I’ve never been a particularly patient person. Hardworking, passionate, dedicated – yes – but patience has never been my virtue.
Becoming a mother has taught me many things, but perhaps the most important thing it has taught me is the necessity of patience. In the fast-paced culture of busyness in which I live, being a mother has taught me the value of kenosis – emptying myself of my own need and letting myself be filled by the needs of another.
In the mountains of Romania, nestled amidst chickens, peacocks, horses, dogs, and a lovely pair of domesticated rabbits, forty-five theologians, biblical scholars and church leaders have met together for the past week to talk about how to move together toward Eucharistic fellowship and the visible unity of the Church.
Representatives from Roman Catholic, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican, historic Peace churches, and for the first time an official representative from the Pentecostal tradition have come from thirty-one countries to talk together about the issues that divide our churches and to seek together ways to be the church together in the world.
In the midst of fragmentation, denominationalism, and a wide range of practices and beliefs among Christians around the world, the question of the “unity” of the Church has been an ongoing passion and concern for many Christians. Based in the belief that we are called to be one Church under Jesus Christ, one of the themes of the modern ecumenical movement has been to explore the question of how the churches might work together toward “visible unity.”
Copyright: vadimdesign / 123RF Stock Photo
This week marks the 50th anniversary of the decriminalization of contraceptive forms of birth control. As a 40-something woman who grew up in the wake of the sexual revolution – it’s hard for me to fathom that birth control was ever illegal.
Access to birth control is something that I have always taken for granted – thanks to Planned Parenthood, free condom programs as part of university health care, and later my health insurance. However, my relative ease of access to birth control is not the norm in this country. Conservative religious groups have rallied their forces to shape public policies that prevent or impede women’s access to birth control in increasingly paternalistic and controlling ways. What is happening today is not unlike what happened in the mid-1800s when abortion and contraception were outlawed.
Poverty is a persistent and perennial problem.
Jesus’ comment, “you always have the poor with you,” is a reflection of this unfortunate but very real aspect of human community. But these words should not be taken as disregard for the poor or for the problem of poverty in our midst. Indeed, the whole of Jesus’ life and ministry witnesses to his deep concern for all those who live on the margins of society, those who are rejected, ignored, or simply fall victim to the vagaries of human existence.
When I was in college, my dad lost his job and my parents made due for a year selling people buttons with their kids pictures on them at malls and craft shows while he worked to find a new church. As a preacher’s kid, I had grown up solidly middle-class. While I had a lot of hand-me-down clothes and we rarely bought a new car, we always had enough. We were comfortable.
rebecca todd peters 