tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-246753562024-03-07T19:23:31.754-05:00Irreverent: Musings on Faith, Love, Life and PoliticsA forum for kindred spirits interested in open, curious, and respectful but exuberant conversation about some of the big and small questions. Let's get down and dirty about spirituality, politics, and whether men will ever "get" women or vice versa. Sports is fair game, too.Wallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.comBlogger1486125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-30495317924939596282022-07-14T11:08:00.000-04:002022-07-14T11:08:00.013-04:00Love, interrupted<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="color: #4472c4; mso-themecolor: accent1;">Come down, O Love divine,<br />
seek thou this soul of mine,<br />
and visit it with thine own ardor glowing;<br />
O Comforter, draw near,<br />
within my heart appear,<br />
and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">There are so many people at the
gym. Older folks, married couples, kids, teenagers crowding near the
weight racks, chatting by the circuit machines, stretching and planking and
doing box jumps on one foot.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">I'm not used to hanging out at the
Y on a Sunday morning. For decades, ever since I was in college, Sunday
mornings were all about worship. That's what clergy do, isn't it? And I am.
Clergy, that is. Mostly a journalist, but also a pastor, when called on.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">“I love Jesus, but can’t stand the
church,” I told a priest friend months ago, well before all hell broke loose.
“You and every other millennial,” he said teasingly. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">Interestingly, it’s millennials who
are heading for the doors, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/29/millennials-lead-shift-away-from-organized-religion-as-pandemic-tests-faith.html">leading
the shift away</a> from organized religion.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">I grew up in a much more devout
time. But now this very geriatric
millennial isn’t sure she can tolerate sitting in a pew, let alone standing in
the pulpit or behind the altar. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">What a long, strange trip it’s
been. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">While a student at an upstate New
York college, I had fallen hard and fast in love with the Anglican
tradition. Introduced to the 17<sup>th</sup>-century
poet-divines in a class on Renaissance poetry, I found in John Donne’s
spiritual struggles, his frank delight in human carnality, and embrace of the
science of his time a way of unifying experience that seemed genuine and
reasonable. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">Back then, I believed that churches
were as advertised: places where believing got you a bit of an edge in living a
more authentic, God-centered life. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">It wasn’t long before I, a Jewish
young adult from Brooklyn, was baptized in the village Episcopal Church, going
on retreats at a local convent, a regular at the campus student fellowship. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">Was I enamored more of faith or of
poetry and mystery and tradition? I
never thought to ask myself that question then. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">Now I’m asking some fundamental
questions. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">More than 20 years ago, I’d lost my
temper on a parish trip I’d organized to West Virginia. To be honest, I’d forgotten much about that
traumatic time, but apparently there was more, according to a lay leader I
consulted who had been in the room where the rector asked me to leave. It included arguments with people on our
mission committee, a tense staff relationship, and a subpar report on my
sabbatical leave. (Incidentally, this man and I long ago forgave one another,
and have remained friends).<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">After graduating from Princeton
Theological Seminary a number of years before that, I’d been bi-vocational,
both a pastor and a religion beat journalist.
Amid the turmoil that was my life when I was dismissed, writing about
other people’s suffering became, in some ways, another way of remaining
faithful to my call to be a voice for those without them.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">As my kids grew older, and the
former rector departed, I returned to worship in this congregation. I still
loved the quirky, against the grain blend of young and old, moderate and
conservative, praise-band and traditional. There are some remarkable people in those pews
on Sunday morning. I’d conducted baptisms and funerals alongside them, listened
to them share their faith in sermon and in song, dined in their homes and
taught classes in their classrooms. Some of the most profound spiritual
experiences of my life had taken place while giving out communion at the altar
rail.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="color: #4472c4; mso-themecolor: accent1;"> O let it freely burn,<br />
till earthly passions turn<br />
to dust and ashes in its heat consuming;<br />
and let thy glorious light<br />
shine ever on my sight,<br />
and clothe me round, the while my path illuming.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> I had little desire to return to full-time
parish work. But as time went on, however, and a new rector took the helm, I
started assisting him now and then. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">In leaving parish ministry to focus
on writing, I’d learned a lot about myself.
I’d also grown in two decades, curbing my temper and serving other
churches in ways that were truly unremarkable. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">When his former associate retired,
and it wasn’t clear one was on the horizon, I asked the priest heading the
parish if he needed temporary help. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">It was this same priest who, on a
chilly December day, asked me to come into his office. He told me
apologetically that the vestry advised him not to hire me, even for a few
months. Stunned, the tears cascaded down
my cheeks. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">He (and I) didn’t realize that
there was a group of people at one service, who hadn’t forgiven, hadn’t
forgotten, and hadn’t moved on. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">This past January, I met with one
of the lay leaders of the congregation, to “process the vestry decision” as he
said in his email. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">What if, I asked him, trying to manage
the tremor in my voice – what if we just went back to the way things had been
before the vestry told me I wasn’t wanted?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">I would merely help administer
communion, conduct the seven-thirty Eucharist now and then, occasionally take
an Ash Wednesday service and lend a hand during the holidays, I offered – just
as I’d been doing for years. All without, so far as I was aware, a whisper of
controversy. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">I still believed that forgiveness
and reconciliation were more than pretty Bible words honored more in the breach
than the observance. After all, I had
interviewed Amish parents who had forgiven their children’s killers (though in
oppressed or minority communities, the topic of forgiveness can be complicated
and controversial. It is still often practiced). <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">The cold outside the local YMCA
where we had met up was beginning to numb my gloved hands. His answer? Negative. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> He advised me not to have the rector bring
such a recommendation to him and other vestry members. “It would only cause you
more pain, Elizabeth.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">Then he asked: “Can I pray for
you”?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">Like so many women before me, I stood
there, mute. When the tall man strode away,
I staggered to the car and leaned against it, starting blindly at the athletic
fields in front of me.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">Wait. He told me a group of people in leadership
positions in the church thought I was unworthy to serve as a priest in his
parish – and then he asked to pray for me?<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">Was this year where years of
training, of obedience, of bedsides tended, joys shared, teaching and sermons
and worship had brought me? <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">There’s nothing to keep me from
serving as an interim or a supply priest in another congregation. I’ve done many such stints. Maybe, someday, a
congregation will need me enough to lure me back. Bruised and broken – but at
least damn it, honest about it – and willing to offer others in similar
situations empathy, courage, and yes, faith in a God who knows what suffering
means. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">As churchgoers flee congregations,
or do the classic American church-hopping routine, maybe leaders should pay
more attention to a woman known only as Mandie in this <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/millennials-are-leaving-religion-and-not-coming-back/">fivethirtyeight.com
analysis</a> of why millennials are leaving the faith. “She told us she’s not
convinced a religious upbringing is what she’ll choose for her one-year-old
child. “My own upbringing was religious, but I’ve come to believe you can get
important moral teachings outside religion,” she said. “And in some ways, I
think many religious organizations are not good models for those teachings.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">It's always striking to me how pragmatic
clergy and lay leaders are about church politics. It’s almost like placating parishioners is the
cost of doing business.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">“Can I pray for you”? asked this man, a person I knew mostly a
model of evangelical rectitude. Perhaps it was the best he could do. Perhaps it was the only thing he knew how to
do -because forgiveness, and reconciliation, and the real work of making people
whole, was one bridge way too far.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="color: #4472c4; mso-themecolor: accent1;">And so the yearning strong,<br />
with which the soul will long,<br />
shall far outpass the power of human telling;<br />
for none can guess its grace,<br />
till Love create a place<br />
wherein the Holy Spirit makes a dwelling.</span> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">(Hymn: Come down oh love divine
Hymn Tune: Down Ampney)<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">I hung my head, stared at the
pavement in the parking lot, and waited for him to finish. All I wanted was for
it to be over.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">.
<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>Wallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-33246453019951290732022-03-05T21:29:00.006-05:002022-03-06T09:30:36.459-05:00What I never asked my grandma<p> </p><p>There's a storage box in my living room. Most of the time, I forget it's there.</p><p>Inside the box, normally used for photos and documents you think might be important some day, are affidavits. They were put together by my grandmother in the 1930's as she tried to get Jews out of Austria to the safety of the United States. I don't know if they made it out of Austria, to be frank. </p><p><br /></p><p>It's a reminder that the past is never really totally past. As is the photo of distant cousins with a note that says they were killed in the Holocaust.</p><p>It's also a reminder that the questions we don't think, don't even know to ask can echo through a future we couldn't imagine. Who would have thought "war in Europe" would be a phrase we learned to use again?</p><p>Who could have imagined another huge flood of refugees, scenes of smoldering buildings, features on the cold-blooded murder of the elderly, kids, young couples, fighters on both sides?</p><p>Who can take in the total senselessness of this conflict? We sit aghast in front of our televisions, thousands of miles away, our senses barraged by the horrors unfolding in front of us - and helpless to do anything to stop them.</p><p>Today I heard a story on NPR about rabbis trying to care for Kyiv residents as the bombs fall on their beautiful city. The history of Jews in places like Poland and Ukraine is complex and often tragic. Many of them were killed in waves of anti-Semitism. Many of them died in the Holocaust. </p><p>Now Ukraine appears to be one of the <a href="https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-692443">least anti-Semitic countries i</a>n Eastern Europe. </p><p>What would my grandma have thought? Did she imagine, after helping refugees to get out, the devastation that would overwhelm Europe, and the murder of millions? </p><p>What did she and other Americans do, aside from working in factories, on behalf of refugees during World War Two? </p><p>How on earth did she not surrender to hopelessness? </p><p>How did she make sense of America's own<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/us-government-turned-away-thousands-jewish-refugees-fearing-they-were-nazi-spies-180957324/"> equivocal stance towards refugees</a>? After all, Roosevelt sent Jews on a ship away before the war, and they weren't the only ones who didn't find a safe haven here. </p><p>Could she ever wonder if it would happen again? Did she ever wonder, whether she said it or not, if hate would win?</p><p>Of course, she depended on radio broadcasts and newspapers for information about what was going on in Europe and the Pacific. For those of us who are glued to news notifications, it's hard to escape - and it's a valid question to ask whether we should want to, when the people of Ukraine cannot. </p><p>The woman I knew as a child and young adult, was long past her work on behalf of refugees from Germany. She never stopped advocating for justice, but she didn't seem haunted by the ghosts of the past, either. </p><p>Maybe doing the next right thing, whether it was organizing merchant seaman or campaigning against nuclear weapons, was balm for her soul. Maybe she knew that there is always a new fight, another cause, evil that needs to be addressed.</p><p>It's possible that she, and my parent's generation, was stamped indelibly by the evil they witnessed, even second-hand.</p><p>I'm ashamed to say - I never thought to ask.</p><p>What do you do when the next right thing, the donating and the praying and the renouncing, is in no way equal to the magnitude of the depravity we are watching innocents suffer?</p><p>There's no answer on the horizon - but at least we can honor the dead of Ukraine by living with the question - and doing what we can. Now. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Wallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-3414592018714633292022-01-30T22:15:00.010-05:002022-01-31T09:46:36.476-05:00Si tu revenais<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhG3qGChMCPCyrJGrLGakDITHQX0JzMYqWECmSMS0eAt5iMGcpTgR23vtsPcn5d0HxjcT_pWIjWZiXqvnlYNLb5tULTq6XtTUDiOKhTWPEoI6CoKSx1HEKdNPpCpKLIldFSw6Zos5VpxPHuOddI8S0EZKRFu0-26B3MdLnWsj1L4PkPrnkPCw=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhG3qGChMCPCyrJGrLGakDITHQX0JzMYqWECmSMS0eAt5iMGcpTgR23vtsPcn5d0HxjcT_pWIjWZiXqvnlYNLb5tULTq6XtTUDiOKhTWPEoI6CoKSx1HEKdNPpCpKLIldFSw6Zos5VpxPHuOddI8S0EZKRFu0-26B3MdLnWsj1L4PkPrnkPCw=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p>There were so many people at the gym this morning. Older folks, married couples, kids, teenagers crowding near the weight racks chatting by the circuit machines, stretching and planking and doing box jumps on one foot.</p><p>I'm not used to being in the gym on Sunday mornings. For decades, ever since I was in college, Sunday mornings were all about worship. That's what clergy do, isn't it? And I am. Clergy, that is. Mostly a journalist, but also a pastor, when called on.</p><p>That is, until church itself becomes an unsafe place. </p><p>I'm not attending right now, either online or in person. I assume I'll go back at some point. I could go into the reasons now, but I'm not willing to lay it all out there at the moment. Besides, there's too much up in the air. </p><p>The pain, though, is rather constant. </p><p>But in the heat of a workout I don't need to think. Thinking is costly. I save that for the middle of the night when I awake and cannot go back to sleep for hours, unsure of whether I'm having revelations or an anxiety attack.</p><p>At the moment, I'm caught up in the crowd that spends their Sunday mornings lifting and sweating and catching up with their friends. It feels, if not wrong, very peculiar. Am I taking a step towards something? Or away from it?</p><p>It's not a lack of faith in the character and words of Jesus that keeps me from the pews. Oh no. I just don't see much evidence of his work in the institution right now. "I love Jesus, but I can't stand the church," I said to a friend a few months ago. "You and every other millennial," he said with a chuckle (meet the MOST geriatric millennial). </p><p>At the moment, it's personal. Very personal. </p><p>For now I'm slipping in and out of the Wellness Center like a shadow, hoping to be unnoticed. After a quick word of greeting to the attendant, I put on my headphones. There's relief in being anonymous.</p><p>I'm not totally unnoticed. Now and then, a man (probably thinking of what he's going to have for breakfast) will glance at me. A few women will try to engage me in conversation. Most of the people I knew well haven't returned to the gym yet (or ever). I recognize almost no one here today.</p><p>Walking over to the treadmills, I jump on and turn my back on the crowd. No one will talk to me here.</p><p>The room is full, but it still has room for ghosts. I see them lingering by the AMT, hanging out by the filing cabinet, chatting in the shelter of the office door. Time to jack up the pace here.</p><p>French pop music floods my headphones. For a few moments, the room fades away, and it's just me and the movement and the music.</p><p>On a Sunday morning, when I should be with my "tribe" in a consecrated space, I am just another woman exercising hard, and at peace, for a moment, with being alone - even with my memories. Sometimes that will have to suffice. '</p><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span jsname="YS01Ge">Mais si jamais</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Si tu revenais</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Dis rien, laisse à l'entrée les mots</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">On sait jamais</span></div><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span jsname="YS01Ge">Si tu revenais</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">C'est comme si l'on ouvrait tous mes volets</span><br /><span jsname="YS01Ge">Le soleil aussi reviendrait</span></div><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span jsname="YS01Ge"><br /></span></div><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span style="color: #073763;">Here's an informal translation of this refrain from the<a href="https://youtu.be/4vfukIPpcdE"> gorgeous song by French pop singer Patrick Fiori:</a></span></div><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span style="color: #073763;">But if you come back, don't say a word, leave the words behind</span></div><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span style="color: #073763;">If you come back, it's like all the shutters were flung open</span></div><div class="ujudUb" jsname="U8S5sf" style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 12px;"><span style="color: #073763;">The sun will return.</span></div><p><span style="color: #073763;">Take a listen. </span></p><p><span style="color: #073763;">Even if you don't understand all the words, you will catch the spirit. </span></p><p><br /></p>Wallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-46420967380573557032019-10-14T08:36:00.001-04:002019-10-14T08:43:05.054-04:00The knife-edge of normal: ordinary life in a climate emergency<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL69elMHLEf0kU2SHf0mL2bV_-e2Y8onffscu7vkAhESgXSP_c5-eg50J3YQcb5smpUFLtzFLKy02Igix9dTZJTn9c7OU0UNYrvK8-PAHi9joHOsQrVMDHy-q5hrhsrlqzZEqp/s1600/IMG_1979.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL69elMHLEf0kU2SHf0mL2bV_-e2Y8onffscu7vkAhESgXSP_c5-eg50J3YQcb5smpUFLtzFLKy02Igix9dTZJTn9c7OU0UNYrvK8-PAHi9joHOsQrVMDHy-q5hrhsrlqzZEqp/s320/IMG_1979.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3g9586noxId9jcAnwX6WSbMRf_Lg3thkkfV1Cs9dERVWg6VuCDFB3jmRwtG1qUeiA7rX2Ah029bpLQS94qUm8RxAKKnsAMXB40XH84kT9FSQUfI3b94NcwXbKndXLSbnQq2Z4/s1600/IMG_1989.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3g9586noxId9jcAnwX6WSbMRf_Lg3thkkfV1Cs9dERVWg6VuCDFB3jmRwtG1qUeiA7rX2Ah029bpLQS94qUm8RxAKKnsAMXB40XH84kT9FSQUfI3b94NcwXbKndXLSbnQq2Z4/s320/IMG_1989.JPG" width="320" /></a> On my way back from the hair salon, I stopped off to see the foxes in the enclosure. One looks like a white-muzzled senior, the other slightly younger, stands near the front of the cage. Here, the animals live behind barricades, on display for curious toddlers or parents who want to show their kids a goat or a chicken.<br />
<br />
Are we living the end of the world as we know it? I blurted out to a friend last week. No, I'm not talking about Jesus returning, though it would be nice to speculate.<br />
<br />
I can't even remember what I learned about the more esoteric aspects of millennial theology. Whatever it was, it probably wouldn't be reassuring right now (I do remember Christians can't agree on how it all will end).<br />
<br />
I wonder, instead, how long we can maintain any semblance of normalcy in a world where so many are beginning to experience something else entirely.<br />
<br />
Am I an alarmist? I would love to be wrong.<br />
<br />
The fox looks back at me with an inscrutable gaze. Then they turn away, ambling towards one of the black plastic tubes place in their cage. To protect them from the heat? For a change from the monotony of being cooped up behind metal barriers for the rest of their days?<br />
<br />
How have we come to live in a world where many animals need to live in zoos or sanctuaries because there are so few of their kind left?<br />
<br />
I am haunted by the words of Carol Devine, an activist pastor I interviewed. She told me that we're currently feeling the effects of our behavior from 50 years ago. She lives with that grief every day.<br />
<br />
Take that in for a minute.<br />
<br />
We know that the melting of the ironically named <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01313-4">"permafrost" is releasing more and more carbon into our atmosphere. </a> I heard a member of an indigenous community living in the Arctic Circle say that he would try to explain to his eighteen month old daughter when his family and neighbors had to start to live differently because of the warming conditions. Pushing caribou to migrate elsewhere. Bringing hungry wolves closer to town. In Alaska sea ice is melting, as this story notes, at a rate 2-3 times <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/alaska-residents-are-watching-climate-change-warm-arctic-their-very-ncna1058416">faster than it is elsewhere in the world.</a><br />
<br />
Immigrants are leaving Central America in part because they can no longer earn a living as farmers. Hurricanes devastate Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and our own Southeast coast on the regular.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/29/500-million-bees-brazil-three-months">In Brazil, 500 million bees</a> have seemingly died in the past three months.<br />
<br />
We commend heroines like Katherine Hayhoe, a scientist married to an evangelical pastor, in part because she is so very rare among conservative Christians. Sadly, many seem to be climate change deniers. Sure, they are entitled to their own opinion - but their recalcitrance is directly affecting our well-being.<br />
<br />
How can people of faith have a positive impact? Aim for carbon neutrality in your churches. Become less dependent on disposables at home. Hound your members of Congress. Vote. Encourage your clergy to create programs that may change minds. And perhaps, perhaps, join the civil disobedience movement that is beginning to find its voice here and in Europe. We need to find ways to speak for those people who have no financial or political clout right now, from indigenous tribes to poor farmers.<br />
<br />
Keep hope alive - even when you don't feel hopeful. Jesus came to a people ground under the heel of an authoritarian empire and illuminated the darkness of violence and humiliation with the light of nonviolent resistance and prophetic integrity. He asks the same of us.<br />
<br />
I watch the fox until they settle down under the tree inside the bars. Then I walk down to the Schuylkill to catch the glimmer of light on the water, the rowers, and the leaves floating on the current, as they have done before humans touched this landscape. For today, it is enough.Wallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-50768380344362515112019-07-18T12:20:00.001-04:002019-07-18T12:20:24.015-04:00Undaunted, organized and taking the long view, Catholic sisters grapple with an uncertain futureIn the world of American Catholic sisters, there are challenges aplenty, including coping with diminishing numbers, disposing of homes that are now way too big for them, and in some cases, finding others to carry on their mission(s).<br />
<br />
But when it comes to creative solutions, the nuns, as they have for centuries, are bringing it.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.globalsistersreport.org/news/ministry-trends/recruiting-era-slows-women-religious-reflect-then-choose-new-course-56350">https://www.globalsistersreport.org/news/ministry-trends/recruiting-era-slows-women-religious-reflect-then-choose-new-course-56350</a>Wallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-70493931749373556502019-05-14T08:34:00.001-04:002019-05-14T08:34:43.179-04:00Remembering Rachel Held Evans<a href="https://www.christiancentury.org/article/critical-essay/doors-rachel-held-evans-wedged-open">https://www.christiancentury.org/article/critical-essay/doors-rachel-held-evans-wedged-open</a>Wallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-18200836732094530362019-03-24T20:26:00.002-04:002019-03-24T20:27:50.118-04:00The American way of gun violenceYes, I thought grimly as I drove home.<br />
<br />
Yes.<br />
<br />
If I/we could, let's be honest, we could come for your guns.<br />
<br />
I'd like to regulate the sale and possession of handguns, so that parents don't come home and find<br />
<br />
their child bleeding from a head wound in their bedroom.<br />
<br />
I'd like to regulate the sale of semi-automatic weapons, (or assault weapons) like the ones used in<br />
<br />
New Zealand,<a href="http://time.com/5556964/assault-weapons-ban-us-new-zealand/"> which they banned within less than a week</a>, so that it's harder for a madman to go into<br />
<br />
a school and kill six-year-olds.<br />
<br />
I'd regulate how you can store your lethal weapon. I'd regulate sales at gun shows.<br />
<br />
When I read about the<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/24/us/parkland-student-second-suicide/index.html"> second allegedly gun-related suicide </a>of a Parkland student this week, I was<br />
<br />
standing outside the doors of our church after a pleasant lunch with parishioners.<br />
<br />
Seeing the notification, an involuntary "oh my God" escaped my lips. Quickly I walked away from<br />
<br />
the lovely couple emerging from the church doors behind me.<br />
<br />
Because I couldn't. I really couldn't.<br />
<br />
Let's talk about suicide. It's on the rise in America for a number of reasons. A lot of them are drug-<br />
<br />
related.<br />
<br />
But we know that tighter gun laws have a beneficial effect on suicide rates. <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/11/29/18118601/suicide-rate-highest-decades-life-expectancy">A Vox article</a><br />
<a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/11/29/18118601/suicide-rate-highest-decades-life-expectancy"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></a>
<span style="color: black;"><a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/11/29/18118601/suicide-rate-highest-decades-life-expectancy">from late last year</a> notes:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "balto" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Experts say suicide is largely preventable. </span><a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/10/1/18000516/suicide-guns" style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Balto, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: inherit; transition: color 0.1s ease 0s, background-color 0.1s ease 0s, fill 0.1s ease 0s; vertical-align: inherit;">Research</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "balto" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> has shown, for instance, that states with higher rates of gun ownership also have higher rates of suicide, suggesting that tighter gun laws could lower the rate of suicide. The CDC also suggested that an emphasis on housing and financial policies and “promoting social connectedness” could prevent suicide."</span><br />
<br />
If one were a cynic, one might conclude, from the howls of rage that go up whenever new gun rules<br />
<br />
are suggested, that many Americans would rather own guns than protect children.<br />
<br />
Their warped interpretation of the Second Amendment is more a fig-leaf than a reasonable choice.<br />
<br />
When gun control is proposed, answer on the pro-gun-rights side so often seems to be: well, THAT<br />
<br />
wouldn't work (whatever that happens to be,whether it's gun safety measures or restrictions on who<br />
<br />
can own an assault weapon).<br />
<br />
With the exception of banning gun stocks (and how many of us own gun stocks) the gun lobby and<br />
<br />
members of Congress who are paid off by them fight restrictions tooth and nail - even when data<br />
<br />
suggests that they save lives.<br />
<br />
Suicide is a messy business, to say the least. I know that from family experience - but I wasn't the one<br />
<br />
who had take a trip out to California to identify my brother's body. I wasn't the one who had to<br />
<br />
dispose of his things. I wasn't the one to live with the memory of a beloved child, now gone forever.<br />
<br />
And still I have suffered enough to have some dim idea of what the Parkland parents are going<br />
<br />
through right now.<br />
<br />
But I can't imagine going through a massacre with my child and then losing them.<br />
<br />
Three out of ten Americans own guns, according to the Pew Research Center. Right now, they and<br />
<br />
their supporters make choices for the rest of us.<br />
<br />
How many more innocents will have to die before that changes?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Wallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-84104789313588657162018-12-29T13:18:00.001-05:002018-12-29T13:18:11.335-05:00Who cares about global faith stories? Uh, you should.https://lancasteronline.com/features/faith_values/a-review-of-s-top-faith-stories/article_abef3cbe-0ad3-11e9-9ffd-4bf287f97ce5.htmlWallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-39863517322704836052018-10-28T22:32:00.001-04:002018-12-04T08:12:32.759-05:00Please don't make me choose<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;">This morning I went to the church where I have worshipped and worked on and off for the past twenty plus years, and I was lost. </span></span><br />
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;">Not physically lost, of course. The contours of the sanctuary are so familiar I could probably give a tour to a stranger who wandered in.</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;">Instead, unexpectedly, today I felt as if I was the stranger. I didn't like the sensation at all.</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;">It wasn't for lack of affection given or received. Part of what I love about this congregation is how motley it is, embracing an array of people with diverse beliefs on everything from liturgical practice to same-sex marriage. Attend the eleven o'clock in the original sanctuary and hear a traditional Episcopal Rite II service, complete with choir. Walk over to the newer church and experience a less formal service and a lot of folks praying with raised hands and lustily singing praise music</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;">Normally I'm one of them.</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;">But I was raised in a Jewish home. My cousins on both sides of the family (some, anyway) are still observant. And even if they aren't observant, they are still Jewish. So even though I converted many decades ago, and "pass" as a devout Christian, my Jewish roots go deep. </span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;">The men and women murdered in Pittsburgh yesterday died simply because they were Jewish, worshipping on the Sabbath. The visceral grief and fear I felt today was probably shared by people all across America - but especially by those who have observed the spike in anti-semitism over the past two years with concern and now with horror.</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;">Jesus was a Jew. Christians don't engage that messy truth very often in church, but there is no indication that he renounced his ethnic identity or beliefs - he came to fulfill the law, Scripture tell us, not to abolish it.</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;">I sat on the hard pews. I stood. I watched. I prayed. I wept. I have rarely felt so isolated in the midst of a friendly crowd. </span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;">With increasing anxiety, I wondered - does anyone here really care that much? Or is it, for them, a passing tragedy, to be noted and then forgotten?</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;">I don't have an answer. It's not fair to expect that non-Jews will experience the Pittsburgh synagogue slaughter the same way Jewish person might (and there is no one way or a right way). Perhaps I would have done better, today, to attend a vigil service with those gathered purposefully to mourn and celebrate the holy lives lost yesterday.</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;">"Today we are all Jews," said Maura Healey at the Boston vigil to mourn the dead and support the living who need to find ways to go on.</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;">I hope many of you will be Jews (or blacks, or high school students, or gay or immigrants) tomorrow, too.</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;">Heaven knows, we need you.</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Wallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-2321419329759871032018-09-13T12:24:00.001-04:002018-09-13T12:24:55.906-04:00Who is affected by the opioid crisis? The person in the pew next to you.<br />
<br />
If your pastor isn't talking about the opioid addiction crisis - ask them why not.<br />
<br />
<br />
https://lancasteronline.com/features/faith_values/faith-groups-can-play-a-role-in-fighting-addiction/article_54e72544-b2d6-11e8-b969-874e93bf6f0d.htmlWallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-31590296375244115472018-09-08T21:13:00.003-04:002019-02-18T22:58:22.309-05:00Our little townLess than half-way through Community Day, the skies opened (actually, they re-opened).<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I knew it was still happening, though, because I heard the Glenmoore Fire Company sirens. The Fire Company, staffed by locals, is an integral part of pretty much every event we have - and their open house is a community occasion.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Stuck at home answering emails about a story, I didn't actually leave the house until Community Day was almost two-thirds over.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Having parked my car behind the Firehouse, I took off down our Main Street (otherwise known as Route 282). Even in the pouring rain, the Victorian houses adorned with gingerbread trim and other decorative flourishes looked lovely. Some seemed to have gotten a more recent coat of paint than did others. Bikes crammed some porches, others were a visual feast of hanging flowers and plants.</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Before I had gotten too far, a friend stopped and offered me a ride. Grateful but determined to appreciate a street I often view without truly seeing, I pushed on.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Prosperity has certainly touched Glenmoore with its golden cloak. Try hard enough, and you can find homes starting at $750,000. People with <span style="background-color: yellow;">acreage</span> could sell it to developers and become multimillionaires. Generally, they don't seem to want to do so.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But there aren't too many of that homes on Main Street. Cars aside, it is still possible to imagine it was it was 100 years ago.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And when I got to Wagenseller Park, residents were chatting with each other and enjoying the band, and the chicken barbeque sold by the Fire Company as a fundraiser pretty much the way they might have in 1918.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Only we didn't have women running for the PA House and Senate in 1918, did we? The 19th Amendment to the Constitution wasn't even ratified until 1920.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We love our little town in part because time seems to pause if not stop. But not enough to turn back the clocks that far - do we?<br />
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Wallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-21238503316345530942018-03-25T09:27:00.001-04:002018-03-25T09:27:59.578-04:00What IS truth? asked jesting Pilate...There are few subjects that divide Americans today, and Christians in particular, as the way we determine what is true, and what is not.<br />
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http://lancasteronline.com/features/faith_values/like-pilate-we-today-ask-what-is-truth/article_c73470e6-2eda-11e8-a38c-879d74e4c96e.htmlWallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-33135867805930459382018-03-24T22:31:00.001-04:002018-03-24T22:32:48.223-04:00The invisible price of ParklandIt wasn't until I got home, in the privacy of my living room, flooded with the light of early spring, that the tears came.<br />
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Though it was conceived in response to a tragedy, the rally in front of the West Chester, PA, the courthouse had an outspoken, defiant edge to it. It almost felt like a pep rally, of a piece with the surge of women running for elected office and the string of victories Democrats have notched up in close elections this past year.</div>
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But it's not. It's not.</div>
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To the speaker after speaker who urged regime change for NRA-funded or supine politicians, the crowd (estimates ranged as high as 2,000 attendees) would respond loudly: "vote!" or "vote them out"!</div>
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"I would die to protect my students but I shouldn't have to" read one sign. Another held up by a marcher near her was even more chilling: "I should be writing my college essay, not my will."<br />
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Politely but firmly, the students who spoke rejected the notion, proposed by some adults, that showering kindness on alienated students might stop the next shooting.<br />
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After reading the list of names of those who had died at Parkland, one local student said: never again. Enough is enough."<br />
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"We're done feeling like targets in shooting gallery," said one West Chester area 17-year-old forcefully.<br />
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It feels good to finally stand up to a bully: and that's what the gun lobby has evolved into over the years. The NRA is a dark, dystopian, never-ending source of fear, demanding that we all live in a world in which we can only engage strangers (and sometimes friends) at the point of a gun.<br />
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It feels good to tell the marionettes in the Republican ranks and some Democrats, that they need to be responsible to the vast majority of Americans who want reasonable limits on firearms or get the heck out of Washington.<br />
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But the huge event in D.C. reminded those of us who have suffered the loss of a close friend or a family member through violence an inescapable poignancy - and a deeper, darker reality.<br />
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I have been to these marches before. Decades ago, I lost my brother to a much more common form of gun violence: suicide.<br />
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Mercifully, I don't remember as much as I did about that terrible time. I recall snippets: the hours we waited in our Brooklyn brownstone for his arrival.<br />
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The decorations on the magnificent tree in the piano room, taken down, never to be put up again in that house.<br />
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My father's wracking sobs, late one night awakening me when he learned that the gun my brother had purchased to end his life had then been banned in California, where he had been living).<br />
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We admire the sheer bravery of these young students, their audacity, their determination. We cheer them on.<br />
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Here is what the young women and men of Parkland don't yet know.<br />
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The hours in which you revisit the scene of violent death in your mind, over and over again, whether you have seen it personally or not, wondering about those last minutes.<br />
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The brokeness of the days and hours ahead.<br />
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The loss of the feeling so many of us take for granted - that the world is benevolent place.<br />
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Your old self - that person died in a hail of bullets.<br />
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Like somebody who has lost a limb in an accident, you must learn, moment by moment to navigate your days until these losses don't define you.<br />
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This process of healing and evaluation takes years - in fact, it never really ends. Inevitably, you find what solace you can with others who have had a similar experience.<br />
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Look around you, and you will see a gun-culture society in which resignation has usurped hope, carelessness makes tragedy more likely, and there are no real adults in the room.<br />
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I am awed by the young men and women of Parkland, and the other victims of gun violence who have shown extraordinary bravery. Let them lead us for a while. It's not like we have done a great job of battling the kingdoms and principalities of this world.<br />
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But the price they are paying, already terrible, is, or ought to be, a reproach to those of us who accepted the status quo.<br />
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When they needed us, we were nowhere to be found. When they cried out, we made excuses. When they were in danger, we ducked.<br />
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What does that say about us?<br />
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Wallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-29565748672003767372017-05-03T22:10:00.000-04:002017-05-03T22:10:19.405-04:00When extreme positions win, we all losehttp://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/commentary/culture-wars-come-to-downingtown-20170503.htmlWallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-43601341021251877272017-04-09T22:11:00.001-04:002017-04-09T22:24:04.999-04:00Sunday, Bloody Sunday<span style="font-family: inherit;">After a warmer than normal February and a March that featured the only substantial snow of the winter, we have been gradually working our way towards spring in southeastern Pennsylvania.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Today held the promise of temperatures in the upper sixties, abundant sun, and a plethora of daffodils, grape hyacinths, and trees bold enough to show more than a little bud at last.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course, it was also Palm Sunday, the beginning of the holiest week of the Christian year, marked by Christians all over the world. This year, as a friend told me last night, Orthodox Christians marked Lent and will celebrate Easter at the same time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Palm Sunday, the commemoration of the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, should have been marked with palms, chants, and triumphant songs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But we learned, as we awoke and got ready to make the drive to church, that in Egypt, for Coptic Christians, it will be remembered today for violence, sudden death, and desecration that had all the hallmarks of the terror group Isis (they later took responsibility for perpetrating the two bombings).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Isis has a particular hatred for Christians. Strongman <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 17px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Abdel Fattah el-Sisi</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 17px;"> had told Christians in Egypt that he would protect them. As in Syria, where many Christians have allied themselves with Assad for roughly the same reasons, such promises turned out to be no bulwark against a remorseless enemy whose agents are willing to blow themselves up to cause maximum destruction.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 17px;"><br /></span> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, times, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 17px;">This week also featured a hideous attack, likely by Assad, on his own people, first with banned chemical weapons, then with barrel bombs. While the victims were probably not Christians, they are, men, women, and children, just as dead.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, times, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 17px;">As we gathered outside the sanctuary of our peaceful church, children stood next to their parents, friends near friends, couples singing cheerfully in the warmth of the late morning sunshine. The spectre of violence that haunts so many communities that morning was not generally within the realm of our experience.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, times, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, times, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 17px;">But as our rector reminded us in his sermon, safely tucked into our pews once inside, suffering is at the heart of the Christian message. There is no way but through it.</span></span></span><br />
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Yet it seems, often, that though we may experience great pain as individuals, the suffering of Christians in America is an echo of the horrors visited upon other nations.<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, times, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, times, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 17px;">In a larger sense, we are all part of the same community - to forget the Coptic Christians of Egypt in the ruins of their churches and the glassy-eyed children of Syria would be to betray the message of l0ve and empathy that is at the heart of the Gospel.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, times, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></span> <span style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, times new roman, times, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 17px;">Of course, betrayal is also part of the journey of Holy Week. I hope that we do not forget, when we arrive at Easter morning, that our joy is only authentic if it includes a tireless determination to work to ease the suffering of those who cannot, and will not, rejoice next Sunday. This battle is so fierce - today we heard, if we were listening, the echoes of the warring arms of the night, with morning just a promise away.</span></span></span><br />
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<br />Wallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-55802322048274943392016-11-05T13:22:00.000-04:002016-11-05T13:22:05.465-04:00Why did the Republicans try to court Amish voters?http://lancasteronline.com/features/faith_values/how-will-the-amish-vote-experts-weigh-in/article_a1bb714a-a2c5-11e6-bbd4-0f5706d6a7af.htmlWallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-18272836942241716792016-10-05T09:24:00.003-04:002016-10-05T09:24:20.502-04:00The Amish legacy of forgiveness endures ten years after Nickel Mines: Philadelphia Inquirerhttp://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20161004_Commentary__10_years_after_killings__Amish_legacy_of_forgiveness_endures.htmlWallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-52425669775469936102016-10-01T09:52:00.004-04:002016-10-01T09:52:51.032-04:00Ten years after the Nickel Mines shootings, the work of forgiveness continues<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">http://religionnews.com/2016/09/30/10-years-after-amish-schoolhouse-killing-the-work-of-grieving-remains/</span></span>Wallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-7726692617856595832016-07-25T21:21:00.002-04:002016-07-25T21:21:39.571-04:00A journalist reflects on why sex abuse by clergy continues to haunt Pennsylvania - and its churches.http://lancasteronline.com/features/faith_values/child-sexual-abuse-is-pa-pro-child-or-pro-predator/article_937c4c24-526d-11e6-a22b-2bb787a6a44f.html#commentsWallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-46619817387469762882016-07-20T07:39:00.003-04:002016-07-20T07:39:53.422-04:00PA State Representative Mark Rozzi's "je t'accuse" ecclestiastical Philadelphia momenthttps://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/pa-state-rep-says-its-not-over-after-senate-removes-statute-limitationsWallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-73004890400869526352016-07-08T16:58:00.000-04:002016-07-09T10:10:18.010-04:00Do our polarized views on race and violence represent an America being torn apart?Two African American men shot and killed at the hands of police in cold blood on the streets of Baton Rouge and St. Paul.<br />
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Five police officers murdered by snipers near the end of a peaceful protest route in Dallas. Dallas, a city in which the police have worked successfully to bring down the arrest rate and number of officer-involved shootings.<br />
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Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla. Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Md. The Justice Department, which investigated the Martin and Brown cases, couldn't prosecute (and it's looking unlikely that any police officer will be convicted in Gray's death), because to do so would mean proving intent.<br />
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But we, the American people, who generally aren't judges or jury members - we don't really need to prove intent, a tremendously high bar.<br />
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The problem we're having isn't really isn't solely about bad cops, though there certainly are rogue policemen.<br />
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To be clear - it's not an excuse for the horrific killings of black men to say that unless they have accompanied officers on patrol, most Americans probably don't have much idea of the pressures under which many policemen and women actually work. <br />
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Maybe it would help for some of us to learn more. It's possible that some of the aberrant behavior we have seen is a result not only of bias but of lack of training, overexposure to violence, or a culture of toxic masculinity. It may be no coincidence that one of the gunmen was an Army reservist who served in Afghanistan.<br />
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But at least in part, there's a larger problem - it's us.<br />
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A long time arriving here, many of us have stubbornly refused to see the toll institutional racism and militarization is taking on the daily lives, not only of minorities, but of what we claim to value most about our culture: mutual respect, compassion, civility, the humane decency that should inform our democracy.<br />
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Centuries of racism aren't erased with a war over slavery, Congressional legislation like the Voting Rights Act, affirmative action, or even proactive policing policies (though those offer some real hope of success in reducing the carnage). <br />
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When I watched those videos (once was enough), and read the articles, the first question that sprang to mind was: why were those officers so afraid? Is fear of blackness that engrained in some of us that our first response is to shoot?<br />
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That black men are killed at a higher incidence than anyone else (except a smaller population of Native Americans) isn't up for debate. The question is why.<br />
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Given your political leanings, it's way too easy to fall into these traps. I'm sure you can name many more.<br />
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<b>If police are generally good, the protesters must be bad. If the protesters have justice on their side, there must be no good police. </b><br />
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Men and women of goodwill can respect the authority and good intentions of most officers of the law while expecting them to treat African-American men like human beings - at a minimum.<br />
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<b>These tragic incidents are all about white rage. No wait, they are all about black rage. </b><br />
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Let's not confuse the Black Lives Matter movement with a sniper atop a building shooting white officers. Conversely it's not helpful to imagine that every white person is filled with racial hatred.<br />
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<b>White Americans have no right to prescribe a fix for racism. White Americans are solely responsible for fixing it. </b><br />
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<b>First and foremost</b>, privileged white men and women have got to find a way to sit still and listen to the pain of our black sisters and brothers. But it's also true that there is no way our culture can heal without white participation, given the power we wield in more or less measure.<br />
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<b>This crisis is all about racial justice. Or about police misconduct. Or America's toxic gun culture. </b><br />
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Wise voices among us, like Congressman John Lewis, are calling us out on all three counts.<br />
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In embracing anyone of these perspectives, with polarization as our default setting, we have abandoned not only reason but responsibility for the fate of this country many of us claim to love. It's broken.<br />
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If we don't take a hard look at our own assumptions, the favored narratives that inform our perspectives, there's really no hope of substantive change.<br />
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Do we really want to be a society that slaughters or incarcerates its African-American young men or has lost faith in the rule of law? Is the bloodstained, angry, fearful America we saw this week the best that we can do?<br />
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There have been few times in recent history when the questions seemed so pressing - and the need to find constructive and hopeful answers so great. Are you scared enough yet?<br />
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I am.<br />
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<br />Wallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-60602710726169807412016-06-19T13:57:00.001-04:002016-06-19T13:57:55.467-04:00After Orlando - when narratives compete, nobody wins <div>
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http://lancasteronline.com/features/faith_values/hanging-together-without-one-another-we-re-lost/article_f9744c32-34b5-11e6-a748-eba77e92c6e5.html#comments</div>
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#Orlando #gayrights #guncontrol </div>
Wallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-76036609859811265862016-06-17T00:04:00.002-04:002016-06-17T06:53:19.131-04:00 Think Jo Cox's death needn't matter to you? Think again #weareyorkshiretoo<div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This past week, along with many if not most of you, I have struggled to take in the horror of the </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">shootings of 49 mostly young, mostly queer men and women of color by an extremist, a </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">slaughter </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">so immense that it seems to divide one epoch of time from another - as though, </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">somehow we cannot </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">but emerge changed, if not in heart, at least in the words we use, and </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the way we use them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I suppose that's progress. Balance against those incremental steps our culture's unhinged</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> fascination </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">with guns and violent death and the insanity of our current political scene and </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">it's hard to see a clear </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">path to compromises on many of the intrinsic problems that continue</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> to shadow our culture, </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">including bias against people of color, the threat of more terrorist </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">events and the stream of </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">bills targeting gay and transgender men and women currently </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">under discussion in state </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">legislatures.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We're in turmoil. It's easy to feel immobilized, panicked, or determined to just take care of</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">our own "tribe."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So why should we pause to mourn the killing of a lone female legislator thousands of miles away?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Because when things are apparently getting worse and worse, she reminds us of what we </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">could be at </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">our best. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Because we also, like the U.K. are a democracy under threat. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Because it's possible her courage may embolden us, as well as her fellow citizens to step out of the </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">shadows, and have the bravery to advocate for those who can't speak for themselves.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">According to those who knew Cox, she was a person of profound character and conviction. <span style="line-height: 32.4px;">Colleagues and friends who worked alongside the Labour MP from Yorkshire described a woman of passion and purpose - someone who seemed destined for leadership. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 32.4px;">“We’ve lost a great star,” Prime Minister David Cameron told the BBC, according to the </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/british-member-of-parliament-reported-to-have-been-shot/2016/06/16/a9b988de-33c4-11e6-ab9d-1da2b0f24f93_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_brit-1015am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory" style="line-height: 32.4px;">Washington Post</a><span style="line-height: 32.4px;">. “She had a huge heart. She was a very compassionate, campaigning MP. She was a bright star, no doubt about it — a star for her constituents, a star for Parliament, and a star right across the House, and we have lost a star.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">An advocate for remaining in the European Union (the so-called "Brexit" vote looms next week),</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> she </span><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">was a voice of conscience and an advocate for Syrian refugees -as well as someone </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">who </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">appreciated the </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">many voices and backgrounds of her own district and saw the blend of </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">races </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and ethnic groups as an </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">advantage. </span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 22.4px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">While we celebrate our diversity, what surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us," she said in her first speech before Parliament.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.4px;">Another reason we might want to mourn Jo Cox? Her killer is alleged to have long-lasting </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.4px;"><a href="http://nocheapshots.blogspot.com/2016/06/think-jo-coxs-death-doesnt-matter-to.html">links to an American Neo-Nazi group</a>. We know that our own extremists have inspired</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.4px;"> killings </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.4px;">over here, but it's still shocking when their tentacles reach abroad and </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.4px;">touch </span><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 22.4px;">innocent lives. </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.4px;">Jo Cox was the mother of young children, and a wife. When I look at her photos, I see so many </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.4px;">young mothers I know. Perhaps it's unfair to hope that younger parents, preoccupied with raising </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 22.4px;">their kids, will estimate the gravity of this moment the way many of us older parents </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 22.4px;">do (or the </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 22.4px;">way Cox apparently saw it). But I hope that they will see something of </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 22.4px;">themselves in her - </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.4px;">and grasp </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 22.4px;">the nettle of this extraordinary time.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 24px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“She would have wanted two things above all else to happen now, said her husband Brendan. "One that our precious children are bathed in love, and two, that we all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Or, as The Guardian put it today: "</span></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 19.32px;">Honour her memory. Because the values and the commitment that she embodied are all that we have to keep barbarism at bay."</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.32px;">She's not here to do it on our behalf anymore. Now it's up to us. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.32px;">All of us. </span></span></div>
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Wallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-5585700664722741562016-05-22T09:19:00.000-04:002016-05-22T09:19:17.355-04:00Our family went through college admissions purgatory. Learn from our mistakes (In today's Sunday Inquirer). http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20160522_Commentary__Mom_s_lesson_from_the_college_search.htmlWallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24675356.post-65116313987970316602016-05-07T08:17:00.004-04:002016-05-07T08:17:57.878-04:00For formerly married sisters pursuing new calling, family ties still bindhttp://globalsistersreport.org/news/spirituality/sisters-who-are-also-mothers-bring-new-perspectives-religious-life-39641Wallacewriterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664895798688527246noreply@blogger.com0