Was blessed to have this published in the November edition of The South Carolina United Methodist Advocate, edited by Jessica Brodie. Thank you for reading!    This is that story where you have to change the names to protect the guilty, but I won’t change the location. Baltimore is my hometown, and there’s no other.  Plus, it’s a city with plenty of grit and history.  The first bloodshed of the Civil War fell on the streets of Baltimore a week after the troubles at Fort Sumter.  Soldiers from the Massachusetts 6thRegiment met an angry mob in Maryland, an ..read more

Blessed to have this piece published in The South Carolina Advocate, edited by Jessica Brodie. A COMMUNITY MEAL ON O’NEAL STREET By the Rev. Darlene L. Kelley The Todd family lived down the road at the end of the marsh and the beginning of Fisherman’s Bay. Donna—skinny, shy and 12 years old, just like me at the time—was one my closest friends on the Eastern Shore, literally and figuratively. Whenever I wasn’t working with my father, I was more than likely looking for something to do with Donna Todd. With the help of his two ablest sons, Mr. Todd worked the water, back and forth across the bay ..read more

Gentle Readers, I was blessed to run a soup kitchen for fourteen years in Upstate New York where I was pastor at The Clinton Avenue United Methodist Church. During most of my tenure, I was aided greatly by many members of the community, including Steven Gottlieb, Esquire. Steven was a tireless volunteer. He ran a free legal clinic for the folks in our community, helping with issues like housing, bankruptcy, and even some criminal cases. Recently, Steven has been working on a memoir of his experiences as a lawyer working in a challenged community, and he blessed me with an opportunity to write ..read more

Blessed to have this piece published in the May edition of the South Carolina United Methodist Advocate, edited by Jessica Brodie.    I confess I start a bit late and miss a few of the early morning faithful on their way to school and work, but the long, unwieldy piece of donated plywood needs a coat of white paint before the sponge dipped in black might march across its rugged surface proclaiming: Ashes To Go; and without any skills in the art department, I flounder even with three little words. The black paint drips at the edges, imitating the grainy black ash i ..read more

Cherished Readers, I was blessed to have this article published in April’s edition of the South Carolina United Methodist Advocate, a great denominational paper edited by Jessica Brodie.  I am grateful and delighted to share it.  Thank you for reading! Darlene   Chicken, Lima Beans and Love: The Langley UMC Feeds Veterans The buses pull up, and they disembark. First, the able bodied—those who can manage to step down and place their feet firmly on the asphalt of the parking lot; then the disabled—those who need a wheelchair or a walker or a ramp—all of them soldiers, men and wome ..read more

Recently published in the South Carolina Advocate, this story was edited from a longer, earlier work in progress on this very blog.  Thank you for being here and for reading this. Rev. Darlene Kelley     The Langley UMC       September 8, 2018 A Call Story   A compact park occupies the corner of Thirty-third and Third, a curve in the concrete, etched out for basketball and handball and a few caged trees. From one of those trees, tucked back off the street in a private corner of that public place, Michael Patrick Donovan tossed one end of a bed sheet up and ov ..read more

I once threw up on my front door–proud that I’d shut that door with my date on the other side–before commencing.  The cherries from the Manhattans I’d been sucking down all night created a stain, and you could still see a faint red mark in a certain light even after a coat of paint.  It’s probably not smart to mention any other classy moments at least until the laws change and all the statutes of limitations clear.  Suffice it to say I loved Greenwich Village and knew how to party. But God was good to me, and I didn’t do anything stupid enough to keep me out of the ministry ..read more

Love heals. It’s easy, and it’s difficult. And it’s a process. That’s one of the difficult demands—patience. People want to be “cured”. They desire the instant gratification of the miraculous, but real healing is a process that may take time and produce unexpected results. Some folks are stuck. They’re like hamsters on a wheel. Year after year the circumstances and the characters change, but they are caught in the same spider’s web of instability and drama. For a myriad of reasons, they haven’t done the work it takes to make significant change. In other words, they haven’t done the hard work o ..read more

Radio Kingston https://radiokingston.org/en/archive/good-morning-beloved/episodes/series-finale-race-religion   An honest attempt to talk about race with two pastors: one white woman & one black man… Listen to this and other archived Good Morning, Beloved shows on Radio Kington, the best community radio in all the land.  What a pleasure it has been to do the series, Good Morning, Beloved and to be even a small part of Radio Kingston.  Deepest thanks to Adam and Ida and Kale and Jimmy Buff and the best guests a girl could ask for! Thank you!         ..read more