Three Inspiring Videos to Spark Discussion in Your Community
IN THIS WEEK’S COVER STORY, we are sharing three inspiring videos featuring Mindy Corporon, Bill Tammeus and others. These are videos that you can share with friends in your congregation or community to encourage discussion of peacemaking and overcoming the challenges of grief and trauma that are so common in our country, these days. We preview each video and provide some of the most intriguing quotes from them. You can watch all three videos in our story—and we hope that you will read this story and reach out to friends via social media and email.
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From Our Authors
Larry Buxton: The Stockdale Paradox
IN HIS LEADING WITH SPIRIT column this week, Larry Buxton talks about values closely related to this week’s Cover Story. He stresses the need to talk honestly about the brutal truths we often face in our world—with our ultimate hope that God and goodness will prevail. The temptation, Larry explains, is to fall into euphemisms, myths or outright lies about our world. However, we can avoid those traps, Larry says. “We can see through the euphemisms and we can have the courage to name reality. I’m an optimist! And, this is not easy! You and I can face harsh realities—and we can still prevail.” In his 4-minute video, he tells the story of the Stockdale Paradox, the strategy U.S. Admiral James Stockdale used during his years as a POW in Vietnam. This is a great short video for individual reflection and group discussion. It’s easy to share via links, social media or email.
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Martin Davis: Ali Kershner dares to show gender inequality
JOURNALIST and AUTHOR MARTIN DAVIS appears in The Christian Science Monitor (CSM) this month with a column about the vast gender inequalities in college athletics. These gaps have been obvious for many years—but there’s a fresh national wave of concern prompted by a viral Instagram post from Stanford University performance coach Ali Kershner. “I think this is going to be a watershed moment,” says another college coach quoted in Martin’s column. These inequalities have “always been there, but every opportunity creates new conversations.” Please, visit the CSM website to read Martin’s entire column and share it with friends.
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WISDOM women: Join us for a unique dialogue on race and gender
IN OUR FRONT EDGE PUBLISHING column this week: One surprise of this pandemic year is the ability for authors to invite people to their public events—wherever those people may live around the world! In this column, Editor David Crumm explains how you can learn about upcoming virtual events—including a unique dialogue on race and gender to be held on May 20, 2021, sponsored by WISDOM women.
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We Are Caregivers
NOW WHAT? A Guide to the Gifts and Challenges of Aging is our new resource-packed book for families, caregivers and anyone concerned about aging in America. Thanks to video producer Susan Stitt, we now have a 2-minute preview clip to help convince friends across your community and congregation to discuss this book’s many inspiring challenges. That’s just one of the new stories this week in our We Are Caregivers section.
IN ADDITION, co-author Lisa Brown sent us an inspiring new story she spotted about AmeriCorp funding 1,600 new senior volunteers in 16 states and Puerto Rico. It’s all in this week’s We Are Caregivers section. We hope you will share this news with friends, spreading awareness so that you might join other caregiving groups nationwide.
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Holidays & Festivals
Are You Ready for Mother’s Day?
HOLIDAYS & FESTIVALS COLUMNIST STEPHANIE FENTON urges all of us to plan ahead so we are ready to show appreciation for Mom, Grandma and any maternal figure in your life on the second Sunday of May. She’s got the story, plus tips and helpful links.
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As American families are preparing for Mother’s Day, Muslim families also are planning ahead for family gatherings to celebrate the end of the Ramadan fast. At this time of year, bakeries specializing in serving Muslim communities will be working overtime to produce all the extra sweets.
Ramadan Continues through May 12
OUR HOLIDAYS & FESTIVALS COLUMNIST STEPHANIE FENTON reports this week on the upcoming festivals that are major part of the Muslim fasting month: The mystical Laylat al-Qadr marks the night the Quran was first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad; and later the Eid ul-Fitr is usually a big family celebration of the end of the fast. For Eid, congregations pray together; visits are paid to family and friends; sweets are enjoyed; and carnivals, vacations and gatherings are common. Although more Eid events will take place this year than did last year, pandemic restrictions are still being enforced at most public events worldwide.
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WANT TO SEE ALL THE UPCOMING HOLIDAYS & FESTIVALS?—It’s easy to find our annual calendar of global observances. Just visit InterfaithHolidays.com
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Click on these photos from Two Distant Strangers to read Ed McNulty’s review of this remarkable 2020 film written by Travon Free. Recently, it won the Oscar for best live-action short film.
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Faith & Film
ED McNULTY, for decades, has published reviews, magazine articles and books exploring connections between faith and film. Most of his work is freely published. Ed supports his work by selling the Visual Parables Journal, a monthly magazine packed with discussion guides to films. This resource is used coast-to-coast by individuals who love the movies and by educators, clergy and small-group leaders.
Among Ed’s free reviews and columns:
THUNDER ROAD—Ed writes, “Jim Cummings wrote, directed, starred in, and even wrote the music and co-edited, this unsettling film about a Texas police officer who seems to be on the road to a mental breakdown. The film is billed as a comedy, but it often veers far more toward tragedy, with a few laughs in between.”- SARAJEVO—”Austrian director Andreas Prochaska gives us an interesting new slant on the origins of World War One in this speculative story unfolding in the city where the infamous assassination set in motion the Great War.”
- THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS—To offer some lighter fair in his recommendations this week, Ed writes about the Coen brothers’ eccentric series of Western tales, which was released in 2018 and still is streaming on Netflix.
- WOLFWALKERS—“Irish filmmaker Tomm Moore rounds out his colorful mythical trilogy of animated films by reversing the negative image of wolves in Little Red Riding Hood. And what a glowing film this is, rising to the level of his magical The Secret of Kells (2009) and Song of the Sea (2014).”
- NIGHTJOHN—Ed reaches back to 1996 to recommend a film now streaming on Amazon. Ed writes, “Director/writer Charles Burnett’s adaptation of Gary Paulsen’s award-winning young-adult novel about slavery and literacy is a fine tribute to the freeing power of the latter.”
- CONCRETE COWBOY—”Director (and co-writer with Dan Walser) Ricky Staub’s film, based on the 2011 novel Ghetto Cowboy by Greg Neri, offers an unusual twist on the old father-son theme.”
- TWO DISTANT STRANGERS—”Trayvon Free’s and Martin Desmond Roe’s Oscar-nominated short film is about a man caught in a time loop. There are numerous variations in the details of the incidents of his street encounter with a white racist cop.”
- UNCLE FRANK—In contrast, Ed does praise “writer-director Alan Ball’s semi-autobiographical story of family conflict and love moves between Creekville, South Carolina, and Manhattan. It is told by the teenaged Betty beginning in the summer of 1969 when her Uncle Frank returns from Manhattan where he is a college professor to join the family celebration of his father’s birthday.”
SPIRITUAL AUDACITY: The Abraham Joshua Heschel Story—”Thanks to Martin Doblmeir’s PBS documentary, Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel will become a better known figure to millions of viewers. Now available on DVD, this is a worthy addition to his other filmed biographies of great thinkers and movers—Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dorothy Day, Reinhold Niebuhr, all brave thinkers who have had a deep impact upon the modern world.”- THE SOUND OF METAL—”Deserving of its Best Picture Oscar nomination, this is an immersive film centering on a musician going deaf.”
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