‘They hate me—but they don’t even know me.’
COVER STORY—From the opening of Howard Brown’s special ReadTheSpirit Cover Story this week …
Our world is imploding and exploding—all at the same time. Where I live in the Midwest, we still are reeling from the trauma of two vulnerable neighbors murdered in their homes.
So, this week, all of our ReadTheSpirit community of readers and writers are taking a moment from our regular weekly coverage to reflect on the challenge we all face of confronting hate—and renewing our hope and constructive community relationships even in the midst of horror, violence and sorrow.
.
.
Holidays & Festivals
Remembering the Saints!
THE AMERICAN CELEBRATION OF HALLOWEEN may have all but obscured the spiritual roots of this powerful Christian milestone—a call to remember the saints—but Holidays & Festivals columnist Stephanie Fenton writes about the full sweep and power of these observances. For example: Did you know that Dia de los Muertos is far more than a spooky Mexican-American observance? For millions of families, it is an annual call to remember all those who have passed.
.
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
.
..
Click on the movie poster to read Ed McNulty’s review of Killers of the Flower Moon.
To learn more, click on this cover image from the October 2023 issue of Visual Parables Journal, edited by Edward McNulty and packed with reviews and discussion guides to movies, including The Swimmers, Amerikatsi, Fremont and Flora & Son.
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 film reviews and discussion guides. This resource is used nationwide by individuals who love the movies and by educators, clergy and small-group leaders.
Here are some of Ed’s most recent free reviews and columns:
- KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON—Ed writes, “We are indebted to master filmmaker Martin Scorsese that during the process of co-writing this film he switched from making it a police procedural show centered on a white detective and focused instead on the Osage Indians who were being victimized by the greed of their white neighbors.”
- MEDICINE MAN: THE BRIAN BROCK STORY—”In director Paul Michael Angell’s documentary, we discover a man whose concern for health care has benefitted hundreds of thousands of people, even though he was not a doctor.”
- MY SAILOR, MY LOVE—”Director Klaus Härö’s film could be seen as a variation on the classic story Beauty and the Beast, with James Cosmo’s grumpy, retired sea captain Howard a good stand-in for the Beast.”
- NOWHERE—”Director Albert Pintó’s film is a paean to motherhood, a story in which a timid woman discovers an indomitable will to survive, not for herself, but for her new-born child who is totally dependent upon her.”
- JOURNEY to BETHLEHEM and RUSTIN—Ed also previews these two movies available in November that he urges us not to miss.
- FLORA AND SON—”Director/writer John Carney has given us a delightful ode to mother-son relationship.”
- FREETOWN—”Director Garrett Batty’s is a faith film but not one that preaches at you. His script, which he wrote with co-writer Melissa Leilani Larson, tells the true story of a small group of Liberian Morman missionaries caught up in one of the civil wars that ravished that nation.”
- FREMONT—”Iranian filmmaker Babak Jalali’s film about a refugee from Afghanistan is the second immigrant or refugee film that I have seen within the same week. But it is as different from The Swimmers as possible.”
- THE SWIMMERS—Ed highly recommends this film, based on a true story, about “two teenage girls who were among the Syrians forced to flee their war-torn nation and risk the dangerous waters of the Aegean Sea.”
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
