View the Recordings Here:
Lecture 1: "Thy Will Be Done: Pauli & the Picket Sign"
Lecture 2: "How Mighty the Sword: Paul & the Pen"
Lecture 3: "Pauli's Canine Homiletic: Pauli & the Pulpit"
About the Lectures
The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray was a path-breaking poet, activist, attorney, professor, and Episcopal priest whose legacy of human rights work continues to reverberate. Dr. McCray will use the example of Murray to explore the role of risk-taking in Christian spirituality. After highlighting some of the virtues, friendships, and four-legged companions that helped Murray risk well and rest well, we will consider some implications for spiritual life today in three separate lectures.
Lecture One: "Thy Will Be Done: Pauli & the Picket Sign"
Christianity has too often functioned as a risk-management system that shields the powerful at the expense of those whom Jesus sought to protect: the poor, the sick, women, children. Pauli could not stomach this distortion. Her prayers took the form of quiet contemplation as well as joining picket lines, writing pamphlets, and organizing campaigns for human rights. This lecture included an introduction to Pauli Murray and an exploration of her efforts to juggle the dual calls to contemplation and agitation that anchored her vocation.
Lecture Two: "How Mighty the Sword: Pauli & the Pen"
Humility in the face of rejection. Discipline. Patience. Empathy. These are but a few of the virtues Pauli develops through the practice of writing poetry and letters within a social landscape undergirded by violence. Writing plays a crucial role in Pauli’s spirituality and contributes to a lifelong commitment to faithful risk-taking.
Lecture Three: "Pauli’s Canine Homiletic: Pauli & the Pulpit"
Roy, Pauli’s rambunctious dog, was a loyal companion in the sermon composition and debriefing process. With his unconditional support, the risky work of preaching became a tad easier. Their enduring friendship offers a helpful window into Pauli’s commitments to caring for Creation, seeking cosmic wholeness, and proclaiming words that heal.
About Donyelle McCray
Donyelle McCray serves as associate professor of homiletics at Yale Divinity School. A teacher, writer, and Episcopal layperson, her scholarship focuses on ways African American women and lay people use the sermon to play, remember, invent, and disrupt. She is the author of The Censored Pulpit: Julian of Norwich as Preacher, a forthcoming volume on sermon genre, Is it a Sermon?: Genre Fluidity and Ancestral Wisdom in African American Preaching, and she is currently writing a book on the preaching and spirituality of the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray. Before becoming a homiletics professor, McCray served as an attorney focusing on wills, trusts, and estates.This work raised existential questions that led her to seminary and then into ministry as a hospice chaplain. Human finitude, compassion, and interdependence remain central theological concerns in her scholarship.
