Reading Time: < 1 minute Heat makes a rude appearance, Announcing itself in a paroxysm of fire. Homeostasis, that elusive aspiration, has been yoked by the tectonic shift of seasons. It is this announcement that propelled the insulated crust into the surface, met by disagreeable forces challenging the delicate reconstruction of its nucleus. Dry air charges with daggers, piercing the […]
Sami Al-Asady
A child of Bosnian and Iraqi war refugees and a first-generation college student at Arizona State University Barrett, The Honors College, Sami embraces his diverse academic and multicultural background in his contributions to public service. He is a board member of Secular AZ and a former intern of Congressman Ruben Gallego and President Biden's White House Internship Program. Sami's writing has appeared in the Blog for Arizona, The State Press, and the Arizona Capitol Times, and he has been featured in the Glendale Star, Freethought Today, KQED Forum, and the Arizona Republic. Sami is eager to continue making meaningful contributions with profound, sustainable, and long-lasting community impacts.
Posted inEducation
Want to protect secular democracy? Speak up at school board meetings
Reading Time: 3 minutes You don’t have to run for Congress to help protect our secular democracy. It’s at the level of your local school board that the Christian nationalist agenda is making its most influential stand. So it’s at public meetings of those school boards that our voices are most desperately needed.
Posted inMeaning & Purpose
Building a ‘House of Light’: Lessons from Mary Oliver on meaning and spirituality
Reading Time: 2 minutes As I feathered through the pages of Mary Oliver’s House of Light, I noted that I was not the first to do so. My library copy nears the age of 43; an old-fashioned due date table indicates that the first reader visited the poetry collection on August 16, 1990. And people say time machines don’t […]
Posted inCulture
Delays, dichotomies, and dilemmas: The civics of American air travel
Reading Time: 3 minutes Airports are a great place to people-watch. After you check in, pass through security, and purchase an overpriced water bottle, there is ample opportunity to turn your attention away from boarding and into the heads of other people. Become an astute observer, and suddenly you notice the sound of foreign language consuming the air; the […]
Posted inThe Secular
Less grey, less white: How to reach younger, more diverse seculars
Reading Time: 4 minutes We are a social species, and we do our best work together. But without a church, synagogue, or mosque in which to congregate, secular people must depend on local, state, and national organizations to create opportunities to network. National conferences occupy an especially large role in fostering engagement. I attended the 2021 Freedom From Religion […]
Posted inSecular Symphony
What do you miss (and not miss) about religion?
Reading Time: 10 minutes I was raised Muslim in the United States with refugee parents from Bosnia and Iraq. Before entering our mosque, I washed my hands, feet, and face, removed my shoes, grabbed a prayer rug, and bowed in submission to Allah. The croons of the sheikh singing sacred Arabic syllables vibrated off of the walls in tandem with the quiet […]