If every moment is sacred, and If you are amazed and in awe most of the time, when you find yourself breathing and not crazy, then you are in a state of constant thankfulness, worship and humility.
There is nowhere you can go and only be with people who are like you. Give it up.
If, in moving through your life, you find yourself lost, go back to the last place where you knew who you were, and what you were doing, and start from there.
If we dwell in a community that is comfortable, then it’s probably not broad enough a coalition.
But I’m a historian. I wasn’t interested in just being a producer, I was interested in doing research and presenting that research to a general public.
Well, the first time I ran into the term religion, people were asking whether you had any. You know, some people had religion and some people didn’t have religion.
The Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife, actually, was an effort to put something on the mall in Washington so American tourists could walk through America, and in their minds everything on the mall would be American.
I went to a church where you could not sing out loud in the service until you had been saved.
I think the Civil Rights Movement changed that trajectory for me. The first thing I did was leave school. I was suspended for my participation in Movement demonstrations in my hometown, December, 1961.
I came out of the Civil Rights Movement, and I had a different kind of focus than most people who have just the academic background as their primary training experience.