First, The Communal Costs of COVID

OUR WRITERS and our readers have asked us to explore the deeper spiritual costs of the COVID pandemic and, this week, we are focusing on the specific question: What are the communal costs of COVID? Responding to that question are two writers from the University of Michigan.

Dr. WAYNE BAKER is long-time sociologist in the UofM Ross School of Business and has spent many years researching Americans’ core values. In responding to this question, Wayne explores how the life-and-death battle over COVID vaccines nationwide has turned into a kind of morality play that hinges on different understandings of our shared values.

THEN, UofM undergraduate Emily Brown writes, this week, about how isolation during the pandemic robs students of the community that is a core part of a meaningful education.

Please, read these two columns and share them with friends. These columns also might be helpful in sparking a discussion with friends, perhaps in a “virtual” discussion group or a small group in your congregation.

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Then, Remembering Dr. King

AS WE MARK the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, this week, we are taking readers on an inspirational journey that shows how three prophetic peacemakers connected and influenced each other: Mahatma Gandhi, the Rev. E. Stanley Jones and the Rev. Dr. King. In this column in our Front Edge Publishing website, David Crumm explains those connections and provides links to discover even more—through three inspiring profiles of these peacemakers, written by Daniel Buttry. In this way, we are offering readers a unique perspective on King’s legacy.

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WANT TO SEE ALL 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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From Our Authors—

Martin Davis:

‘There’s no place like home.’

MARTIN DAVIS is one of the most popular contributing columnists in our online magazine and he also is on the verge of publishing a new book with us: 30 Days With America’s High School Coaches. This week, Martin began a new job in his long career as a journalist: Opinion Page Editor for The Free Lance-Star, the daily newspaper serving readers in the area around Fredericksburg, Virginia, which is south of Washington D.C. We are recommending that you read Martin’s welcoming column to his readers (this link will take you to the Free Lance-Star), because Martin touches on themes that relate closely to our other stories, this week. In his column, Martin urges his readers to remember the importance of the many connections that bind them all as a community.

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Suzy Farbman:

The whole world is our community

IN HER GOD SIGNS COLUMN THIS WEEK, Suzy Farbman reminds us of the incredible cultures and natural wonders that are awaiting us around the world—as she profiles world traveler and photographer Ruthie Petzold. The most remarkable part of Ruthie’s story is that she refused to let a whole series of life-threatening injuries keep her from these adventures.

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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:

• AMEND: THE FIGHT FOR AMERICA—”This is an excellent primer on a US Constitutional amendment that often is overshadowed by debates over the First or the Second Amendment rights. Robe Imbriano, creator and co-writer of this 6-part TV miniseries takes us on a journey into the past that truly illuminates the present.”
• THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH—“Working without his brother this time, Joel Coen adapts and directs this new version of Shakespeare’s great tragedy of ambition overwhelming decency and leading to destruction.”
• AMERICAN UNDERDOG—”Brothers Andrew and John Erwin, adapting football player Kurt Warner’s same-titled memoir, American Underdog, have given us an underdog story to beat all such unlikely stories.”
• C’MON C’MON—”After watching another superhero fantasy, I found Mike Mills’ relative simple tale of the growing relationship between an uncle approaching middle-age and his nine-year-old -young nephew a refreshing tonic.”
• WHO KILLED MALCOLM X? Documentarians Phil Bertelsen and Rachel Dretzin focus on the 30-year search by Abdur-Rahman Muhammad for details about the real assassins in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965.
• BEING THE RICARDOS—”Writer-director Aaron Sorkin’s film  is a fascinating take on perhaps the most crucial week in the history of the I Love Lucy Show during its second season.”
• THE POWER OF THE DOG—Ed writes, “Director/writer Jane Campion’s adaptation of Thomas Savage’s 1968 novel is set in Montana, but she has found a region of her native New Zealand as a serviceable stand-in.”
• WEST SIDE STORY—“Director Stephen Spielberg and scriptwriter Tony Kushner have triumphed in their revision of the smash Broadway and film musical West Side Story!”
• ENCANTO—“This time Disney transports us to the mountains of Columbia where the Madrigal family live in an enchanting village called the Encanto.”

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