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Teaching children theology through relationships and wonder

Theological instruction starts soon after life starts, it turns out. Which is to say that children begin to grasp at least a little bit about God and eternal matters based on how adults treat them and what questions children are allowed to ask.

Kids-theologyThis Sojourners article explores some of this in ways that may help you -- as a parent, grandparent or simply an adult -- guide children into a generative life of faith in which they learn that they may never have all the answers so it's perfectly fine to keep asking questions about the divine.

The author of the piece, Bekah McNeel, begins this way:

I asked my 3-year-old niece, Ember, what she learned in church. She said she learned about Jesus. “Who is Jesus?” I asked. “Where does he live?” She looked at me like I was an idiot, and then said, “Jesus is in our heart. Jesus helps us not be scared and not be afraid.”

It was the kind of simple, childlike answer I expected, but when I relayed it to Amittia Parker, a researcher and children’s mental health expert at Georgetown University’s Center for Child and Human Development, she said that it points to something important: the experience of theology.

Just because young children are not cognitively able to absorb abstract concepts, or even many of the details of a Bible story, they can still be shaped by a church environment, she said. More than a specific curriculum, Parker explained that young children learn about God through the way people at church talk to each other, treat each other and the various rituals and social behaviors they observe.

“Through repeated interactions over time, the young child learns about themselves and others,” Parker said. “Now and later [a church can] imprint in a young child’s mind that the church is a place where you can find healing and encouragement.”

Sojourners is a Christian publication, but what McNeel writes is applicable to any faith tradition.

I was intrigued by her niece's answer that "Jesus is in our heart." That is exactly the answer that my stepson, a special-needs adult, gives when the subject of Jesus comes up. Somehow Chris, 53, who functions at roughly a five-year-old level, understands that Jesus is a friend who loves him but isn't present physically. Instead, he is always with us because he dwells within us.

I am imagining children who have been the victims of abuse, especially abuse by members of the clergy. What can they possibly think about the god preached by such people? Where was this god when the abuse was going on? Did this god care nothing about the child's welfare at an unimaginably vulnerable time?

Yes, children learn from books, including sacred scripture, but they learn even more from the actions of people, especially people they should be able to trust in any situation. When such people fail children, it's very much as if those kids experience the failure of God, in whose image everyone is made.

McNeel quotes a Texas pastor as suggesting that "seeing the details and events of the Bible as a static, exclusive answer book for everything we can possibly know about God (what some scholars call biblicism) can lead to a religious practice that is restrictive or even irrelevant."

The religious world is full of written words in scripture, statements of faith, rules of conduct and so much more. How much better it would be if children were allowed to come to an understanding of all those words if they got there by a journey that started with "I wonder. . ." instead of an adult's dogmatic statement that begins, "Here's the truth. . ."

* * *

LET'S FOCUS REACTION TO ALABAMA'S IVF DECISION ON THE LAW, NOT RELIGION

The reaction to the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision that an embryo is a child has been loud and long. No surprise. But recent commentary about it has focused on how the widespread negative reaction to it may be an indication of how the decision will help Democrats in the upcoming congressional and presidential elections.

Instead, religion scholar Mark Silk in this Religion News Service column pays attention to how the decision has almost no legal justification under Alabama or U.S. law. Silk doesn't use this phrase, but you may think of the court's ruling as the 2024 equivalent of the 1857 Dred Scott slavery decision. There's nothing wrong with public officials being influenced in their policy choices by what their religion teaches them. There is, however, something badly wrong with public officials who seek to impose their religious views through legislation or judicial decisions on American citizens. That's an abuse both of religion and of their power as legislators or part of the judiciary.


When politicians cynically misuse religion for personal gain

The recent death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny (by "death" I mean murder by Vladimir Putin's autocracy), was one more example of how a political leader who pretends to be committed to a religion uses that religion as a weapon to advance his or her own power.

Patriarch-kirill-vladimir-putinIt's disgusting, appalling and unsurprising, given how often it's happened (and is still happening) in human history. The shock is that anyone still is fooled by it.

Putin uses the Russian Orthodox Church as a political sycophant, thus adding to his personal political power even as he destroys the spiritual legitimacy of the church, as this surprisingly accurate article from Fox News points out.

"Putin," the piece asserts, "is a master at weaponizing religion to fulfill his personal ambitions to become the modern Czar and to advance the goals of Mother Russia."

This Tablet magazine article adds to the evidence that a cynical Putin robes himself in religion not for spiritual reasons but to crush political opponents and make him seem like a redeemer.

"Navalny," the article notes, "is the latest in a series of high-profile opposition leaders and dissidents to be assassinated by the Russian state. Putin’s most visible and outspoken opponent had spent the last three years imprisoned under the most austere and barbarous conditions that Russia’s prison camp system offers.

"In fact, Putin had been so terrified of the challenge that Navalny posed to his system that he has spent years steadfastly refusing to utter his name. The murder of the Kremlin’s most audacious and charismatic political opponent — one who earned his political stature through his superhuman courage — a month before the upcoming elections sends an unmistakable message to any other Russians countenancing opposition to Putin’s police state."

Politicians, of course, often have used religious languages, tenets and doctrine for political gain. At times, in fact, discerning when a political leader's appeal to religious ideas is a purposeful path to more power can be tricky. Abraham Lincoln, for instance, often used the language of Christian spirituality to help Americans understand what he was trying to accomplish in the Civil War. This was true even though Lincoln's thinking was often in some tension with traditional Christianity. My reading suggests, however, that this was less an exploitation of religion for political purposes than it was Lincoln's effort to communicate in ways that most Americans would understand.

That's a far different approach than, say, that of former President Donald Trump, who liked to promote the idea (widespread among his most ardent followers) that God had chosen him as a political leader to accomplish what God wanted accomplished. The facetiousness of that idea was so apparent that it was shocking that even one person believed it.

Similarly, the notion that Putin is a tool God is using for divine purposes is such an astonishing claim that it's hard to imagine why anyone agrees with it. But time and again through history, leaders have wrapped themselves in the divine. Our job as citizens is to explore every such claim and, when necessary, challenge it. And, it turns out, it's almost always necessary. Just ask Alexei Navalny's family and supporters.

(The photo here today shows Putin with his deeply compromised buddy, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill.)

* * *

YOU PICK 'EM

Just for fun: A spacecraft built by a Houston company landed on the moon the other day. I can't remember who first created this joke, but it begins with the start of an old complaint that urges doing something more useful than landing on the moon. It goes: "If we can send a man to the moon. . ." then finishes this way: ". . .why can't it be (you fill in the blank)?" Donald Trump, Joe Biden, my history professor, my dentist, etc. Let me know if your choice of someone to be blasted off to the moon ever gets picked. 

* * *

Cherry-B-masksP.S.: How did you help people through the Covid pandemic? My friend Cherry Barthel, a member of my congregation, hand-made and distributed 3,418 masks for people. Each mask, she says, took about an hour and 45 minutes to create.

Cherry used to be a seamstress and sewing teacher at the former Kaplan's material store on the Country Club Plaza. Well into her retirement now, she keeps making beautiful and helpful things. If you are reading this on Facebook, X or LinkedIn, feel free to leave a note if you're one of the recipients of Cherry's Covid-inspired handiwork, as am I. And give Cherry, who is holding a few of her masks in this photo, a high-five, at least virtually.


For a million bucks can you verify the Shroud of Turin?

Shroud-turin

Back in the late 1970s, I read Ian Wilson's fascinating book, The Shroud of Turin: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?

A lot has happened since then as scientists, theologians and others have tried to figure out the answer to Wilson's question. The shroud, a burial cloth bearing the image of a crucified man, has been debunked as a medieval fake and defended as the real thing.

Several years ago, a wealthy, but anonymous, person put up $1 million that would go to anyone who, using strict rules, could replicate the Shroud and, thus, perhaps prove whether the image on the shroud is really that of Jesus of Nazareth or whether it's a tricky imitation. As this story notes, no one took the invitation to win the million bucks.

So now, the $1 million challenge is being renewed. 

As Myra Kahn Adams writes in Townhall, "Our teams produced the detailed information required for one to enter and potentially win the USA $1 Million Challenge. The winning replica must comply with all the established measurable criteria based on extensive modern analysis of the Shroud."

In her article, Adams also lays out a lot of the history of the Shroud as well as the differing conclusions about what it might be.

It seems to me that the questions for anyone trying to prove or disprove the idea that this material was Jesus' burial cloth are these: Who should care and why?

If, for instance, someone finally can prove that the person Christians call Lord really was wrapped in that cloth at burial and that it displays the bloody way he was tortured and died, will that move anyone toward becoming one of Christ's followers? Similarly, if the cloth can be proven to be a fake from the Middle Ages, will the news drive current Christians away from their commitment to Christ?

Jesus-Vision-GravesIf it's proven the real thing, I can see how some people might be encouraged and tempted to find out more about this First Century Jewish man whom the Roman brutes who ruled the Holy Land then put to death by crucifixion. But if that happens, then Christianity once again seems mostly about his death and not about his life. And that's a distortion of Christianity, as Mike Graves argues in his new book, Jesus' Vision for Your One Wild and Precious Life, which I wrote about recently here.

But if the shroud is proven to be a fake, I fail to see what difference it would make to Christians, whose faith is not in a burial cloth but in the teacher who was wrapped in some kind of shroud, even if not the one that bears the name Turin.

Still, the shroud is a mystery, and mysteries are always worth solving. If this is the first you've heard of the renewed $1 million challenge and if you enter the challenge and win, I'd be happy if you sent a modest finder's fee to my church. In return, I'll send you a modest thank-you note.

* * *

THE TROUBLE WITH ALABAMA'S RULING ON FROZEN EMBRYOS

In its new ruling that calls frozen embryos "extra-uterine children," judges on the Alabama Supreme Court use profoundly religious language -- mostly instead of legal language -- to justify their decision that such embryos are legally protected like any child. At one level, it's at least a little reassuring to find judges taking moral stances into consideration in any kind of case. But at a deeper level, this example of that feels very much like the state mandating a particular religious view, and that's deeply troubling.

Here's part of what Alabama Chief Justice Tom Parker wrote in an opinion attached to the ruling: "In summary, the theologically based view of the sanctity of life adopted by the People of Alabama encompasses the following: (1) God made every person in His image; (2) each person therefore has a value that far exceeds the ability of human beings to calculate; and (3) human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself."

In other words, the court is using deeply religious language to allow one of 50 states to decide that embryos are children, sort of in the majority-rules-badly way that Alabama once decided that slavery is biblically justifiable. This new decision does nothing to come to a nationwide understanding or consensus about how to think about frozen embryos. That this faith-based decision came from Alabama is not surprising. The state's history is full of private and government examples of defense of white supremacy, especially instances of churches advocating for slavery before and during (and even after) the Civil War, as this NPR analysis makes clear. So in some ways, the state court is simply inappropriately reflecting the narrowest variety of thinking to be found among Alabama's citizens. The good news in the embryos decision is that it recognizes that all human beings are of ultimate worth -- thinking that should have made slavery unthinkable.


Without room to grieve, we'll never recover from a death

At an open-casket funeral I attended recently, I overheard someone who was looking at the deceased say this: "He looks so good."

Grieving RoomNo, he didn't. He looked dead.

But lines like "he looks so good" often fall from well-meaning lips at funerals. And, beyond the funerals, people often fail to give those who are grieving the time and space they need to find their balance, to be able to resume their lives, though always remembering whom they've lost.

Which is a primary point of an excellent new book on grief written by a Protestant pastor from Canada. Grieving Room: Making Space for All the Hard Things After Death and Loss, by Leanne Friesen, draws from deep wells of the author's personal experiences, including the wrenching death of her sister.

It may not be the first book I'd think about giving to someone having an especially difficult time mourning the death of a loved one. Rather, I'd almost always give the C.S. Lewis classic, A Grief Observed.

But Friesen's book would be next on my list -- and maybe first, depending on the circumstances. It's that good.

The personal experiences of the author make this book credible and deeply engaging. Yes, it's a book full of good advice for people in grief, but it's advice gained through often-bitter and terrible experiences.

The death that's central to the book is that of the author's older sister, Roxanne, who eventually died a painful death of cancer.

"Whatever we believe about the afterlife -- or don't -- we all need room to name it when someone is dying," Friesen writes. "We need room to be with people as they journey toward their death, surrounding those who are facing the end of their life or the death of loved ones with compassion and support. We need room to say, 'She is dying,' and to hear in response, 'I'm here for you.' We need room because our lives are full of dying and because dying takes room."

Maybe one of the silliest things anybody has ever said about grief is that it comes in predictable stages. No, it doesn't. It is, rather, like a rollercoaster, Friesen says. You don't neatly move from denial to acceptance, and we should quit expecting that for ourselves or anyone else.

One of the most moving passages in this book describes how, on Easter of 2013, with Friesen's sister close to death, Friesen had to preach an Easter sermon "because," as she writes, "that's what pastors do on Easter Sunday."

In that sermon she mentioned the practice of laying flowers on a grave: "I shared about different examples of death, and each time I did, I laid down another carnation, until two hundred carnations lay across the front of our church. I said these flowers reminded us of all the disappointments and deaths we face.

"As I looked at my congregation, I saw all kinds of deaths sitting in front of me. . .Finally, I talked about how the hope of Easter was that death was not the end. . ." After the sermon she told people they were going to "declare that death would not win. To do that, we are going to pick the flowers back up." She asked people to give those flowers to someone who needed hope. Her surprise was that many people gave their flowers directly to Friesen, acknowledging her grief about the expected death of her sister.

"In those few short minutes," she writes, "they all gave me the room that I needed. Room for dying, and room for hope. Flower after flower."

If you know people who need room for dying and room for hope, give them a flower -- a copy of this book.

(Imagine how many Kansas Citians and Chiefs' fans around the country are grieving because of the violence after the celebration of the team's Super Bowl victory, violence that led to the death of one and injuries to many more, including children. Yes, individuals must deal with grief when they encounter death in their families, but now a whole community has to find room to grieve and find answers to detestable behavior that caused death and injury. I serve on the board of a group called SevenDays, which teaches kindness through education and dialogue. Clearly, we have a lot more work to do, and we could use your assistance. Here's one way to help. At the same time, much of the world is in grief over the loss of life in various wars, from Ukraine to Gaza and Israel and beyond. In such cases, our job is to look for the peacemakers and find ways to support their work. And if you seem stuck in grief for any of these or other reasons and seek some help, may I suggest you start with the Prairie Sky Counseling Center. I most recently wrote about this group here.)

* * *

THIS IS WHAT DICTATORIAL LEADERS DO

It should be no shock to anyone that the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny just a day after he testified in court is being blamed on Russian president Vladimir Putin and his government. Navalny, for years, has been a living example of standing up to authoritarian evil. So far we don't have an official (and believable) cause of death for him, but we do have an example of what it can cost you if you live by high morals that guide you to help people be free. Imagine all the freedom-loving Russians who need room to grieve now. Putin and his lackeys have much to explain. And if, for a moment, you believe that Putin was serious when he said he favored President Joe Biden over Donald Trump in the upcoming American presidential election, you have been taken in by more Putin nonsense and you may need professional help in overcoming your delusions.


Needed: A theology through the lens of autism

Almost every Sunday morning, I sit in a particular cut-out pew for worship in our church sanctuary so I can be next to the wheelchair that carries my stepson Chris, a special-needs adult.

Naz-AutismThose cut-out pews exist because Chris' mother, my wife, pushed hard some years ago to get them installed for people like Chris and others who need wheelchairs, walkers and other assisting devices to get around.

Those pews should have existed years ago without pressure from my bride and others. And their absence was another indication that religious organizations often don't make the necessary accommodations to allow full inclusion of all people who have various levels of physical or mental needs.

The history of how churches deal with people with special needs isn't especially uplifting. Religious bodies have made lots of mistakes, but the good news is that some people are trying to teach congregations how to do better with all this.

Autism-worshipThat's one reason that Nazarene Theological Seminary has scheduled a "Day of Learning" event on Monday, Feb. 26, featuring liturgical scholar Léon van Ommen, author of Autism and Worship: A Liturgical Theology. The graphic above here today gives this link for registration.

Léon van Ommen is senior lecturer in practical theology and co-director of the Centre for Autism and Theology at the University of Aberdeen.

In his book, van Ommen argues that "when the church puts up barriers to participation (wittingly or unwittingly). . .it misses out on the gifts and blessing that autistic people are to the church."

In that way, he is in perfect harmony with German Reformed theologian Jurgen Moltmann, who has argued that "congregations without disabled persons being accepted" are disabled churches.

Autistic people, van Ommen notes, quoting various studies, "are attending church less than the general population." No doubt part of the reason for that is that studies find that parents of children with autism feel significantly less supported by their church than parents of children with other intellectual issues.

In response to that reality, van Ommen writes that "a theology of presence and availability can counter the exclusion of autistic (and other) people."

No doubt at the Nazarene event he will -- as he does in the book -- offer a picture of what "a theology of presence and availability" might look like.

For instance, in the book he argues in favor of looking "at liturgy through the lens of autism." By doing that, he says, "we become aware of the cult of normalcy and the endless ways in which normalcy causes a problem for autistic participation in worship and in the life of the community."

The essential problem for the church, he argues, is that "when autistic Christians are absent from the worship service or church activities, it is not because they are not interested but because it takes too much effort, and they are often met by misunderstanding and even unwillingness."

I must say that my congregation expresses nothing but love for -- and acceptance of -- my stepson, who has developmental disabilities. He loves to come to church, especially to see the friends whom he can't wait to hug. As to how my congregation treats autistic people, I regret to say that I simply don't know because -- like a lot of congregations -- it's something we simply haven't talked about much, if at all.

If that's also true in your congregation, you might want to show up for this event at Nazarene Theological Seminary on Feb. 26.

* * *

THIS IS A DAY OF BOTH LOVE AND THEOLOGY

Today is both Ash Wednesday for Christians and Valentine's Day (named after a saint) for everyone. With that in mind, Religion News Service offers this intriguing analysis of why "it’s worth looking again at the (Catholic) church’s teaching on love and intimacy and the ways (Pope) Francis has recast those conversations."

Religion's general skittishness about addressing human sexuality, which often lead to destructive conclusions that injure people, is changing somewhat here and there. And good for Pope Francis that he's helping to show the way toward a healthier view of sexuality.


You get to pick your favorite today -- heaven or hell

Very little fascinates people -- at least those not staring at a screen of some kind -- more than the ideas of heaven and hell.

Heaven-hellThe questions about our eternal destiny are legion, and many branches of institutional religion are happy to tell you their views on the subjects -- views that rarely agree with each other. In my experience, if you gather together two dozen people from the same Christian, Jewish or Muslim congregation (thinking for now just of the Abrahamic faith traditions), you will discover two dozen different ideas about heaven and hell.

As a Christian, I happen to think that pondering heaven and hell is worthwhile -- not as an intellectual diversion but, rather, as a way of getting us to focus more clearly on why we have life in the first place. In other words, thinking a little (not obsessively but at least a little) about a possible afterlife may move us toward a deeper understanding of the purpose of the life we already have. And that could be helpful in all kinds of ways.

So to get the (perhaps just internal) conversation started, I'm linking you today to two articles -- this one mostly focused on hell from a Catholic perspective and this one mostly focused on heaven from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Please recognize that the authors of these two pieces cannot speak for their traditions as a whole, but they can raise some questions about heaven and hell that might help you discern what you think.

I have some issues with both pieces, but that's not the point. The point is that it's helpful to think about eternal matters because it can guide us through temporal matters.

For instance, the National Catholic Register (not Reporter) piece tends to say things dogmatically and without reservations. Such as this: "What does the Church actually teach? This is found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which says, in part, 'The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell' (1035)."

And the Orthodox piece tends to convict without citing evidence. Like this: "I suspect, though I may be wrong, that most folks care about heaven and it is their preachers and teachers who are rolling their eyes. Perhaps there are men and women who trust in their careers and health care enough that they can avoid the big questions of life."

Speaking of the Orthodox, a few years back I wrote rather admiringly about a book by Orthodox Christian theologian David Bentley Hart in which he argued strongly that the only hell that exists is the one we create ourselves by living flawed, unloving lives. As I've said before, Hart seems incapable of writing an uninteresting sentence.

So give the pieces to which I've linked you a read and see if they might help you find a more purposeful way to live your life now because they're giving you a chance to think about what comes after this life.

* * *

WHAT'S AT STAKE IN THE TRUMP-COLORADO CASE?

Religion scholar and analyst Mark Silk, writing for Religion News Service, contends that the current case before the U.S. Supreme Court about whether Colorado can keep Donald Trump off the 2024 presidential ballot, may "further weaken the American civil religion." It's an intriguing argument that shows us how the political and legal landscape in America is shifting.

* * *

THE BOOK CORNER

Emancipation-God

Those of you who are fans of theologian Walter Brueggemann -- and that means a lot of you -- will want to check out his just-published latest book, The Emancipation of God: Postmarks on Cultural Prophecy.

This volume is a collection of posts that are more personal than many of his books, perhaps they are drawn from his blog. His 100-plus books over a long career have established him as one of the premier Christian scholars of the Hebrew Bible.

But even if you knew he was born in Nebraska, my guess is you didn't know that he went to high school while living in Blackburn, Mo., just east of Kansas City. That may not quite balance out the famous presence of sibling theologians Reinhold, H. Richard and Hulda Niebuhr, who grew up west of St. Louis in Wright City, but not many Missourians brag about the state's connections to theologians anyway so I'm not sure anyone is keeping track of that balance. At any rate, anything Walter Brueggemann, now well into his 90s, writes is worth reading, including this new collection.


Why this ancient wisdom is so necessary today

Sometimes Christians seem embarrassingly ignorant of how much their (my) religion owes to Judaism -- not even counting the Jewish man Christians call their lord and savior, Christ Jesus.

Amen-EffectFor instance, Christians borrowed or adapted Jewish worship styles. They took the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures and put those 39 books in the Christian Bible. They adopted countless segments (maybe all) of Jewish moral and ethical teachings. Even Christian Baptism and Holy Communion have Jewish roots.

So it's helpful for Christians to remember all that as well as to remember, with sadness and shame, how, for most of its existence, Christianity has taught a vile anti-Judaism that in various ways contributed to the existence of modern antisemitism, which continues to set the world aflame decades after the Holocaust. My essay on the history of Christian anti-Judaism is available elsewhere on the blog -- here, in fact.

All of that is a reason that not just Jews but also Christians should be interested in a beautiful new little book by Rabbi Sharon Brous, The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World.

It draws from Jewish tradition -- in a wide, big-hearted way -- to help people know what's really important in life and how not to miss it. Brous is a lucid writer and clear thinker who draws from her experience as a pulpit rabbi whose ministry has been full of fabulous and terrible stories. In fact, fabulous and terrible are what, she says, all people can and should expect from life.

That's because, she writes, "life is precious and precarious, and never to be taken for granted." In scriptural terms, that idea is found, she says, in Psalms 2:11: "Rejoice with trembling." (As I mentioned here on the blog a few days ago.)

Brous sometimes suggests ways to live that seem perfectly obvious -- but then throws in a bit of an unexpected twist. For instance, in a chapter called "Show Up," she notes that people "have an innate, biological need to share our joy." But then tells us of research that "shows something perhaps counterintuitive: sharing our joy may be even more impactful than experiencing it in the first place."

In her role as teacher (which is what, after all, rabbis do), Brous has found that asking a few simple questions results in deeply revealing answers. One such question is: "What's the good news?" Another is "What are you waiting for?"

Over and over -- in interesting and effective ways -- Brous reminds us of what is of the highest value, human life. She mentions a piece of art by Leonardo da Vinci that sold for hundreds of millions of dollars a few years ago, but then she writes this: "It would be unthinkable that we'd abandon such a piece outside our home, leaving it vulnerable to robbery, vandalism, wind or rain. And yet we leave millions of human beings, each one worth far more than any piece of art, on the street, vulnerable to those same elements."

She insists that we never forget that each person bears the image of God and is, therefore, of inestimable value. If we fail that test, we can easily dehumanize others -- and that inevitably leads to disaster.

Brous is properly appalled at the extent of loneliness in America, and she urges readers to do something to fix that.

"Today," she writes, "nearly a third of Americans report no interactions with their neighbors, and an astonishing 20 percent of Americans report that they have no close personal relationships at all, a number that has more than doubled in the past decade. . .This level of isolation and disconnectedness is not only concerning, it's dangerous."

One answer, of course, is to show up, greet strangers, form communities, create a sense of belonging that, she says, "can be a source of strength and purpose."

Here's her plea to all of us: "We need a spiritual rewiring that enables us to see one another, in our pain and in our fear, in our joy and in our yearning. It's our humanity." What we need, she writes, are "repeated, ritualized encounters with the other, designed to train our hearts to see that we are all bound up in one another."

She's right. So gather up some friends or strangers and see what happens when you recognize and revere each other's humanity.

P.S.: This link will take you to a video of Rabbi Brous being interviewed on the Drew Barrymore TV show.

* * *

WHEN SHOULD WE ACKNOWLEDGE GUILT OR CLAIM INNOCENCE?

As this NBC story reported yesterday, "A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected Donald Trump’s broad claim that he is immune from prosecution for alleged criminal acts he committed as president in trying to overturn the 2020 election in a chain of events that led to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol." Trump, of course, said he'd appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Whatever the outcome, this story provides an opportunity for each of us to think about when we are responsible for our actions and when we can legitimately claim no responsibility for either our actions or our inactions. The traditional teaching and requirements of religion suggest we often are better off admitting our guilt or failures and seeking forgiveness as we repent. Do you think any of that applies to American politics? I often wonder.


Lives full of both rejoicing and trembling -- as they should be

JRM-2a

Nashville, Tenn., and Delavan, Ill. -- I've double-datelined this piece because I want to tell you two interrelated family stories that are rooted in faithful living.

Recently my wife Marcia and I drove to Nashville to celebrate the 19th birthday of our grandson Jacob, now in his first year at Belmont University there. His parents suggested we make that trip because they had commitments elsewhere that meant this would be the first year since Jacob's birth that they weren't with him on his birthday.

Nashville? Sign me up. Heck, one time I was there some years ago for a conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and some of us columnists, including me, ended up on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry while Skeeter Davis, Roy Acuff and others performed. Who knows what might happen this time?

Jacob is an award-winning percussionist who is studying not just music at Belmont but also the business and production of music. He's an excellent student who thinks a lot about the kind of world he'd like to live in as an educated adult. He's sweet, funny, loving (not unlike his older sister Olivia) and he is always open to new experiences. He attracts people like himself, as we learned when we met his friend Daria, whose Kurdish family came to the U.S. from Iraq some years ago. (That's Daria, Jacob, Marcia and me, left to right in the photo above.)

So over a couple of days we got to watch this special young man take some steps toward what we hope will be a long, loving, productive and beautiful life.

Then when we left Nashville, we headed to Delavan in central Illinois to bury my late father's brother after his almost 102 years of a life that was long, loving, productive and beautiful.

Imagine that. Kind of a family bookend trip.

Lawrence M. Tammeus was a dozen-plus years younger than my Dad (1909-1992), who lived almost 20 fewer years than Lawrence. Like Dad, Lawrence grew up on the farm at the edge of Delavan that my great-grandparents, German immigrants, acquired in the early 1880s. After some college and four years in the Army Air Corps, Lawrence farmed that land until he was 85, as his son, my cousin Steve Tammeus, described in his eulogy. Steve said that when he'd help out on the farm at harvest time (corn, soybeans) when his father was in his mid-80s, Steve, then about 60, had trouble keeping up with the hard-working Lawrence.

Karli-2For 60 years, Lawrence sang in the choir of the Delavan United Methodist Church, where his funeral was held. (Jacob also grew up making music in Methodist churches.) And Lawrence loved a good time, where he could dance not only with his bride (of, at the end, 76 years), Velma, now 95, but with any other female who was game enough to try to stay up with him on the dance floor at weddings or any other festive occasion. (The photo here was taken a few years ago at the wedding of one of Lawrence's and Velma's granddaughters.)

When Marcia and I attended Lawrence's 100th birthday party at his church in 2022, I wrote this piece about that experience.

As we made this double-stop trip to Nashville and Delavan, the book I brought along to read for eventual review was The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World, by Rabbi Sharon Brous. (It's terrific. My review of it will post here on the blog this coming Wednesday.)

In simple, but elegant, language, Brous writes this: "Life is precious and precarious, and never to be taken for granted."

The preciousness and precariousness of life must be held together in a creative tension that makes us appreciate the former while being prepared for the latter. When the latter comes -- as it inevitably will -- "the pain cannot be hidden away," Brous says. But Psalm 2:11 calls us to "Rejoice with trembling," she writes.

And that's what we did on this trip. We rejoiced with Jacob as he moves deeper into adulthood and we trembled at a world without Lawrence Tammeus. But as I told the congregation at his funeral, I'm imagining a marvelous reunion of Lawrence, Dad and their sisters, Angelina and Esther, plus their sibling who died at birth. I said I was glad that they had eternity together now because I'm guessing that's how long it will take Lawrence to tell all the stories he wants to share with his siblings.

I'm grateful beyond words that Jacob and Lawrence have been part of my life. I both rejoice and tremble at the gifts I've yet to receive and the losses I'm sure to experience. It's a balance I recommend. (The photo below shows Lawrence's casket being carried toward his grave.)

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AMERICAN BAPTISTS HAVE A NEW LEADER

The Christian denomination known as the American Baptist Churches USA has chosen a Black woman to be its leader, this RNS story reports. The ABCUSA is, unlike the Southern Baptist Convention, seen as a theologically progressive Mainline Protestant church that once was known as the Northern Baptists when the Civil War divided Baptists in the U.S. Which is one reason you find two Baptist seminaries in the Kansas City area, Central Baptist, an ABCUSA school, and Midwestern Baptist, a Southern Baptist school. The Rev. Gina Jacobs-Strain began her term as the general secretary of American Baptist Churches USA on this past Thursday. As the RNS story reports, the ABCUSA thus becomes "the last mainline Protestant denomination to call a woman as its leader."