In San Diego and Boston, in Burbank and Chicago and Orange Beach, Ala., libraries all over the country have been ending the dispensing of fines for overdue books.

When L.G.B.T. people look at the communion of the saints, we should be able to see someone who looks like us.

It is Christ who sets the table and draws up the guest list. Who are we, serving at that table, to amend his invitation?

My journal lists the names of 19 children this year who died after I spoke with their crying mother, their weary father.

In the 1950s in Omaha, Neb., the multi-racial DePorres Club realized it needed to escalate its tactics from uplifting the Black community to confronting white discrimination.

Our shared name is a constant reminder that the work I do today is not on behalf of some shapeless ideal of a better world, but for the world that my children will grow up in.