How will your family celebrate this season?

OUR COVER STORY THIS WEEK IS SO TIMELY! Why is it so timely? Not only does the Christmas season begin for the world’s 2.4 billion Christians with the start of the Eastern Orthodox Nativity Fast on November 15—but our tragically divided world needs the message Kara Eidson is sharing: Hospitality.

Hospitality is one of the oldest sacred values shared by the world’s great religious traditions and it’s the central theme of this new pre-Christmas guidebook to individual daily reflections, group discussion—and fun congregational activities. Please read this cover story in which Editor David Crumm is joined by the Rev. Megan Walther in talking with Kara Eidson about how the creative ideas in this book just might help heal divided communities. And, when you’re done reading, don’t miss the short video by Kara—and, please, share this whole message of hope with friends this week via social media and email.

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Why a cozy mystery, like ‘All Is Now Lost,’ is a perfect holiday gift!

WE’VE GOT A GREAT HOLIDAY IDEA FOR YOU: Did you know that cozy mysteries are a red-hot gift-giving idea in 2023? It’s true. And, in this week’s Front Edge Publishing column, we share several good reasons that Laura Elizabeth’s brand-new Book 1 in The Island Mysteries series is perfect for someone on your shopping list.

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Planning for the Holidays?

Our authors want to help—

HOWARD BROWN, author of the popular, inspirational memoir Shining Brightly, is a great example of the way our community of authors want to help you make the holidays special. As our regular readers know, Howard is one of our many Jewish writers—but for Christmas as well as Hanukkah this year Howard is offering to create custom-written bookplates for gift giving. All you have to do is order a copy of Shining Brightly from Amazon.

Then, visit Howard’s website and write him a note on his Contact page (there’s a “contact” link in the upper-right corner). Tell Howard what. you would like your author-autographed bookplate to say for your holiday gift giving. He will mail it to you well before Hanukkah or Christmas—or whatever holiday gift-giving occasion you’ve got on your horizon. Need a “host gift” for a New Year’s party? Act right now and you’ll have a uniquely memorable gift to share.

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Holidays & Festivals

From the East: The ancient tradition of the Nativity Fast begins

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15—The American Thanksgiving is still be around the corner, but millions of Orthodox Christians across the globe are turning toward the season of Jesus’s birth—which they refer to as the Nativity—with the start of the Nativity Fast. Holidays & Festivals columnist Stephanie Fenton has our story.

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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 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:

• ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE—Of this four-part Netflix series, based on the best-selling novel, Ed writes, “I fell under its spell and found it hard to wait for the next episode.”
• THE UNKNOWN SAINT—”Moroccan screenwriter and director Alaa Eddine Aljem’s first feature film was his nation’s entry into the Oscar race in 2021. And a worthy one it is, serving as a drolly comic morality tale of greed and human planning gone awry.”
• KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON—”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.”
• FLORA AND SON—”Director/writer John Carney has given us a delightful ode to mother-son relationship.”

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