September 2022 Cover & Highlights

As the cover indicates, our dear Danish correspondent Hanna Broadbridge has died, so this issue is dedicated to her memory. Her husband emailed the bulletin of her memorial service, which included the song, “Tænk, at livet koster livet,” and its English translation, “Life is what we pay for living.” The text is a poem by Jørgen Gustava Brandt. The Danish Songbook uses music composed by Ole Schmidt, but there is also another popular melody by Bent Fabricius Bjerre. Both versions have been shared as YouTube videos on the Church and Life website as one of the published articles for this month.

The poem’s sentiment echoes in the two articles that pertain to the Danebod Fall Folk Meeting. Mary Ann Doyle shares her appreciation for the meeting in “Tending to Life” as she anticipates returning after her first experience in 2019. Karen Wells reflects on a couple of presentations from this year’s meeting in “Stimulating Growth.”

The final offering we have from Hanna Broadbridge. “What is the Point of Food Banks?” is very appropriate as it reflects the open embrace that she had for everyone, especially people on the margins of society. 

Hanna spent decades in lay leadership positions in the church, but, as we hear from Pastor Andrés Albertsen  in “What Is It to Be Christian?,” Hanna’s or anyone’s Christianity is in, as Kierkegaard would say, the life that is lived, not the structure of an institution.

Just as Kierkegaard was a critic of the church, Viggo Pete Hansen offers his own self-described curmudgeonly critique in “Scientific, Political, and Religious Evolutions.” He ends with a bit of hope, which leads into the next piece, “Hans Island,” by Rolf Buschardt Christensen, about the peaceful resolution to a territorial dispute.
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Finally, we recognize those of the Church and Life community whom we hold in our hearts as they have recently departed this life, namely Ellen Utoft Bollesen Juhl and Hanna Broadbridge.

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