Our Hurting Nation Our need for healing is evident. Like much of the rest of the world, we in the United States are in the midst of a pandemic that is overwhelming our capacity to provide care for the sick. Even if we will soon be able to control the virus physiologically, we will continue to reel from the emotional wounds the illness has wrought. Some of our elected officials have minimized the suffering this disease has caused, and minimizing intensifies pain. Because of the virus, tens of millions of people have lost jobs, and barely half of them have found new ones. [1] Social isolation has increased the incidence…
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Honoring Indigenous Peoples’ Day
Arriving in a New Land This year, what in some parts of the country is still called Columbus Day, falls on October 8. I was surprised when a chaplain colleague led a short worship in which he praised the explorer, noting his determination, his courage, his indomitable spirit. He celebrated Columbus for chancing upon a country no one else had discovered before. Of course, while Columbus may have shown great courage and determination when he crossed the ocean in the primitive vessels and with the rudimentary tools they had in those days, he and his crew were not the first people to arrive in North America. We know, for example,…