 The sun rose this morning.
Anyway. Despite. The sun doesn’t decide to rise based on my rising to greet it or whether fires burn wild and far or how many new cases of COVID or how much hatred or fear or something I don’t understand and can’t name causes people to put children in cages and cut down thousand-year-old redwoods and eliminate basic human rights of people they don’t recognize as their own. The sun doesn’t ask, “Is your heart broken? Can you endure another day?” It just shines. The earth turns and the sun returns. And in the sun’s influence, morning glories open bright purple faces, birds sing in all their bird languages, rosebuds open and offer their scent, lizards emerge and commence push-ups, honeybees buzz and deliver pollen, dogs wrestle, romp, and retrieve, all the green things grow and make fruit and seed, people get busy with all their busy people tasks, including small and extraordinary acts of kindness, compassion, and courage, and I write to you. Melanie Phoenix melaniejaya@gmail.com I imagine somewhere elk and buffalo graze in great herds and wild horses run free, humpback whales breach and dolphins race in endless pods across oceans teeming with fish and octopus, vast forests of kelp and coral, and strange, deep sea creatures no human has ever seen. And many people shower other people with love. The sun beams its sunness, its prime directive to allow it all, whatever happens on the planets it warms, while humans make choices about how to be and what to do with it all. How will we stay awake and aware and what will we do with our despair, with our grieving, broken hearts, our compassion, courage, and joy, and our fierce, unlimited love, while the sun watches and the earth keeps turning?
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A year ago, I had just spent time with Joy Ibsen and Don Lenef to learn the ropes of editing Church and Life. Since then, I have experienced the pleasure of becoming familiar with an interesting assortment of people, just as Joy predicted.
Vera Rahbæk, the artist of the cover artwork, is part of an artist community in the Stevns region of Eastern Zealand (https://aabneatelierdoere.dk) and is the partner of Uffe Jonas, who has published and performed works related to Grundtvig’s hymns. The opening poem “The Sun Rises Anyway” and the accompanying photo are by Melanie Phoenix, the daughter of Rev. W. Clayton Nielsen who died earlier this year. The song “A Rainy Day in November” bears a similar message of looking to nature to lift our spirits. Its inclusion in this issue is a nod to Johanne Hansen, whose life also ended this year. In the folder that Joy had given me of miscellaneous content from which I might draw, I found a note from Johanne to include one of Fylla Kildegaard’s song translations. Erik Hansen’s introductory remarks and “Notes of a Parish Sexton” about his brief stint as the bellringer at Danebod opened this year’s Virtual Danebod Folk Meeting, Actually, he followed.an introductory video tour of the campus, which included reenactments of dancing, coffee time, etc. and ended with the tolling of the church bell, a fitting lead-in to his presentation. The Christmas issue will contain the remaining part of his “Notes." Shifting from this light mood to heavier theologizing, Gene Marshall highlights equanimity and compassion as marks of good religion in “The Role of Religion in Human Affairs.” As a founder of the Realistic Living nonprofit organization (www.realisticliving.org), he has authored several works to bring about a new Christian language and practice. His latest book is The Thinking Christian: Twenty-Three Pathways of Awareness. In “Three Encounters with Jacob Riis,” Thomas Blom Chittick describes the various times he has come across Riis, a Danish American whose compassion drove his life’s work. In a previous article this year, Hanna Broadbridge shared that Danes are developing an interest in Riis and in this issue, she shares in “Identity and Community Spirit” how Danes are attending to issues of social welfare and belonging for people of various ethnic backgrounds. She concludes by emphasizing that our identity as global citizens should move us to embrace and promote the seventeen United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In a memorial tribute to Riemert Thorolf Ravenholt, we learn how he worked toward the goal of ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services. He was also a tremendous supporter of many Danish American institutions. |
Editor InformationBridget Lois Jensen Archives
March 2023
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