Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

  • A little over a month ago, I started the Drewsletter. If you haven’t seen it yet, the newest issue came out this morning. It may be called The Drewsletter, but I don’t want it to be about me. I want it to be helpful and hopeful. Can you help me? I’m taking ideas, submissions, and questions that might…

  • A “Should’ve Asked Question” While the Supreme Court mulls about trying to figure out what to do with the Frequently asked question: What do we do with “gay marriage”? we are actually left with more pertinent questions. Digging into the politics and legal cases for and against “marriage equality” send us into a spiral of…

  • “Ohio” by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young Kent state was nearly a decade before I was born, but ever since I was in college, I found a deep attachment to this moment. It could be any campus, and really was: Kent State (May 4, 1970), its twin event at Jackson State (May 15, 1970), and the…

  • It has been a week. A week since peaceful protests were transformed into an uprising. A week since the eyes of the world descended on the city to watch images that, since the dystopian experience of those living the protest and militarized police response in Ferguson, MO last year, have become increasingly familiar: flames, destruction…

  • Jesus’s vine image and the challenge of abiding in him Easter 5B  |  John 15:1-8    A Green Thumb My Mom is a gardener. When we moved up to Alpena from southeast of Detroit, we were moving into a rectory: a two-story beauty with a side porch and slightly sloping lawn. Big, mature trees next…

  • We might think it strange that the most significant image of grace and protection is shown by the uniting factions of rival gangs. We might think that these purveyors of violence would never be our example, our witness to grace. Of course, we’d be ignorant of what gangs hope for. Ignorant of what the people need.…