For this country pastor, spring means Town Meeting Day is here.
A Vermont tradition since 1762, Town Meeting Day is where residents in sleepy hamlets and frozen-in-time villages throw on their boots and trudge through the mud (or sometimes a foot or more of snow) to get to schools or village offices to speak for or against proposed policies, budgets, prospective town clerks and supervisors, and then to vote.
Every few election cycles, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) tells Presbyterians and the rest of the world how important each vote is while suggesting ways to make voting and other civic engagement more convenient and more accessible to more Americans.
The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, the nation’s oldest ecumenical body, concluded its annual “Christian Unity Gathering” last week in a spirit of celebration and hope. Leaders from across the Council’s 38 member communions came to College Park, Maryland, to join in conversation, worship and decision-making. The Christian Unity Gathering (CUG) continued the Council’s “A.C.T. Now to End Racism” campaign, begun with a mass rally on the National Mall last April.