Cover Story: In ‘How to Be,’ a Monk and a Journalist Reflect on Living & Dying, Purpose & Prayer, Forgiveness & Friendship

How shall we live in such tumultuous times?

Letters between friends form a spiritual path through universal challenges

In our Cover Story this week, we welcome back poet Judith Valente, who has been a frequent visitor to our online magazine over the past 14 years. This time, she has both a very traditional and a refreshingly new idea for us: Writing letters to find spiritual clarity. The idea is as old as the New Testament, of course, but millions of us have forgotten the power of letters to convey heart-felt connections with friends. We may frequently share one-liners, photos and video clips, but Judith and her friend discovered that letters allow us to go one, two, three and sometimes many steps further down pathways together. Please, enjoy this cover story and share it with friends.

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Calling All of Our Writers and Authors!

Please connect with us (and with each other) via Linked In

SPEAKING OF THE POWER OF CONNECTION, one way to reach us and our writer friends across North America and around the world is via Linked In. Our Marketing Director Susan Stitt has prepared this column, which makes it super-easy for you to connect with us.

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And from our authors …

Ken Whitt

Our magazine has been publishing stories about the quest to understand justice issues raised by Native peoples across North America especially this year. If you click on this map, you will read a recent story by Bill Tammeus about the emerging practice of “land acknowledgement.”

Native American Story: ‘The Man Who Stood Up from Ashes’

ADDING TO OUR NATIVE AMERICAN COVERAGE, author Ken Whitt shares his own experience with “land acknowledgment” and also a short video of the Native American story, The Man Who Stands Up out of Ashes.

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Mindy Corporon

‘Best Books about Perseverance’

TO SHARE GOOD NEWS FROM OUR AUTHORS, our Susan Stitt participates with many other online magazines, blogs and news sites. Recently, she nominated Mindy Corporon’s book, Healing a Shattered Soul, for a Pretty Progressive roundup of “Best Books about Perseverance.” That online magazine’s team included Mindy’s book along with some very famous books about resiliency. Take a look at Pretty Progressive by clicking on this link and you may find some inspiring reading—plus you’ll see Mindy in the mix as you scroll down.

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Holidays & Festivals

Lighting Up the Night for Diwali!

 

COMING NOVEMBER 4—In her Diwali column, Holidays & Festivals expert Stephanie Fenton writes, “In recognition of the triumph of light over darkness, Diwali bears great significance for Hindus, Jains and Sikhs alike; as awareness of Indian culture spreads, major celebrations now are hosted around the world.”

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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 this photo to read Ed McNulty’s review of the new James Bond film, No Time to Die. While Ed is ambivalent about the violence and overall message of the latest Bond thriller, he does heartily recommend that viewers read Benjamin Pratt’s book about Ian Fleming and James Bond.

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:

  1. NO TIME TO DIE—While Ed is ambivalent about the violence and overall message of the latest Bond thriller, he does heartily recommend that viewers read Benjamin Pratt’s book about Ian Fleming and James Bond. Use this link to read Ed’s review of No Time to Die.
  2. SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THUNDER—In recommending this film, Ed writes, “Director Kelly Rundle’s film about the students’ debates in 1834 over slavery at Cincinnati’s Lane Seminary is based on the play by Earlene Hawley and Curtiss Heeter.
  3. THE GUILTY—Ed writes, “Director Antoine Fuqua  and writer Nic Pizzolatto have done a fine job of adapting a 2018 Danish film to the American scene. The film is a thriller, a very intense one, but one with a social conscience that deserves to be seen and discussed widely.”
  4. MASS—”This is one of the best films I have seen this year. It includes one of the most powerful scenes of grief and reconciliation that I have seen in a film.”
  5. FLAG DAYEd praises this film in which three members of the Penn family portray the family of a con man.
  6. THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951)—”This is the 70th anniversary of the release of this classic science fiction film. It stood out at the time as the most intelligent film of the genre, carrying a message of peace and tolerance during the onslaught of the Cold War. Unlike other sci-fi films, the menace to Earth came not from alien monsters but from humans themselves.”
  7. SON OF THE SOUTH—”Writer-director Barry Alexander Brown’s film is based on Bob Zellner’s well-received 2008 autobiography The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement.”
  8. REMINISCE—Ed McNulty writes, “Writer-director Lisa Joy blends film noir with science fiction in this tale set in a near future Miami whose streets are being flooded as climate change causes the ocean to rise. Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) is the jaded detective whose specialty is the past.”
  9. COME FROM AWAY—”The horrific events that occurred 20 years ago on 9/11 reveal the evil depths that humanity can sink to, but this filmed version of David Hein and Irene Sankoff’s Broadway play celebrates the heights to which humanity can rise.”
  10. DAYS OF GLORY—”Co-writer/director Rachid Bouchareb provides a very different perspective on World War II in this tale centering on four North African Muslims who enlist to free what they regard as their fatherland, France.”

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