Evidence that we live in a broken world is all around. While some can accept this as simple reality and that we should just “get over it and muddle along the best we can,” others cannot. They are the ones deeply troubled by societal dysfunction and either try to work around it or, for the most ambitious, engage with full energy to ameliorate the impact of the dysfunction and address its causes.
I was recently watching reruns of “M*A*S*H” — the iconic 1970s sitcom chronicling the lives of the nurses, doctors and even clergy working in a mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean War — when I came across an episode titled “Dear Sis.”
It was an exciting ending to Boston’s 2019 Dragon Boat Festival. Our team — the Golden Dragons — won by an eighth of a second, beating a group of 30-somethings from the San Francisco Bay area. The average age of our crew was 70. We lived up to the motto emblazoned on our T-shirts: “Old age and treachery will always win out against youth and ambition.”
“What was Mary’s favorite nickname for baby Jesus, or Jesus as a toddler?” asked the Rev. Dr. Justin Reed.
This was the opening question at the Adult Bible Study at the Presbyterian Association of Musicians’ Music and Worship Conference.
The Rev. Andrew Black, a pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is coordinating an effort to ensure protection of the Chaco Culture National Historical Park located in the northwest corner of New Mexico. The National Park Service calls Chaco Culture National Historical Park “the center of the ancient world.”
The daughter of a church member texted, late one Friday night, to say that her dad’s physical health was fading fast. He had been placed on hospice, and she was concerned about how much more time he had. She told me that she had become his round-the-clock nurse/caregiver, and she was grateful to be able to do that. Earlier in the week I had offered to drive to her house (about 60 miles) to visit them. She indicated that she now wanted to take me up on my offer.
Forty years ago, the Dutch Reformed Mission Church (DRMC) in South Africa adopted Belydenis van Belhar — the Confession of Belhar — in its first reading. Belhar was an outgrowth of the DRMC’s effort to grapple with the church’s participation in and defense of apartheid and touches prominently on themes of unity, reconciliation and justice. The DRMC adopted Belhar in its final form in 1986.
Last fall, Shenandoah Presbytery hosted an all-day educational event at Massanetta Springs Camp and Conference Center in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The event focused on the bold vision of being a Matthew 25 church with two guest speakers: the Rev. Jimmie Hawkins, director of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Office of Public Witness, and the Rev. Dr. Margaret Grun Kibben, chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives.
In-person worship services are returning at various rates and with various restrictions. And while some congregations are reporting in-person attendance that’s higher than it was pre-Covid, most churches are reporting lower in-person attendance with a significant number of people attending their online services. My congregation is in that majority.
Go to Berkeley. Become a Christian. That might sound like a joke, but that’s my faith story. I became a follower of Christ during my first year at the University of California at Berkeley. It was then that I heard that one excellent reason not to believe in God was science. As a newly minted Christian sitting in the pews of First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley, I also heard that “the Gospel is not fragile.” The Gospel’s strength to connect with culture, including science, was something I desperately needed to hear — and is something Presbyterians believe.
