When a 12-year-old Jesus escaped his parents’ watchful eye during the family’s annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the anxious couple returned to find him at long last in the temple, “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.”
When the second grader Susan Byrne is assigned to tutor at Willow Brook Elementary School in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, goes through his reading lesson, he holds onto Byrne’s hand the whole time.
Seated Friday before more than 100 United Methodist Church communicators in St. Louis, the Rev. Sharon Youngs heard the voice of the Rev. Gradye Parsons, former Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), reverberating in her head.