We Are Caregivers …

In Mind, Body and Spirit

IN THIS SECOND YEAR OF THE PANDEMIC, our entire publishing house team is highlighting news and inspiring columns from around the world that focus on caregiving and spiritual wellbeing. This week, three of our authors contribute columns on the theme “Meditation in Motion.” We’ve placed the first two of these three columns in our We Are Caregivers section of this magazine so they are easy to find as spiritual resources, then the third is in Suzy Farbman’s GodSigns section. So, let’s get moving! In our first column, pastoral counselor and author Lucille Sider writes, “This step, each step, right here, right now.”

MEDITATION IN MOTION 2:
‘Rock on, Brothers and Sisters!’

Then, Clifford Worthy, author of the memoir Black Knight, shares a delightful prose-poem he wrote about his life-long appreciation of simply taking time to sit and rock—a perfect reminder as our days warm in the Northern Hemisphere and many families are bringing their furniture back out onto decks and porches. Please enjoy, ‘Rock on, Brothers and Sisters!‘

MEDITATION IN MOTION 3:
Reaching out through art, family and breathing

IN HER GodSigns COLUMN THIS WEEK, Suzy Farbman also reflects on the weariness so many of us are feeling as the pandemic stretches into a second year of isolation. Suzy has the additional burden of serving as a long-term caregiver, yet she finds herself summoning spiritual renewal through the arts, through her family and through one of the world’s oldest disciplines: meditative breathing.

PLEASE, TELL A FRIEND! These are three wonderful columns to share with friends, especially friends who may be weary these days. Please, share these via social media, email—or you can even print them using the easy green print button at the end of each column.

Holidays & Festivals

Plan Ahead 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.

Ramadan Continues through May 12

FROM VICTOR BEGG comes a reflection on the fasting month for the world’s Muslims that begins with these lines: “A growing number of Americans today don’t identify with a religion. I reflect upon this trend as I observe a pillar of my Islamic faith in Ramadan, a month of fasting from dawn until sunset. … A month-long devotional exercise helps renew and deepen spiritual connection to mind and body through God consciousness, which’s the essence of fasting.” Care to read more? Victor is the author of Our Muslim Neighbors, which invites readers into the story of an American Muslim family.

WANT TO SEE ALL THE UPCOMING HOLIDAYS & FESTIVALS?—It’s easy to find our annual calendar of global observances. Just visit InterfaithHolidays.com

From Our Authors

Setting a Record: A New Review 13 Years after Publication

IN OUR FRONT EDGE PUBLISHING column this week, we are sharing a record-setting new review of a book we published in 2008: Ian Flemig’s Seven Deadlier Sins and 007’s Moral Compass, by Benjamin Pratt.

Larry Buxton: A Death No One Will Mourn

IN HIS SHORT LEADING-WITH-SPIRIT VIDEO, this week, Larry Buxton reflects on one death in the national headlines that no one is mourning. What can we learn from such a life? Larry says he has learned a lesson that he shares in this brief video.

Click to read Ed McNulty’s review of the animated feature Wolfwalkers.

Faith & Film

Click to learn more about the April 2021 issue of Visual Parables.

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:

WOLFWALKERS—Ed writes, “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.”
HOW I LIVE NOW—”Based on the novel by Meg Rosoff, director Kevin Macdonald’s apocalyptic WW III novel is a good balance of thrilling story and character study.”
SENTINELLE—Ed does not recommend writer-director Julien Leclercq’s film, which starts out with the promise of exploring the traumas of war in a serious way—and turns into just another story of violent revenge.
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.”
CRIP CAMP—”Directors Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht have given us an inspiring stand up and cheer film about outsiders knocking and kicking at the door of society until at last it is opened.”
THE SOUND OF METAL—”Deserving of its Best Picture Oscar nomination, this is an immersive film centering on a musician going deaf.”