Grit and Grace: SMU's Hal Recinos Left Street Life to Become Poet and Professor

Harold "Hal" Recinos is a professor of theology, an accomplished poet, a jazz flautist, an ordained elder of the United Methodist Church, and a Central American missionary.He's also a former heroin addict, a high school dropout, a onetime street urchin and a guy you wouldn't want to face in a kung fu fight.His long climb from desolate 'hood (South Bronx) to faculty hood (Southern Methodist University) was so tortuous, so perilous and so improbable that even he sometimes marvels at it -- and he's a person who believes in miracles. Few members of SMU's eclectic faculty, it's safe to say, arrived by a less conventional arc."What helped me through it all was my faith," says Recinos, professor of church and society in the Perkins School of Theology at SMU."Even when my life would take an unfortunate turn, even when I was living on the street, I always felt close to God. I always believed things would get better."  Continue reading...