Newsletter article April 6 2022 We are watching the images from Ukraine with horror. The human suffering of this war is unimaginable. I have had to turn off the news on several occasions because I couldn’t bear to witness anymore of it. This war has happened as we have been keeping Lent this year. And the terrors and the cruelty of the war are being revealed more broadly as we are about to begin Holy […]
World history swirls about us as we begin Lent today. I have the sense that what has been happening over the past few years, particularly over the past week, will define the world that the next generation of leaders will manage. We are watching the atrocities in the Ukraine with horror. We are facing the accelerating rate of Climate Change, And the pandemic, though waning, is still part of our lives. It is easy enough […]
My statement regarding the statute of the Rev. William Blackstone in Pawtucket RI: It was with surprise that we learned today of the William Blackstone statue erected in Pawtucket. It is regrettable that such a monument would be approved and given municipal funding without seeking more input from our Indigenous neighbors. Colonizers like Blackstone are a troubling feature of our American history, and we would do well to reflect on the opinions of those who were on this land […]
From our diocesan newsletter this week: Usually, this time of year, I’d be writing a message encouraging you to unplug and relax in these final days of Summer. But this year, as much as we wanted to do so, national and global events and the resurgent pandemic make all that feel impossible. The sad truth is this is the second summer in a row that we can’t take a breath. This long slow series of […]
Susan McWilliams Barndt has a brief essay posted on the new site “Current” that talks about the implications of new sociological data showing that Americans are moving less and putting down deeper roots than they have in decades: Rooting for the Future – Current: Because we know that the more people move, the more they tend to be focused on their individual selves rather than on their communities, favor “duty-free” relationships, have less of a […]
In this past year, it seems we’ve had the longest Lent ever. And now we stand ready to start Lent again before it feels like the previous one is over. But this Lent is different. It brings with it a promise that we can walk with Jesus and participate in hastening the redemption of our community. In Rhode Island the government is choosing a different strategy to vaccinate the population. Other states are working to […]
David Blight, author of the magisterial biography of Fredrick Douglass, explains how we may be seeing the unfolding of a new cultural/political movement in this moment: David Blight: How Trumpism May Endure – The New York Times: The important Lost Causes in history have all been at heart compelling stories about noble defeats that were, with time, forged into political movements of renewal: the French after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 and the profound need […]
This week, the first week of the Season of Epiphany, we celebrate the Feast of Our Lord’s Baptism and hear how, when Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordon, he was fully revealed as God’s beloved Son. It is not just the full revelation of his identity to the world, but it is the revelation of God as it’s one of the only accounts in which all three persons of the Trinity are present […]
Is there something for the Church to say to the Nation in this moment? The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, The Most Rev. Michael Curry preached a stem-winder of a sermon that does a pretty great job of answering that question. In the second part of the sermon he says: We don’t think of it this way very often but love for each other is a value on which our democracy depends. On the […]
Two social scientists describe how their work on Cognitive Dissonance explains the irresponsible public health behaviors that many humans are exhibiting in this pandemic. After a description of research into the behavior, and a frank admission that this is the way our brains work, they go on to explain how they understand what’s happening. (I’ll add that they do not mention, but that I suspect, that there are people who know this human mechanism and […]
Entangled States 