Launching a Fun Book with a Serious Three-Fold Mission

COVER STORY—After 20 years as a peace activist, trainer and consultant tackling some of the world’s toughest religious and cultural divides—author Brenda Rosenberg now is working on several new initiatives to empower at-risk young people to join the next generation of peacemakers. A key milestone in these efforts is the launch of a massive, two-volume, hard-back scrapbook celebrating what Brenda has accomplished so far in her life. In our Cover Story, this week, you’ll learn about some of Brenda’s past milestones—and her plans for the future. This is a fun story that also includes a short video in which Brenda introduces her new book. Please, enjoy this story and share it with friends on social media.

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And Speaking of Peacemakers—

Mindy Corporon’s ‘Kindness’ Campaign Grows

MANY OF THE AUTHORS we have published over the last 15 years share the same mission as Brenda Rosenberg: To make our world a better place—by lighting up one life at a time. Among those authors who are nationally active this spring is Kansas City-based Mindy Corporon. For background, here is a 2-minute KMBC News video about Mindy’s recent, annual SevenDays festival of kindness and public service. While the event is focused in the Kansas City area, there are always sprinklings of men, women and teens nationwide who take up Mindy’s challenge. This year, in fact, more than 200 miles south of Kansas City, students at the University of Arkansas took up her theme and hosted their own regional Kindness Walk, as covered by the student-run Arkansas Traveler newspaper.

Want to make a difference? Are you feeling anxious this week about all the horrific headlines from around our world? Wondering what one person can do to create some sparks of hope? Well, you can play a role right now by sharing the news about Brenda and Mindy with others via your own social media or email. Send friends to Read The Spirit magazine, this week, to find these hopeful, creative stories.

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Behind the headlines—

Thoughtful Analysis of Religion in the News

JOURNALIST BILL TAMMEUS is one of the nation’s leading religion writers. His best columns take readers behind the daily headlines to examine the impact of religion in our lives. His style includes offering intriguing links for further reading. That’s certainly true in his latest columns:

• Here’s another reason Russia’s church leader is Putin’s puppet
• We face social disasters if we don’t fix social media
• To answer eternal questions, we must think theologically

Looking for some great spring-summer reading? We just noticed that Amazon has put Bill’s inspiring memoir, Love Loss and Endurance, on sale this week. As of Monday, May 9, Amazon was listing the paperback at less than $4, which is a wonderful opportunity to pick up this book that’s packed with proven ideas for “unplugging extremism.” Hop over to Amazon and snap up one of those discounted copy before Amazon raises the price again.

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Holidays & Festivals

A lively outdoor festival

STEPHANIE FENTON reports this week on the Jewish festival of Lag B’Omer, which features outdoor bonfires especially in Israel as well as Jewish communities around the world.

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WANT TO SEE ALL OF THE UPCOMING HOLIDAYS & FESTIVALS?—It’s easy to find our annual calendar of global observances. Just remember the web address: InterfaithHolidays.com

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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:

• THE LAST DAYS OF PTOLEMY GREY—Ed writes, “In the twilight of his years Samuel Jackson again proves what a consummate actor he is in this adaptation of Walter Mosley’s novel, one that focuses more on character development than on crime.”
• FIREBIRD—”This British-Estonian LGBTQ+ love story is adapted by director and co-writer Peeter Rebane from The Story of Roman, a memoir by Russian actor Sergey Fetisov. It has been suggested that it is a Broke Back Mountain meets Top Gun.”
• THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL SOCIETY—”I was delighted to find on Netflix this production directed by one of my favorite English directors, Mike Newell. We learn of the book club with the unwieldly name through a series of flashbacks to World War II.”
• FATHER STU—“Mark Wahlberg’s new movie, Father Stu, is an R-rated, faith-based movie that tells the story of a real life priest named Father Stuart Long. The actor/producer is taking a chance, because many fans of faith-based film will never attend an R-rated film.”
• SEVERANCE—“For those looking for mind-teasing and challenging viewing, I highly recommend the new 9-episode TV series Severance, now streaming on Apple + TV. Actor Ben Stiller steps behind the camera to direct six of the episodes.”
• THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT—“This is sort of a cinematic banana split, great fun but of slight nutritional value. If you need a break from reality and its worries, this might be your movie.”
• BOMBARDMENT—”As we are witnessing in newscasts from the Ukraine, this WWII-era film shows that children are always the most poignant victims of war. And in Danish writer/director Ole Bornedal’s mesmerizing film, based on an actual bombing raid in 1945, it is not just a sadistic enemy who maim and kill the innocent victims.”
• THE NORTHMAN—Ed McNulty raises troubling questions about this ultra-violent epic that other critics are praising. He urges viewers to think carefully about whether we should be recommending The Northman to others at a time in our world when violence is unleashed again across eastern Europe. In contrast, Ed highly recommends …
• SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE—Netflix now is streaming two dozen episodes of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s 2015-19 TV series, Servant of the People. Ed McNulty writes about the “life-imitates-art” experience of watching this series in the midst of Russia’s attack on Ukraine. There are two parts: Here is Part 1: Ed’s commentary on the opening episodes. Then, here is Part 2: Ed’s follow up, focusing on later episodes.

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