Take a moment and consider all the ways that technology has touched your life this day. Reading this entry on your device, for one. Perhaps you have also called a friend, checked a weather app or made a purchase. Digital devices, at their best, keep us safe and connected and informed. Now imagine not having access to the digital world. According to the United Nations, “259 million fewer women have access to the internet than men, even though they account for nearly half the world’s population.” Read more »
February 24, 2023
Minute for Mission: International Women’s Day
Take a moment and consider all the ways that technology has touched your life this day. Reading this entry on your device, for one. Perhaps you have also called a friend, checked a weather app or made a purchase. Digital devices, at their best, keep us safe and connected and informed. Now imagine not having access to the digital world. According to the United Nations, “259 million fewer women have access to the internet than men, even though they account for nearly half the world’s population.” Read more »
For more than 140 years, Magnolia Presbyterian Church in Riverside, California, has been providing ministry in this Southern California community. The city recognized it as a historic landmark in 1973. Members cite the church’s many outreaches into the community, across the country and around the world. 
With the one-year anniversary of Russia’s continued aggression toward Ukraine looming on Friday, a webinar was held Thursday to discuss the impact of nonviolent resistance against the war and to make recommendations to Congress, including stressing the need for diplomacy. 
The meeting of Mary and Elizabeth in the first chapter of Luke is a treasured story of two women connecting to share an unexpected experience, with love, excitement and probably a little fear. This image, recreated by so many artists, reminds me of the most powerful gifts I have received from other women in my life: connection, a warm embrace, a smile, a knowing glance across a room, a space to sing out my joys and my fears, the knowledge that in the most chaotic moments of life I have people whose embrace and care I can always count on. 
From helping women to start businesses in Panama to amplifying the voices of unhoused people in California, partners of the Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People are making an impact worth celebrating. 
Last week’s webinar hosted by the Center for Social Justice and Reconciliation at Union Presbyterian Seminary looked at real-world examples of how faith communities are working to house some of the unhoused people in their community. 
The Board of Trustees has named Dr. Jacqueline E. Lapsley to be the eighth president of Union Presbyterian Seminary. 
The annual announcement of nominations for the Oscars for the previous year is one that film lovers look forward to with eager anticipation. “Will my favorite films make the lists?” we ask. I was happy to see that most of my favorites (see my Presbyterian News Service article on Top Ten Films by clicking here) did receive one or more nominations. 
Presbyterians and millions of other Christians left Ash Wednesday services looking and feeling different — and it wasn’t just the ashen crosses they were sporting on their foreheads, a reminder of the dust by which they were created and the dust to which they will return. 
The Rev. Denise Anderson, director of Compassion, Peace & Justice in the Presbyterian Mission Agency, had an hour-long conversation with an old friend last week and invited the rest of us to listen in.