Friday roundup: Five things worth paying attention to this week

This week we are talking most about denial, greed and selfishness in our American practice of the insanity of ignoring climate change and the tipping point of environmental disaster.

1. The Climate Action Summit at the United Nations. We are quoting Greta Thunberg, Swedish teenage environmental activist and world opinion change agent:

“We are at the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you?”

“Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up, and change is coming whether you like it or not.”

“You’re failing us. The young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. If you choose to fail us, I say, we will never forgive you.”

2. Talking to Strangers, Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown and Company, 2019). The Canadian author with characteristic brilliant vision subtitles his newest book “What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know.” Then he takes you on a painful but instructive walk through multiple situations of tragic misunderstanding and astounding blindness. As you read, you think you discovered his thesis yourself, “that something is wrong with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don’t know.” His stories and insights call for a third ear and a keen eye, empathy and objectivity, leaving us in a state of needing to talk about this with others to understand what we don’t understand.

3. The Holiness of Toni Morrison’s fictional worlds. This week’s (Sept. 23) Christian Century features an article by associate editor Amy Frykholm that sparkles with the “God language” of one of our greatest novelists, who died in August at age 88. “You good enough for Jesus. That’s all you need to know” is the collective wisdom of the women in her novel Home, as they surround a broken woman with love. Morrison, a Nobel Prize- and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, is wisely praised for her writing on race and culture, but beneath it all are the strong girders of faith that are mystical, practical and communal. We will be talking about this at our home base church this Sunday evening.

4. Rick Steves’ timely advice. “Wise advice is when another agrees with you,” and we found Rick helpful as we celebrated our 25th with a Roman holiday. “Stay away from tourist lines and visit the unfrequented places,” he says. St. Paul’s, third-largest church in the world, had only a couple dozen people and glorious silence. We found it true as we walked back streets, sat in smaller chapels, stopped for ignored ruins and found the neighborhood Osteria or Tratoria. The pseudo-relics, the improbable finger bones of saints are worth a visit, but watching children’s games in a square before a fifth-century church was priceless.

5. Isaac Villegas and pastoral moral dilemma. “Where love is contraband” is a thought-provoking article we will discuss when our home base church meets this week. Writing in Christian Century (Sept. 25), he speaks eloquently about the irreducible value of people, regardless of past-life choices. He’s a pastoral-prophet-Jesus-type, Anabaptist to the core. Read his story.

David and Leann Augsburger are two semiretired people who co-lead a home-based church (Peace Mennonite Church, Claremont, California) and volunteer to welcome, care and connect people in the San Gabriel valley.

David and Leann Augsburger

David and Leann Augsburger are two semiretired people (CA school psychologist, Fuller Seminary professor) who co-lead a home-based church (Peace Read More

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