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“This Can’t Be Forgotten”
These are the words of Charlotte Mountain, MWEG’s anti-racism committee lead. Charlotte is a black woman living in America, and her oldest son is a police officer. The video she refers to is that of the murder of George Floyd. A simple internet search for Darnella Frazier, the woman who shot the film, will help you find it. I watched the video twice, because the first time I was absolutely in shock. The second watch was to make sense of what I saw. The video I watched was attached to a news article that claimed George Floyd (unnamed at that time) had later died, and I did not believe that.…
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Are You Aware? Who Will Survive?
This is part V in our “battlefronts” Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. So many of us are home with our families and are relatively safe and going out infrequently. Imagine if the situation were different. Imagine trying to survive in this time without a home. Many homeless people are afraid to go into shelters at this time. They fear the close quarters and the infection rates in the shelters. Earlier this month 94 men tested positive at a homeless shelter in Salt Lake City. Recently in the Boston area all residents and staff at certain homeless shelters were tested for COVID-19. At one of these…
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Are You Aware? On the Street — Greater Love Hath No Man
This is part III in our “battlefronts” Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. Are you an essential worker? I am. Every day I go out into the world to help you, my friends, to be able to remain safe. I am not a nurse like Kious Kelly, a 48-year-old assistant nurse manager at Mount Sinai West. This is the hospital in NYC where nurses wore trashbags because they did not have access to the recommended personal protective equipment (PPE). Kious Kelly died of COVID-19. I am not a doctor like Frank Gabrin who had texted a friend to report the lack of PPE in the emergency…
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Awareness Wednesday :: Xenophobia, Part IV — Let Them Worship
We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may (Articles of Faith 1:11). India is a secular federal republic of more than 1.3 billion people, governed by a democratic parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual, and multi-ethnic society. About 80% of the population is Hindu. Nearly 15% are Muslim. Jawaharlal Nehru was the first prime minister of the Republic of India. He was committed to the idea of India being a secular nation. In 1950, when the Republic was first formed, perhaps some felt they had…
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Awareness Wednesday :: Black History Month — Are You Aware of Labor?
“For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.” Psalm 128:2 America was founded on slavery. Most people in North America prior to 1776 labored and did not reap the benefits. The vast majority of the people in the colonies were African slaves. The economy of the British colonies was dependent on the labor of slaves. In fact, in the Americas there were five times as many Africans as white Europeans. About one million Europeans settled in the Western Hemisphere between 1492 and 1776; 5.5 million Africans were brought here. During the colonial period, the most important crop was…
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Awareness Wednesday :: Are You Aware of the Homeless?
I have a friend who has very precocious children. One day one of her younger children referred to someone as homeless. I asked the child if she knew the person and if she knew where the person sleeps. One of the older kids chimed in that the person was a hobo. Certainly precocious. I did not know that kids these days had ever even heard the term hobo. It got me wondering if we are aware of the people we see each day. Maybe they are at the intersection holding a sign announcing that they will work for food. Maybe the sign says, “Please give, every penny helps,” or simply,…
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Awareness Wednesday :: Unintended Consequences — The Castle Doctrine
When I was a child I dreamed of having a castle. As I got older I realized a more realistic goal would be an English Tudor. Today I am happy to have a comfortable, small house of my own. Houses — our homes — are the symbol of our prosperity and comfort. The symbol of the good life. The Bible gives us an indication of the emotional connection we often have to our houses. The promise of a wonderful future is described in this way: “And they shall build houses, and inhabit [them]; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another…
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Awareness Wednesday :: Are You Aware of Water?
Water is the essential compound that sustains our lives. Our bodies are 60% water, but without replenishment of water we die in about three or four days. We rely on water to clean our homes and bodies. Water is so vital that in the scriptures we find it used to represent ideas such as salvation and eternal life. The Bible contains many powerful images of water. “With joy you will draw water out of the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3). “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit” (John 3:5). Water signifies remission of sins through baptism…
