Editorials

It’s mid-January. Or early June.

For decades, the number of British households owning Bibles has declined. But 2020 saw a “sharp boost” in pandemic-prompted sales of the Scriptures, according to a Christian bookseller talking to the Financial Times (Peter Chapman, “The home in 50 objects #33: King James Bible,” March 5, 2021).

What is my true relationship to God? This is a crucial question to answer if we are to understand who we really are. Christ Jesus, the master Teacher, answers that question in a simple but striking way.

Not many things are as sweet as a restored friendship or an estrangement that’s been healed.   Broken relationships and alienation are all too common.

We don’t generally think of dissatisfaction as something to be grateful for. Yet where would we be without the constructive dissatisfaction of innovators who can’t rest until they’ve invented a tool to do something more efficiently? How would human rights have progressed without the action of those dissatisfied with injustice? Similarly, there’s a kind of dissatisfaction within each of us that’s not only positive but essential, according to Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science.

When my husband was offered a job in another city, I could see the definite advantages for our whole family, but I was reluctant to leave the church where I had been a member for almost 15 years and felt useful and needed. Going to a new city and a new church felt in a way like having to start over.

My mom knew her children needed guidance to help us make the right choices. I can still hear her saying, “Never do anything you wouldn’t want others to know about.

All seemed lost as Jesus was buried in a tomb following his crucifixion. One of his most faithful followers, Peter, was overtaken by remorse, because he had denied being a disciple of Jesus.

Walking into the National Women’s Hall of Fame five years ago with my nine-year-old daughter, none of the significance of the moment was lost on me. I felt the power of generations of women—and men—who fought for the many rights women enjoy today.

“What the world needs now is love, sweet love / It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of. ” Hal David’s classic lyrics capture such a wonderful sentiment.