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The COVID-19 crisis has “brought home the relevance of mental health to everyone,” said Donna Miller, associate for Presbyterian Mental Health Ministry. “There’s this recognition that the situation that we’re in increases mental health vulnerability across the board. We know that prolonged stress does that for people.”
Presenting during a webinar sponsored by the Presbyterian Older Adult Ministries Network, the Rev. Dr. Eileen Lindner discussed what sociologists have labeled “the Bernie Effect,” natural bonds that can form between millennials and people old enough to be their grandparents, or even great-grandparents. What’s going on there resembles the way millions of young people were drawn to U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, during his presidential runs in 2016 and 2020.
“Reparation” is a word sparking public curiosity — and controversy. Defined as “making amends for a wrong one has done,” the reparations conversation has recently gone from ambiguous talk to concrete actions as politicians, academic institutions and even denominations offer solutions to right the wrongs in our country’s past, specifically the wrongs of slavery.
In the middle of this chaotic summer of 2020, I find myself one early Saturday morning at the recently opened pool that we use in the summer. Perhaps due to my vocation, youth ministry, I really enjoy and learn from observing and listening to young people.
Just how powerful is prayer? On Sunday morning I was greeted by an email from a colleague at the Presbyterian Mission Agency with these words: May you feel the love and receive strength from all the prayers coming your way this day.
Presbytery of Detroit leaders recently published an open letter, written “from a place of deep pain and anger as we witness the division and inequality laid bare by (the coronavirus), particularly in our region.”
On the last day of Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) orientation, we are sent off to be commissioned at churches in the Hudson River Valley near Stony Point Center. Several churches in the area agree to host small groups of YAVs for worship where we are commissioned for our year of service, followed by a meal and conversations. We as YAVs come as we are, bringing our whole selves, exhausted from the past week of orientation, to a table of strangers, to share our intentions for our year of service and what we have already begun learning during the first week.
At the end of March, when schools, businesses and churches began closing their doors to curb the spread of COVID-19, the youth of Myers Park Presbyterian Church came up with an idea. The Charlotte, North Carolina, teens wanted those in the community to know that they weren’t alone.
In a small conference room at the Board of Pensions, before COVID-19 led to staff working remotely, D.J. Lee recalled how he chose to travel from his home in South Korea to Philadelphia to earn an MBA. He spread an imaginary map of the United States across the conference table and ran his hands across it, one westward, one eastward.
Even when writing in times of national crisis (9/11) and personal loss, words never abandoned me as they have now. I’m not sure what to write because I don’t know what our lives will be like by the time you read this.
