Since I was a child, I have always been interested in religion. I was fortunate to have fine ministers sent to Tucson, Arizona, where I grew up: Rev. Harold Cranch, Rev. Douglas Taylor and Rev. Geoffrey Howard. They all taught me, inspired me and answered my questions with serious attention to my growing interest in how to tell others about what we believe in the New Church.

Doug Taylor gave me an answer to people who say they have never heard of my church, or my religion. I say, “Well this is your lucky day!” Later Doug pulled me aside when I was in Bryn Athyn to tell me a new way he explains what the New Church is all about. He said that he quotes John 16, where Jesus says, “I have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now … these things I have spoken in parables, but the time will come when I shall no more speak to you in parables, but I shall show you plainly of the Father.” What if this is what he wanted to tell us! Wouldn’t you want to know what it is?

Recently, I discovered another idea in my random reading that struck me with a new understanding of the First and Second Advents and what the New Church is all about. I can hardly wait to share the idea with a Christian friend, or a New Church comrade, such as a reader of the New Christian Woman posts. God willing, it will enlighten our mutual enjoyment of the coming Christmas season.

Here it is. In a little pamphlet, “The Visible God” by Erik Sandstrom, an explanation of the First Advent and the Second Advent is given that is as simple as it is profound: “Now, the Lord’s advents into the world were modes of His revealing Himself. In His first advent, he took on Flesh, so that he might show Himself among men, and work among them. And in His second advent He caused all that He accomplished while in the Flesh to be described and explained, in order that the glory wherewith He glorified His Human might shine forth. He ever had infinite glory and power. But it is now, in the second advent, that that glory and power have been revealed in fullness.” Continue reading Mary, Did You Know? →

My kids set me up with a Facebook page, so I could see the photos that they posted of their children and of their activities. They would email me the fact that they posted something on Facebook, and I could “open” the Facebook link and “like” it or “comment”. But I had to “friend” them first.

I soon found that if I “friended” someone, a long list of people’s names and faces paraded down the page, as possible friends, and I could choose to “friend” them or not. Shorty after I started this activity, I was at a party, and a woman I knew said, somewhat accusingly, “I friended you on Facebook, but you didn’t friend me back!” (Uh-oh, I thought. Have I just started a new stream of obligations?) All I could say was, “I don’t have to ‘friend’ you on Facebook for you to know you’re my friend!”
Continue reading Social Media →

For the young exhausted mothers, families who are trying to make ends meet, and providers who bring home a paycheck, I can only say, regardless of the messages from the world, and from your own hearts, “It’s worth it”.

I know I am speaking from another generation and another set of circumstances, but I don’t believe my view is really that different from experiences in the lives of human beings throughout the world. Families are important. I rejoice at the image of a child being rescued from a collapsed building, and I grieve at the sight of a lifeless body being carried from a disaster, no matter where it happens in the world. I know those people are valued and loved, and their rescue or their loss is felt deeply by those who love them. Continue reading Just Compensation →

I was asked to write an article about my views on abortion for the January issue of New Christian Woman. This is a welcome invitation, as I will turn 70 this year and I have a long history of writing about abortion. Rarely are my views on abortion requested for publication.

When I was growing up, abortion was illegal. Doctors swore to the “Hippocratic Oath” when they graduated from medical school, vowing not to perform abortions as a part of their pledge to “Do no harm”. Only “therapeutic” abortions were legally permitted, supposedly reserved for the most difficult circumstances that threatened the lives of both the mother and the unborn child. In those days, the “fetus” was always called an “unborn child”.
Continue reading Roe v. Wade Revisited →