St. Sophrony: Of faith, and faithfulness

Been reading ”We Shall See Him as He is,” the spiritual autobiography of St. Sophrony. This quotation touched me like trumpet of truth:

“Oh, what a paradoxical mixture is man — on the one hand he inspires delight and wonder; on the other, sad bewilderment at his cruelty and savagery. The soul decides to pray for the world but such prayer never attains its ultimate purpose, since no one and nothing can deprive people of freedom to yield to evil, to prefer darkness to light.”

The struggle, he says, must begin within, the weapons being humility and repentance— in the sense not only of recognition of the evil within us, but reformation… hence the “miracle” of both accepting and giving grace to others.

And even at age 69, that’s still a daunting and almost incomprehensible task.

So, Faith and faithfulness.

Click here for More about the saint

Watch Russia, Ukraine . . . and our own disintegrating civil, political, moral and spiritual decline

 This op-ed seems to equally offend left, right, woke, progressives, crony capitalism and the black-and-white political and social "discourse" we've fallen prey to in the past decades.

So, of course, I find it intriguing in its assessment of the gray areas not just in Ukraine, but the decline of liberalism writ large. And it has the benefit of being delivered in a Scottish brogue!

Thought provoking, at least. And worth listening to in its entirety, rather than nitpicking individual assertions piecemeal without having considered the whole.

The Russia-Ukraine propaganda war: Putin and Biden have common ground -- deceit

 So, about Ukraine. Let's not fall for the propaganda -- whether from Putin or the Biden administration.

Not Putin talk about 150,000 "peacekeepers" being mobilized for what inarguably amounts to the second round of annexation of Ukrainian territory. (In 2014, it was the Crimea).

His use of the old trope of just protecting ethnic Russian regions in Crimea, and now the Donbas, recalls the arguments once used by Nazi Germany to gobble up Czechoslovakia and Austria.

Meanwhile, Biden -- in a seeming echo of Neville Chamberlain's disastrous policy of appeasement 70 years ago with Hitler -- stumbles over calling Putin's actions a "minor incursion," or the "beginning of an invasion," or an fullblooded "invasion."

Biden's administration now tries to trot out the idea that this is brave DEMOCRATIC Ukraine fighting off a neo-Soviet juggernaut . . . but this is the Ukraine where he and his family have made millions from a corrupt government with its own autocratic ways (arrests of political opponents, stifling of news outlets not toting the Kyiv line, ethnically based seizures of churches and monasteries, etc., etc.)

Ukraine has its own oligarchs; they just aren't as "effective" as those governing their bigger, more powerful neighbor.

And we've been down this road before, with the call to faux righteous crusades to defend (or in more recent Middle East wars, create) "democratic" nations that were truly led by warlords and corrupt, opportunistic politicians themselves unafraid of ruling with iron fists.

Let's not get fooled again.

Huntsman's Trib OpEd response: Disingenuous at best, deliberate obfuscation at worse

 Today, my former boss, Paul Huntsman, sort of responded to the criticism of the Salt Lake Tribune's recent controversial OpEd.

He completely (it seems to me) ignored the salient statement in that OpEd that Utahns who are unvaccinated should be imprisoned in their homes under guard by the Utah National Guard, i.e. home arrest.

In his response today (https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2022/01/24/huntsman-utah-hospitals/) he makes many good points . . . but what is not there is acknowledgement of the batcrap craziness of the previous call. To remind the reader, that previous OpEd stated this: "Were Utah a truly civilized place, the governor’s next move would be to find a way to mandate the kind of mass vaccination campaign we should have launched a year ago, going as far as to deploy the National Guard to ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere."

Today's response was just plain disingenuous. In what had seemed a reasonable expression of opinion otherwise, the ignorance of constitutionally recognized civil rights and stench of authoritarianism policies implied was mind-boggling.ds to the criticism of the Salt Lake Tribune's recent controversial OpEd, completely (it seems to me) ignoring the salient statement in that OpEd that Utahns who are unvaccinated should be imprisoned in their homes under guard by the Utah National Guard, i.e. home arrest. Once again, in his response today (https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2022/01/24/huntsman-utah-hospitals/) he makes many good points . . . but what is not there is acknowledgement of the batcrap craziness of the previous call. To remind the reader, that previous OpEd stated this: "Were Utah a truly civilized place, the governor’s next move would be to find a way to mandate the kind of mass vaccination campaign we should have launched a year ago, going as far as to deploy the National Guard to ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere."

Today's response was just plain disingenuous. In what had seemed a reasonable expression of opinion otherwise, the ignorance of constitutionally recognized civil rights and stench of authoritarianism policies implied was mind-boggling.

A horrible idea: Using National Guard to imprison the unvaxxed in their homes

 "Were Utah a truly civilized place, the governor’s next move would be to find a way to mandate the kind of mass vaccination campaign we should have launched a year ago, going as far as to deploy the National Guard to ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere."

Up until this point in the OpEd I read today in The Salt Lake Tribune (my employer for 20 years up to the mass layoffs of 2018) I was occasionally nodding with respect for points being made about the pandemic mess we find ourselves in.

But the idea of armed soldiers putting citizens under house arrest, in effect imprisoning them? Really? That is just bat-crap crazy, and certainly unconstitutional.

We can mask publicly, and privately businesses can impose whatever restrictions they wish. Vaccinations can be encouraged, even to the point where -- like when I was a kid with the smallpox and mumps-rubella/etc vaccinations -- attendance requires them, except for valid exemptions on medical and religious grounds.

But National Guard imprisoning people? What precedence does that set?

Next up, in such an authoritarian state, maybe armbands identifying and shaming the non-compliant?

Some re-education facilities (of course, with guard towers and fencing to "protect" these poor, uneducated souls?) Perhaps just cuff 'em and vax 'em by force?

Shades of historically bankrupt concept of revolutionary ("progressive?") worldviews make the suspension or even eradication of truly liberal, pro-civil rights justified. In times past, it was hailed as the "dictatorship of the proletariat," which inevitably became autocratic and embodied in a leader or junta and led to so much of the oppression and persecution of millions in the USSR, Communist China, Cuba, Cambodia, Eastern Europe, etc. . . . not to forget the fear and concentration camp mentality of Nazi Germany itself.

You say, with some justification, that hey, we aren't there yet; but it is stunningly unbelievable to hear such a "remedy" proposed by a newspaper that for so long has been devoted to civil rights of ALL Americans, even those we may disagree with on such divisive issues.

*Update: After much thought, I have thanked my editor (a decent, fair career journalist at the Tribune) for the past year of contracted writing assignments on the faith beat but will, for the present, be looking for different venues for future freelance work.

Amid COVID fears and cashless consumers, how do Salvation Army bell ringers fare?

 My latest freelancing effort for The Salt Lake Tribune:

By Bob Mims | Special to The Tribune

Photo by Rick Egan, The Salt Lake Tribue

Every winter for almost a decade, Van Dodd has volunteered as a Salvation Army bell ringer, wishing a Merry Christmas to passersby — whether or not they pause to drop loose change or a dollar bill or two into his iconic red kettle.

Many pass on by, perhaps offering a furtive nod; others ignore his holiday cheer altogether.

Then, Dodd says, there are those brief, precious moments when he can engage a mother, a father and kids in an upbeat conversation. Parents drop money in the pot, leaving with a smile and their youngsters clutching candy canes.

“I’m a joyful kind of person. I kind of make people come off their shelf, try to brighten up their day,” Dodd says. “I’ve been ringing the [red kettle] bell for nine years now. When I relocated here from Indiana for my job in October last year [2020], I went right over to the Salvation Army office to volunteer again.”

Dodd, a 58-year-old father of three grown children, was assigned a spot in front of the Walmart at 2705 E. Parleys Way in Salt Lake City, the same bell-ringing station he returned to this December. He acknowledges with a sigh that in an increasingly cashless society, the clinking of coins and the rustle of greenbacks going into his kettle have been less frequent this year.

“The spirit of giving just isn’t the same,” he says. “People are in so much of a rush, so busy, with everything on their minds about COVID, whether [it is safe] to stop and give. ... Sometimes, if I just stand back from the kettle, then people might come and give something.”

Nationally, the Red Kettle campaign has seen its contributions first slip from a record $146.6 million in 2015 to $142.7 million in 2018 and then plunge to $126 million in 2019. It grew worse as the coronavirus took hold in 2020, with Red Kettle donations tumbling to $118.9 million.

Capt. Rob Lawler, officer in charge of Salt Lake City’s Salvation Army Corps, says Red Kettle donations here sank from $329,000 in 2018 to $211,000 in 2019 and barely $100,000 last year.

The pandemic also has made recruiting bell ringers — whether volunteer or paid as temporary seasonal workers — a painful task. From about 70 Red Kettle workers in 2018, Lawler could count on 20 or so on any given day this past week, the midpoint of the 2021 holiday campaign.

...  to read the story in its entirety and view some amazing photos, click here:  https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2021/12/18/amid-covid-fears-cashless/

At 150, Salt Lake City’s First Presbyterian Church strives to be the ‘hands of Jesus’

 

Salt Lake Tribune file photo

(Readers note: Here are the introductory paragraphs of my most recent freelance effort for The Salt Lake Tribune)

    Salt Lake City’s First Presbyterian Church takes pride in its 150 years downtown, where it grew from a dozen worshippers first meeting inside an 1871 livery stable to more than a thousand who marched to the first services at its English-Scottish Gothic Revival cathedral in 1905.

    Indeed, in that initial quarter century, despite doctrinal differences, First Presbyterian’s zeal for public education also earned the Protestant congregation a welcome from the state’s predominant faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Presbyterians founded what later would become Westminster College, along with 36 mission schools and four academies that taught an estimated 50,000 children — many of them from Latter-day Saint families.

    That’s a fine historical foundation, but interim Pastor Steve Aeschbacher says it is the future of First Presbyterian — striving to stay true to its devotion to biblical study as well as its ecumenical approach to shared gospel principles of serving the poor, hungry and homeless — that will define his church in the decades ahead.

    “One of the great things about ministry here is that spiritual things are ‘on the agenda’ for people in a way that they are not in other areas,” says Aeschbacher, who was chosen as interim pastor after the Rev. Michael J. Imperiale retired in June 2019 (a permanent replacement has yet to be named). “Our congregation has a long history of cooperation with other faiths [and] with many local groups to serve the needy, including St. Vincent DePaul, Crossroads Urban Center, the Utah Food Bank, and more.”

. . .  to read the rest of this article, and see some stunning photos that illustrate it, click on this link: https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2021/11/07/salt-lake-citys-first/

LDS Church-owned FamilySearch now lists same-sex couples in its geneaological records

Here is my latest freelancing effort, running today in The Salt Lake Tribune: 

----

   FamilySearch, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ genealogical website, says its nearly 2-year-old move to list same-sex parents and couples in its massive databank has proved to be a popular one.

   How popular? Well, FamilySearch, by policy, does not publicly release such specific statistics. Still, Chief Genealogical Officer David Rencher says those unpublished numbers do show that including “same-sex couples and same-sex parents has been well-received by the community of enthusiasts engaged in family history.”

   “Every person’s life is important to reflect in the fabric of the human family,” explains Rencher, who also serves as director of the church’s Family History Library in downtown Salt Lake City, “and adding these features to the [the site’s] family tree [feature] enables everyone to experience and see where they fit into the big picture.”

   The Dec. 10, 2019, official announcement, however, has not changed the church’s opposition to same-sex marriage nor its recognition of only traditional, male-female unions for solemnization and “sealing for eternity” within the faith’s temples.

   Thus, the FamilySearch initiative remains just another step for those hoping for wider same-sex acceptance by the church, says Nathan Kitchen, president of Affirmation, an advocacy and support group for LGBTQ Latter-day Saints and their families and friends.

   “When the announcement was first made,” Kitchen says, there was a “sense of relief within Affirmation and LGBTQ communities that the church would finally open its family records listings and pedigree format for all family configurations, not just opposite-sex monogamous and polygamous family configurations.”

   But it wasn’t necessarily seen as “an inclusive gesture,” he adds, “rather a necessary evolution for FamilySearch to survive and thrive in the family history marketplace.”

   Though a nonprofit operation, FamilySearch — linked to the church’s 5,400 family history centers worldwide and boasting nearly 1.4 billion individual names in its family tree archives — is a big player in a digital arena that includes for-profit companies like Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com and FindMyPast.com.

   Kitchen notes the latter three genealogical sites were ‘listing and including same-sex couples and their children long before FamilySearch.org made its announcement and subsequent changes.”

   Of course, those family history services are not owned and operated by a religious institution committed to what it sees as divinely defined marriage on one hand and changing mores and cultural norms on the other.

   Rencher puts it this way: “Issues surrounding gender cross all segments of the population; so these new features accommodated [church members] whose families need to be reflected accurately in the FamilySearch family tree, as well as any of the other millions of [our] users throughout the world.”

   Kitchen says his own mother was among the many who welcomed FamilySearch’s same-sex pedigree expansion.

   “Yes, [she] was very excited to add me and my husband to the family tree in FamilySearch after my marriage,” he says. “[And] over the past couple years, I have heard of many parents who are happily adding their same-sex married children [and] grandchildren into their proud family heritage.”

   Even so, Kitchen asserts that “as fast as parents can add their same-sex married children to their family records in FamilySearch, the church removes them” from the faith by withdrawing their memberships.

   “It is a huge disconnect . . . to have the church remove them from their ‘forever family,’” he says. “For Latter-day Saint parents, this eternal family tree, not the FamilySearch family tree, is the only one that really matters in the end.”

   Kitchen and others in the LGBTQ community hold out hope the church’s proclaimed prophetic leadership will have a “revelation” that includes same-sex spouses and their families in the next world.

....

To read the entire story, with photos, click on this link:  LDS Church embraces inclusion of same-sex couples and parents in its FamilySearch genealogy database (sltrib.com)

Adidas-wearing pastor has a goal for Salt Lake City Unitarians: Get a kick out of life

  So, had a Tribune assignment to profile a new pastor at Salt Lake 1st Unitarian Church. 

  When he politely, and eloquently, declined to offer the usual background  -- age, marital status, family background -- I thought how will this possibly work? But it did, going to show even a 60+(+) semiretired journalist can learn a new trick now and then. 

  I thought it turned out rather well, and as always, Francisco Kjolseth found the less-traveled photos path to make the page pop. Kudos, again, to Editor Dave Noyce, another one-of-a-kind character blessing my universe, and a talented wordsmith to boot. 

________

     After 34 years with outspoken social and political activist Tom Goldsmith at its helm, Salt Lake City’s First Unitarian Church is turning to a contemplative Harvard Divinity School-educated minister and educator to help chart its future.

    But as interim pastor, the Rev. Ian White Maher will not be replacing the Rev. Goldsmith, who retired from the pulpit in May. Instead, the Portsmouth, N.H., native has a two-year contract to help the nearly century-old, 300-member church at 569 S. 1300 East contemplate both its congregational and civic missions before selecting a permanent senior pastor.

    “I’m not just here as some sort of consultant to make sure the church is healthy, though that is part of my job,” Maher explains. “But truly why I am here is to help people believe that they can fall in love with this life. . . to truly fall in love again despite all the grief and heartache we see.”

    Indeed, Maher — whose own activist credentials are hardly lacking, including advocacy for immigrant, LGBTQ and racial rights as well as what he characterizes as “multiple civil disobedience arrests” — sees the inward, contemplative journey as going hand in hand with First Unitarian’s long history of pushing for social justice, income equality and environmental protections.

    “There are so many people today who feel completely disconnected from their spiritual lives, and from organized religion,” Maher says, citing a 2014 Pew Research study showing 23% of Americans identify as “nones” when asked their religion — up from 16% in 2007. (During the same time period, self-identified Christians dipped to 71% from 78%).

    That’s [more than] a fifth of the American population. You have all these people that are ‘unchurched.’ And that doesn’t mean they are [all] atheists; it just means that what had been working is no longer working,” Maher contends. “I honestly, truly believe that the problems that we are facing — war, refugee problems, income inequality problems — are not actually our [real] problems. Our problems are greed, alienation and loneliness, and these are actually spiritual problems.”

. . . .

     To read the rest of this story, and view photos that illustrate it, click on this link: https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2021/09/22/new-adidas-wearing-pastor/

Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur: Times for deep reflection, repentance and resolve

(Excerpts from my story in Sunday's Salt Lake Tribune on the beginning of Judaism's High Holy Days)

   Listen carefully during the daylight hours of Tuesday and Wednesday, and you may hear the blasts of the shofar rising from synagogues along the Wasatch Front.

  From a twisted ram’s horn come tones both alarming and plaintive, at the same time triumphant and hauntingly like the sobs of a lost child for its mother: This is Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, which begins Monday evening — a two-day observance as rich in millennia-old traditions as it is in how 21st-century Jews in Utah and across the planet understand and experience the holiday.

  “Rosh Hashana has so many different meanings to it,” Rabbi Samuel Spector of Salt Lake City’s Congregation Kol Ami acknowledges. “In Judaism, we say that this was the day that God created humankind. There is a big focus during Rosh Hashana on togetherness, on seeing the holiness and humanity and one another, and in coming together as a community.

  “It’s a time for us to really reset. Ten days later is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement,” Spector says. “We learn that, leading up to Yom Kippur, we are supposed to do an accounting of our souls and think about how we can be better, how we can both make our world better and be better ourselves, and make our world better in the new year.”

 To read the rest of my story, and see more photos, click on this link: https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2021/09/05/utah-jews-enter-high-holy/