Above: Still from Reimagine Milwaukee Day | Imagine MKE (https://vimeo.com/930993843?share=copy), video by Wes Tank. Above, still from Ronald J. Smith — The thing I learned to do is relax (https://youtu.be/e7z_ksMykJA?si=uRaCGMn9CRxaXtx8) from the “We Are Barcroft” oral history video series by Dewey Tron. Get full access to Political Devotions at www.polidevo.com/subscribe (https://www.polidevo.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

8. 

   7 May 2025

   Turning tracks into public space

   (18-min. podcast episode.) Several American cities have done rails to trails projects. In many ways, Milwaukee’s Beerline Trail (https://www.beerlinetrailmke.org) is like most of the projects. Train service through Milwaukee’s Northeast industrial corridor left, so Milwaukee has turned its tracks into an attractive trail for walking and biking, and the residents and city are still working on it. Get full access to Political Devotions at www.polidevo.com/subscribe (https://www.polidevo.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

9. 

   22 Feb 2025

   The Pike: the power of humanity's kinship

   The Columbia Pike Documentary Project invites us to encounter one of the most diverse communities in the world. With people speaking over a hundred languages living together with little in the way of ethnic enclaves, Columbia Pike in Arlington offers what may be a unique experience in diversity. In this 18-minute podcast episode, I interview project team members Sushmita Mazumdar (https://www.sushmitamazumdar.com), Dewey Tron (https://www.deweytron.com), and Lloyd Wolf (https://lloydwolf.com) about what drives them to document life on the Pike in videos, books, talks, and exhibitions. This episode has some great stories and insights about how a living diversity can make public life richer. Above: Columbia Pike at Walter Reed during the 2024 Columbia Pike Blues Festival Now in its 18th year, the documentary project has other goals besides letting the world beyond Columbia Pike in on this life-changing diverse community. The project * Holds a mirror to the various neighborhoods of Columbia Pike to help them understand themselves another way—as a single, beautiful community * Welcomes immigrants and validates their place in our society * Celebrates the activities of the various nationalities along Columbia Pike * Documents the Pike’s constantly shifting demographics and changing streetscapes for future research Above: my students work with materials on the walls from the Columbia Pike Documentary Project Here are some resources about Columbia Pike and the Columbia Pike Documentary Project, most of which are referred to in the podcast: The Columbia Pike Documentary Project website (https://cpdpcolumbiapike.blogspot.com) The Columbia Pike Documentary Project video (https://youtu.be/hUzIIRSi_ik?si=32eyHPzese0AGRvq) Website for the book (https://www.columbiapikefarmersmarket.org/product/transitions-the-columbia-pike-documentary-project/)Transitions: The Columbia Pike Documentary Project (https://www.columbiapikefarmersmarket.org/product/transitions-the-columbia-pike-documentary-project/) Website for the book (https://www.studiopause.com/projects/recovery)Columbia Pike Recipes for Recovery: Restaurant Stories from Around the World in One Zip Code (https://www.studiopause.com/projects/recovery) The City of Stories project webpage (https://www.studiopause.com/projects/cityofstories) Above: Columbia Pike Plaza Music and sound effects used with permission from BBC Sound Effects (https://sound-effects.bbcrewind.co.uk). bbc.co.uk – © copyright 2025 BBC. My thanks to Lloyd Wolf, Dewey Tron, and Sushmita Mazumdar for the generous gift of their time, stories, and insights. Above: car parked on S Highland Street Above: Lloyd Wolf talks to some of my students in his capacity as our Arlington project’s expert (more tireless volunteer work that Lloyd does for the Columbia Pike community) Get full access to Political Devotions at www.polidevo.com/subscribe (https://www.polidevo.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

10. 

    8 Jan 2025

    Listening for a place's public calling

    20-minute podcast episode. Our neighborhoods are most often like America’s Third Coast, a flyover region on our way to home or work. What would it take for our neighborhoods — urban, suburban, rural, small-town — to become as vital to us as our home or work? Sara Daleiden works on the Third Coast, literally and metaphorically. She facilitates Milwaukee neighborhoods that wish to transform their public landscapes. She’s actually bicoastal, splitting most of her time between Milwaukee and Los Angeles; hence the name of her media strategy and production agency, MKE LAX (https://mke-lax.org). Besides media production, Sara’s work involves organizational, economic, and community development. But mostly her work involves listening to land and people. Above: Sara Daleiden Sara can feel like she moves between two cities even without leaving Milwaukee. These cities are stereotyped as “Black Milwaukee” and “white Milwaukee.” Besides racial tension, Milwaukee has suffered from the end of large-scale manufacturing and brewing over the last half century, turning many Milwaukee neighborhoods inward. Sara and her governmental and corporate partners serve some of these neighborhoods, and their service includes guiding citizens in democratic processes to discover their neighborhood’s public callings. Recently, I interviewed Sara at her media center in Milwaukee to learn how she helps to create public spaces. Our 90-minute talk was one of the richest I’ve ever had. I’ve curated our talk into a 20-minute podcast episode. If you’re interested in what it might take to make your neighborhood (outside of your home) a destination for you and your neighbors, including strangers, you’ll enjoy this podcast. In a separate episode, Public Spaces will explore the Beerline Trail, formerly an old rail line that once served Milwaukee’s historic beer industry. The community turned the rail line into a linear park, which is in use but is still in development. The trail intersects two adjoining neighborhoods that historically have kept apart because of differing demographics. MKE LAX helps to facilitate this project. Here are the resources mentioned in the episode (and some other resources): “The Milwaukee Movie (https://youtu.be/Ok8t1gQIs7Q?si=ljk9Qd8ytnkBDYMp)” video by Mark Escribano Black Landscapes Matter (https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/5389/), edited by Walter Hood and Grace Mitchell Tada The Beerline Trail (https://www.beerlinetrailmke.org) website Rural Urban Flow (https://ruralurbanflow.org)’s website Sara Daleiden’s page (https://www.homeworksbronzeville.com/sara-daleiden) on the Homeworks: Bronzeville site The three above photos: a home, a shop, and light manufacturing near Milwaukee’s Beerline Trail Static sound effects used with permission from BBC Sound Effects (https://sound-effects.bbcrewind.co.uk). bbc.co.uk – © copyright 2024 BBC. Our thanks to A. Wesley Chung for the licensed use of “An Evening (https://uppbeat.io/t/a-wesley-chung/an-evening)” from Uppbeat. License code: TNIQXHGVV47YMDZC. Get full access to Political Devotions at www.polidevo.com/subscribe (https://www.polidevo.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

11. 

    19 Nov 2024

    Liturgy, improv & power

    11-minute podcast episode. What could liturgy and mutual aid have in common? Both are actions that, when done creatively, give all parties the freedom to respond in life-giving ways and to discover themselves in community. This the second of two podcast episodes about a small Arlington church that sold its building and land at a discount to make way for Gilliam Place (https://www.gilliamplace.com), a six-story affordable-housing building. The first episode (https://www.polidevo.com/p/from-pews-to-affordable-housing?r=2xryfr&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web) examines the 12-year democratic process that resulted in the sale and, at the same time, transformed Arlington Presbyterian Church (https://arlingtonpresbyterian.org) from an introverted destination church to an outgoing community church. Above: Rev. Ashley Goff leads a portion of a service at Arlington Presbyterian this past spring This second episode covers what happened to Arlington Presbyterian soon after they began renting a ground-floor suite in Gilliam Place, their old space newly transformed. Spoiler alert: Covid happened. With Covid, a different process started, one just as democratic and covenantal as the one that got them from "no" to "yes" on the land and building sale. But the process during covid wasn't procedural. It was improvisational. Victoria and I interview the church’s pastor, Ashley Goff, who explains the cross-pollination among liturgy, community organizing, improv, and social transformation. We also interview Susan Robbins Etherton, a longstanding church member who helped to guide the church to its new meeting place and self-understanding. Above: some of the folks at Arlington Presbyterian Our thanks to Matrika for the licensed use of “When We Were Young (https://uppbeat.io/t/matrika/when-we-were-young)” from Uppbeat. License code: QE0XDGAX1L4G84BZ. Above: our daughter Bethany at the entrance to the church’s new space at Gilliam Place In the episode, I cite these two sources: Kohn, Jerome. “Introduction.” In Responsibility and Judgment, by Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken, 2003, xxiii. Madson, Patricia Ryan. Improv Wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up. New York: Bell Tower, 2005, 15. Get full access to Political Devotions at www.polidevo.com/subscribe (https://www.polidevo.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

12. 

    15 Oct 2024

    From pews to affordable housing

    26-minute podcast episode. Most Arlington teachers can’t afford to live in Arlington. While Victoria and I were teaching there, we met teachers and other school staff members who were fortunate to find affordable housing at Gilliam Place (https://www.gilliamplace.com), a relatively new, six-story apartment building at the corner of Columbia Pike and South Lincoln Street. The idea for Gilliam Place came at a retreat in 2009, when some members of Arlington Presbyterian (https://arlingtonpresbyterian.org) celebrated the church’s centennial by seeking guidance for the future. During the retreat, they thought that they had found it: the church would sell its building and property along Columbia Pike to make way for affordable housing. But when they returned from the retreat, the congregation said no. That “no” started the church members on a remarkable, twelve-year journey of covenantal and democratic practice that led to Gilliam Place. This public journey also was the most spiritually transformative experience several people say they’ve ever had. The church sold their property at a discount to Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing, which built Gilliam Place. The church now meets in a modern buildout on Gilliam Place’s retail level. This podcast episode tells the remarkable story of how Gilliam Place came about and what happened to the Arlington Presbyterian members who stuck with the process. Above: Susan Robbins Etherton and Victoria The episode includes interviews with Susan Robbins Etherton and Jon Etherton, longtime members of Arlington Presbyterian who helped to steer the congregation through the process. Church members used democratic practice that embodies values and skills such as getting to know their neighbors, listening, becoming reflective and resilient, remaining transparent, and accepting “no” as well as “yes.” Above: Jon Etherton Victoria and I also interview the church’s pastor, Ashley Goff, who responded to her call to the church at a critical juncture. Gilliam Place was under construction, the church was meeting in a temporary space, and the congregation was grieving the loss of a significant minority of longtime congregants who chose not to accompany the church in its new direction. Above: our daughter Bethany enjoys the Adirondack chars in Arlington Presbyterian’s garden The episode explores the church’s slow (but nimble) democratic process and the spiritual fruit gained by those who participated in it. Above: Part of the Columbia Pike community gets together for a blues festival a few blocks east of Gilliam Place and Arlington Presbyterian Church this past summer Our thanks to Rahul Popawala for the licensed use of “Bhupali Raag Teen Taal (https://uppbeat.io/t/rahul-popawala/bhupali-raag-teen-taal)” from Uppbeat. License code: BNS6H8ZOFUKYM0GI. Above: Gilliam Place from our apartment building (Westmont Apartments) along Columbia Pike Get full access to Political Devotions at www.polidevo.com/subscribe (https://www.polidevo.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

13. 

    14 Aug 2024

    Statues riffing on statues: An interview with Zaq Landsberg

    Last year, two of my classes remixed prominent public messages in Arlington to critique them. Their model was Zaq Landsberg (http://zaqart.com)’s sculpture Reclining Liberty, a remix of the Statue of Liberty that has found her new site-specific home among Arlington’s permanent monuments celebrating freedom and public life. News shows in D.C. and New York City discussed why her pose resembles the reclining Buddha (https://www.fox5dc.com/news/25-foot-reclining-liberty-statue-coming-to-museum-of-contemporary-art-arlington-in-august) and why people can climb on this version of Lady Liberty (https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/video/public-art-project-reclining-liberty-reimagines-statue-of-liberty/). But my Arlington Tech students and I had other reasons for interviewing Landsberg. Landsberg graciously gave us two interviews (one for each class) over the course of an hour. He spoke with us about his approach to art, remixes, history, public reactions, and public spaces. This 17-minute podcast episode contains a lot of content from these exclusive interviews as well as remarks from Ms. Blair Murphy, the curator at Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington (https://mocaarlington.org/exhibits/2023/zaq-landsberg-reclining-liberty/) who worked with Landsberg to bring Reclining Liberty to the museum’s front lawn. Above: some of my students climb on Reclining Liberty during our field trip Packing up in the exurbs a year ago this month, I took Reclining Liberty's move to Arlington the same month as a sign. Victoria and I would be examining public life in our new town, and Reclining Liberty would be here, too, as a conversation starter about the nature and future of freedom in America. It was great honor to develop curriculum around this statue last year. Above: sculptor Zaq Landsberg at an artists’ talk in Arlington this past April. Above: my daughter Bethany and I visit Reclining Liberty My thanks to Zaq Landsberg for permission to use his interview for this podcast episode. My thanks also to Light Patterns for the licensed use of “Art of Play (https://uppbeat.io/track/light-patterns/art-of-play)” from Uppbeat. Get full access to Political Devotions at www.polidevo.com/subscribe (https://www.polidevo.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

14. 

    19 Jun 2024

    The beauty of proximity

    20-minute episode. In 2007, three recent college grads had no intention of starting Casa Chirilagua (https://casachirilagua.org). But it happened. Casa now serves more than 100 families with after-school programs, mentorships, adult classes, and leadership development in Arlandria, a largely Latino community just south of Arlington that the first Salvadorian immigrants nicknamed Chirilagua. The three grads moved into one of the community’s worst apartment complexes and started learning from their new community. While they moved in to learn, they moved in also to break out of an individualistic, middle-class evangelicalism and to meet the public God. And they wanted to find out what “love your neighbor” really means. This episode starts with Victoria’s realization that she doesn’t want to live her life as just a spectator. She watches Ethiopian parents and children dancing at her school’s cultural festival, and she suddenly longs to be part of a community of public participants. Matt Pritchard, a college pastor (https://gracepeople.org) who has helped to start a number of intentional communities, including Casa, discusses his own journey to living purposefully with others and the journey of the three young women, Dawnielle Miller, Julia Simerly, and Emily Mancia, whom he supported as they started their intentional community in Chirilagua. Kate Denson, Casa’s Director of Volunteer Engagement, talks about Casa’s early days. When three of her friends started an intentional community in Chirilagua, she was helping to start one in Anacostia and was keeping in touch with them. Adriana Gómez Schellhaas, A 2022 Washingtonian of the Year (https://www.washingtonian.com/2022/12/21/washingtonians-of-the-year-2022/#Adriana-Gómez-Schellhaas) and until recently Casa’s Executive Director, explains why Casa Chirilagua as a resource is secondary to Chirilagua as a creative, resilient, and generous community. She shares how her own home in Chirilagua helps to keep her grounded in a central tenet of her faith—loving her neighbors. My thanks to Moire for the licensed use of “Cicades (https://uppbeat.io/t/moire/cicades)” and to All Good Folks for the licensed use of “What Up! (https://uppbeat.io/t/all-good-folks/what-up!)” from Uppbeat. Get full access to Political Devotions at www.polidevo.com/subscribe (https://www.polidevo.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

15. 

    7 May 2024

    Tense times of tents

    Two days ago, Victoria and I visited the pro-Palestinian encampment at George Washington University. Because the District of Columbia isn’t willing at this point to take down the encampment, it’s one of the few encampments in the country arising out of the war protests that amount to an extended laboratory of students’ public life together. We didn’t come to discuss the war in Gaza. Instead, we wanted to find out what life was like in something new to even the most seasoned protester in this student community—an alternative polis to what passes for one in our individualized society. Manny, a GW senior who was serving his shift as one of the encampment’s marshals, was happy to talk about life in the encampment. We learned that the students are currently living a bit like the citizens who experienced revolution in first-century Jerusalem, twentieth-century Poland, and twenty-first century Kiev. Manny was also frank about the new community’s struggles with outside agitators as well as its need for discipline and focus. Finally, we talked about the dynamics of tents, which have rankled college authorities nationwide. Above: Manny, our host, opening the library tent for us. In the podcast, I refer to a number of scenes. Here is the video I describe making of University Yard the day before our trip to GW together: Other scenes described in this podcast episode (and some that aren’t): Above: Sign at the Foggy Bottom-GWU Metro Station Above: Victoria on our way to the encampment. My thanks to Random Rap for the licensed use of “Grandiloquence (https://uppbeat.io/t/random-rab/grandiloquence)” from Uppbeat. The sources for this podcast are as follows (see my manuscript’s bibliography (https://www.polidevo.com/p/bibliography?r=2xryfr&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web) for the books’ full citations): Armesto, Jason. “'No other choice (https://dailyprogress.com/news/local/education/no-other-choice-uva-president-defends-decision-to-call-in-state-troopers-on-campus-protesters/article_c1ca3cfc-0a6c-11ef-9e81-c3c3430f481c.html)': UVa president defends decision to call in state troopers on campus protesters,” Daily Progress, May 5, 2024. Baxter, Thomas, and Finn Trainer. “Police Forcefully Clear (https://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2024/05/police-forcefully-clear-encampment-near-university-chapel-detain-protesters#google_vignette) Encampment Near University Chapel, Detain Protesters.” Police Forcefully Clear Encampment Near University Chapel, Detain Protesters - the Cavalier Daily - University of Virginia’s Student Newspaper, May 5, 2024. Granberg, Ellen M. “Message Regarding (https://president.gwu.edu/message-regarding-ongoing-campus-protests) the Ongoing Campus Protests.” Office of the President, May 5, 2024. Hermann, Peter. “D.C. Police Rejected (https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/04/26/dc-police-george-washington-university-protests/) GWU’s Plea to Sweep Out University Protesters.” Washington Post, April 27, 2024. Horsley, You Shall Not Bow, 116. Kennicott, Philip. “The Power of (https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/art/2024/05/03/power-putting-george-washington-kaffiyeh/) Putting George Washington in a Kaffiyeh.” Washington Post, May 3, 2024. Politico. “25 Arrested at (https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/05/virginia-campus-arrests-protests-00156160) University of Virginia After Police Clash With pro-Palestinian Protesters,” May 5, 2024. Shore, Ukrainian Night, 37-45, 270. Get full access to Political Devotions at www.polidevo.com/subscribe (https://www.polidevo.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

16. 

    21 Mar 2024

    Creativity as survival

    Meet Adam Henry, who creates both art and public spaces. The combination led to Adam’s appointment in January as Amazon HQ2’s first artist in residence (https://www.arlnow.com/2024/01/25/public-art-studio-complete-with-velociraptor-sculpture-opens-at-amazon-hq2/). On our podcast, Adam shares his approaches—his literal approaches—to strangers at coffee shops, restaurants, and subways. He sketches them and then introduces himself to his subjects. He gives them the art and, quite often, hears back from them about how this artist-stranger’s gesture helped them cope with something difficult. It’s hard to keep this artist in residence in residence. Adam (right) at Innovation Studio with his apprentice and son, also named Adam. I also interview Catherine Anchin (https://mocaarlington.org/about/staff-board/), the Executive Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, about Adam’s accessible art and style. Adam creates statues, paintings, installation art, costumes, and (of course) drawings, all of which draw people. His art is often complex but never abstruse or complicated. This episode also explores Adam’s notion of creativity as a means of surviving society. We examine how, except for the privileged, survival and self-actualization aren’t at polar ends of a personal or public hierarchy. After his six-week stint as the first artist-in-residence at HQ2’s Innovation Studio, Adam returns as this year’s artist-in-residence at StudioPAUSE (https://www.studiopause.com)’s Columbia Pike and Ballston locations. Adam’s gorilla-in-the making at StudioPAUSE. Adam would love for you to drop by as he works. Adam explains how he constructed his velociraptor out of discarded objects from construction sites and elsewhere. My thanks to Cutesy Chamber Ensemble (https://uppbeat.io/track/cutesy-chamber-ensemble/the-sweetest?rt=uc-referral) for the licensed use of its “The Sweetest.” Get full access to Political Devotions at www.polidevo.com/subscribe (https://www.polidevo.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

17. 

    25 Feb 2024

    Envoys extraordinary

    In this more personal podcast episode, I speak with three envoys from our public God: * Bethany and I ride the bus and discuss interior design, urban planning, and her installation art. * A local paper objects (https://www.gazetteleader.com/arlington/opinion/editorial-proposal-for-free-bus-rides-may-have-achilles-heel-8188772) to free bus service, despite its cost effectiveness, because some citizens might make buses their homes. * My neighbor admits to, on rare occasions, riding buses to keep warm. She teaches me how far we are from the new creation’s justice. * Bethany and I consider Le Corbusier’s solution to public spaces and to the spread of a future St. Paul’s doctrines among the poor. * A panhandler tells me why he parted traffic for me. And Victoria and I discuss Arlington drivers. Finally—to assure myself of my sanity—do you, too, hear the buses chuckle? My thanks to Carol and Wayne (not their real names), Victoria and Bethany for permission to record and publish their voices. Thanks also to Arend at Uppbeat (https://uppbeat.io/track/arend/o-magnificence-ii) for the licensed use of his “O, Magnificence II.” Get full access to Political Devotions at www.polidevo.com/subscribe (https://www.polidevo.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

18. 

    3 Dec 2023

    Stories & objects

    Bryce and Victoria move from the suburbs to the city. Bryce sells his car and tries out the bus service by heading to StudioPAUSE. There he meets Sushmita Mazumdar, an artist and a poet, whose stories and curated objects hold a mirror up to support and celebrate Columbia Pike’s multiethnic community. Format: narrative with clips from interviews of Sushmita as well as of Lloyd Wolf, Director of the Columbia Pike Documentary Project. 8 minutes. Sushmita Mazumdar (foreground, folded hands) and other community members celebrate the grand opening of StudioPAUSE’s Columbia Pike location on October 7, 2023. Photos courtesy © Lloyd Wolf / Columbia Pike Documentary Project. Get full access to Political Devotions at www.polidevo.com/subscribe (https://www.polidevo.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

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