The theme for this year’s World Community Day is “New Places, New Faces at the Table.” As Christians, we are called to nurture and cultivate life-giving community — within our families, our churches and throughout God’s world. So let us extend welcome in love and mutual respect.
Scripture is full of human desire for a sense of home, belonging, security: a mother lovingly placing a basket in the reeds to protect her infant son, a faith community’s journey through wilderness to find a promised homeland, a place to lay a baby’s head when there’s no room at the inn.
Transgender Day of Remembrance is a day to name and mourn the many transgender, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people murdered each year because of their gender identity. On this day, we raise awareness of the extreme violence committed against transgender people simply for existing as they are. On this day, we commit to the work of creating a healed world where all gender identities and gender presentations are met with not only respect but celebration.
Up until 1521, it had been relatively safe to show an interest in the writings and teachings of Martin Luther (1483–1546). When Luther refused to recant his writings in opposition to various doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church, the Edict of Worms was signed by Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, on May 25, 1521, officially declaring Luther a heretic and an outlaw.
World Food Day — celebrated on Oct. 16 every year — commemorates the founding in 1945 of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The FAO was created to respond to famines and the tragedy of hunger in a world of God’s abundance. Despite the abundance of land, water, nutrients, and sunlight on this precious planet, even in the 21st century, hundreds of millions of people go hungry on Oct. 16 and every day of the year.
On this day in 1945, the United Nations Charter came into force. “We the Peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war … to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours …”
Mental Illness Awareness Week is Oct. 3–9, 2021. As the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) notes, millions of Americans live with a mental health condition, and all of us are affected either directly or indirectly. This week provides a time for mental health advocates across the country to come together as one unified voice. See nami.org.
During my first year as a pastor, there were certain milestones I knew to look forward to. I looked forward to the first time I stood at the communion table and invited my congregation to share in the feast, and the first time I marked an infant with water and proclaimed how much God loved her in baptism. I looked forward to my first Christmas and first sunrise Easter service. But there were other firsts that I didn’t know about that caught me off guard with their beauty.
The International Day of Rural Women is observed on Oct. 15, the day before World Food Day, to bring attention to the “significant contributions [of women] to agricultural production, food security and nutrition, land and natural resource management, and building climate resilience.” This year’s theme is “building women’s resilience in the wake of COVID-19.”
