During a worship service at the Presbyterian Association of Musicians’ Worship and Music Conference, the Rev. Cecilia (Ce Ce) Armstrong told those gathered in person and online that she was not going to preach a devotional sermon.
Like the prophet Nehemiah’s efforts to rally the people to work together to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, the nonprofit multi-ethnic, multi-faith justice organization Lee Interfaith For Empowerment (LIFE) has worked for the past decade to mobilize efforts of the faithful to address important justice issues in Fort Myers, Florida.
In college, the Revs. Layne Bailey Brubaker and Abigail Spears Velázquez wore matching hats embroidered with the words ‘Sick & hAlarious.’ These expressions are endearing reminders of their visits with Abi’s grandmother and great aunt, who would frequently exclaim “sick” or “hAlarious” in response to one another’s stories about life in their retirement. “Abi and I picked this up from them,” Brubaker said. We always imagined ourselves in the last days of our lives, living in a retirement community, laughing, and saying everything is ‘sick’ and ‘hAlarious.’” Abi’s grandmother passed away recently, so “it is with loving gratitude that we honor her in the name of our podcast: Sick & hAlarious: A Podcast Where We Encounter God In It All.”
I was talking to my friend from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma one time about how squirrels can signal to us what kind of winter we could look forward to. He said that when the squirrels dig holes in the ground to bury their harvest, we can expect a mild winter. If squirrels carry their harvest to their nests, then a heavy snow would be expected, as snow would be more difficult for the animals to work through to get to the food.
There was something that felt perfectly right about the celebration of life of the Rev. Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon at Bethpage United Presbyterian Church on Aug. 14 in Concord, North Carolina. First, there was the community that gathered. It was like a reunion of reunions for African-American Presbyterians and many others. We gathered, greeted each other, sang, praised God, read Scripture, remembered, celebrated and renewed our faith, even at a time of death of a beloved sister, aunt, friend and educator.
On a sunny July morning, I drove into the Waldheim Jewish Cemetery in Forest Park, a suburb west of Chicago, to attend the burial service for a former hospice patient. Waldheim was founded during the second wave of Jewish immigration to the city in the late 19th century, and it has been the final resting place for women like Sara, a Holocaust survivor from Russia who lived into her 90s.
A recently released report by the Pew Research Center for Religion & Public Life shows the composition of the 115th U.S. Congress is losing members from historically mainline Protestant groups in favor of modest gains by evangelicals, Catholics and representatives from other faith traditions.
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) leaders have been standing in solidarity with Native American tribes and groups protesting the construction of the Dakota access pipeline and its encroachment upon Native American lands.
