With thanks to Doc and Robert and all the people I do not know who choose hope and life and love by helping young people think through their choices.
This poster is from the first Teen Forum. The audience has since expanded to include all young people age 13-18.
Photo: 19 October 2022; The Bronx, New York
Filed under Advent, Antiracism, Family, Friends, Human Rights, New York, Photo
As the holy day approaches, a number of people are asking, “What is your favorite Christmas song?” A variation is “What non-religious holiday song that moves your spirit?
Recognizing the amazing amount of wonderful holiday music, whether intentionally religious or intentionally non-religious, that exists, I believe my answer would be the same.
Thanks to the Rev. Essie Koenig-Reinke (my daughter-in-love), pastor of Dickey Memorial Presbyterian Church, here is a brief reflection on the song that is my answer. This was originally written for the church’s Advent devotional.
“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Micah 4:3b)
“My name is Francis Tolliver, I come from Liverpool.”
So begins ”Christmas in the Trenches” by singer-songwriter John McCutcheon, a song about the 1914 Christmas Truce told through the eyes of Tolliver, a fictional British soldier.
On Christmas Eve in the filth and muck of the trenches along World War I’s Western front, peace broke out.
Most accounts say it began with German soldiers singing Christmas carols. Others joined. And almost in a collective impulse, many German, British, and French soldiers put down their weapons and met in No-Man’s Land.
They sang, shared photos, told stories, and traded gifts from care packages. Some reports speak of makeshift soccer games played on Christmas Day.
Peace did not last as “with sad farewells we each began to settle back to war.”
The war raged until November 1918 and did not end war—wars and conflicts have followed to this day.
Still the Christmas Truce was a wondrous moment. of peace and and promise and possibility, of hope and justice.
Those themes resonate each year at the manger. They echo through Jesus’ life. He invites us to live into them—at Christmas and through the year.
May we so do.
Check out this call for a 2022 Christmas Trues in Ukraine.
Filed under Advent, Current Events, Family, Human Rights, Music
Late afternoon, early evening, New York City. From Arthur Ashe Stadium.
August, 2019
When disappointment comes, God,
and disappointment will,
may we find
strength to grieve,
patience to sit with the moment,
imagination to seek alternatives,
and courage, hope, faith, and love
to give them a try.
We pray in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
I traveled to my son and daughter-in-love’s home to see my granddaughter.
There I, the traveler, enjoyed coffee in a cup celebrating another traveler.
In person.
In our mind.
In our heart.
In our soul.
In solidarity with a fictional character (or is he?).
Travel comes in many forms.
And in every form, those who make the journey are travelers.
And in some cases, coffee makes it better.
Photo: 2 April 2022, North East, Maryland
Lucy has grasped the heart of everyone in her family as firmly as she has grasped my thumb.
She is beloved.
Photo: April 7, 2022; North East, Maryland
It is Human Rights Day. The world would take steps toward the time when all people could flourish, if we all respected and protected each other’s human rights.
“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every[person seeks] equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt, 1958
Perhaps we can start, in those small places where we find ourselves, to honor the human rights of all we meet that we all might flourish,
Photo: 20 December 2018, New York, NY; display created by Tricia.
Filed under Advent, Antiracism, Family, Human Rights, New York, Photo, United Nations
I once believed that breathing was automatic. It is something we did without thinking about it.
Then came workouts with NK Bordy Philosophy. Nicole spent most of our time telling me to breathe, training me to breathe in ways that would effectively support the movements I was doing.
It seems unlikely that I was thinking about breathing in this childhood photo.
It also seems likely that some serious breathing was taking place to support this level of noise.
Photo: circa 1954/5, Grove City, PA
One of my first meetings with my first granddaughter.
She welcomes me to her world.
Photo: 1 January 2022, North East, MD
At the end of Eric and Essie Koenig-Reinke’s wedding.
It has been a while.
But delight lasts a long, long time.
Photo: 8 June 2022, Union Presbyterian Seminary, Richmond, VA
Filed under Advent, Family, Louisville, Music, playlist, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
