Confronting Memories My son Gabriel was a Thanksgiving baby. His birthday didn’t fall on the actual holiday until his second birthday, but it does every four years, including the year he died by suicide, 2008. The association between his birthday and our most heartwarming holiday presents both challenges and opportunities for getting through what has become, for me, an emotionally fraught month. When the leaves begin to change color and the air begins to bite, I start wrestling with memories of baking Turkey shaped shortbread cookies for his school celebrations and his favorite apple pie for …
In Jean-Jacque Rousseau’s model of civil religion, the state is unified and strengthened by public displays of faith that refer to deity, point to the afterlife, draw attention to the reward of virtue and the punishment of vice, and that exclude religious intolerance. Two of the three memorial services I attended on 9/11/11 fulfilled Rouseau's requirements. The opener fell short. Naming Enemies and Learning to See and Speak to Each OtherThree times, Rev. Joseph Hein, pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Middletown, mentioned “Muslim extremists” or “jihadis” in his invocation at the …
Mayor Michael Bloomberg may have excluded clergy from the 9/11 10th anniversary ceremony at the memorial site in New York City, but there are plenty of opportunities here at the Jersey Shore for sacred remembrances. Here are a few of them:Friday, September 9At 8:30 am, Ocean County will hold its annual Day of Remembrance Ceremony at the Ocean County September 11th Monument on Hooper Avenue in Toms River. A piece of steel from the World Trade Center will be added to the monument for the tenth anniversary. At 10:00 am, an Empty Shoe Memorial will open at the park next to the Great Auditorium in…
“Compared to the Tea Party, Gov. Whitman was a Democrat,” said the Rev. Dr. DeForest Soaries Jr. when I interviewed him Monday about the federal budget debate for UrbanFaith.com. Soaries was New Jersey Secretary of State under Christine Todd Whitman and a two-time political appointee of George W. Bush. He is pastor of First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset, and said he weaves instruction on financial responsibility and economic opportunity into every sermon he preaches. He is also author of dfree: Breaking Free from Financial Slavery. The book and First Baptist's personal finance…
What is there to be said about the mass murder of 76 people in Norway last week that hasn’t already been said in response to every other tragedy of this sort? We are once again horrified, terrified and shaken to learn that such evil dwells in the hearts of men and can be perpetrated so easily against ordinary people, even children.But this act of violence is different in that it has American journalists, religion scholars, and political pundits debating whether or not the confessed killer is a Christian, as he asserts (or doesn’t, depending on who you ask and what your definition of a …
Exuberant hospitality. That's how I'd describe Sunday morning worship at First Baptist Church of Manasquan. The worship band was playing before the service began July 17 and soon after I sat down Rev. Joseph Gratzel came over and gave me a tote bag that held a travel mug, a Bible, and information about the church. "Have you been mugged?" he asked with a smile. The service began seamlessly with modern worship and two "Pandamania" songs led by Vacation Bible School students. Associate Pastor Martha Bevacqua asked for prayer requests and the congregation called out a host of personal concerns …
While there are plenty of places to celebrate a special anniversary right here at the Jersey Shore, for one as monumental as the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, a trip into New York City to see On Eagles' Wings at the Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA) is just the thing. The exhibit features a number of historic manuscripts, including a 1611 first folio edition of the bible and a 1440 New Testament. It also includes a collection of breathtaking paintings (my photos don't do them justice) that contemporary artist Makoto Fujimura created to illustrate a Crossway Books commemorative …
On July 3, as the Jersey Shore filled with out of town visitors and locals prepared to either greet or avoid them, Rev. Steve Davis, senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Manasquan, preached a sermon that connected American pilgrims with biblical ones. The biblical patriarch Abraham was blessed in order to be a blessing to others, Davis said. Likewise, America has been blessed to be a blessing, but we don't always live up to our calling. Preaching from Genesis 12:10-20, the pastor explained that Abraham faced a famine in the promised land and consulted his fears instead of God. "Your …
Seannee Harris comes from a traditional family that places a high value on education, but when she was laid off from her auditing job at Merrill Lynch in 2008, she capitalized on a third generation family cheesecake recipe and took classes through the New Jersey Small Business Development Center (SBDC) to launch Dees Cakes in Freehold. Although she's only been in business for a year, Harris's cheesecake was a judge favorite at the Dessert Wars competition at Branches Catering in West Long Branch May 24. "We didn't take the title, but we felt like such winners that day. It was an overwhelming …
If you've driven the stretch of Route 88 where Point Pleasant Beach meets Bay Head, you've probably noticed Dean Fengya's colorful collection of ceramic pots at Globetrotter, the import store he's been running for 17 years. What you may not have noticed is the religious statuary that grounds the carefully arranged field of blue, green, and beige. Fengya doesn't import it for its religious significance, but that hasn't stopped customers from turning some of the artifacts into shrines. "My criteria is beauty. I see something that's beautiful or I meet people that I know can make something that'…
Forty years of digging my toes into the sand of Manasquan beach has left its mark. The first two decades were spent at the south end, soaking up my mother's wisdom, especially when it came to family. The second two decades have been spent mostly at the north end hashing out problems with my friends. Our weekly beach date used to include a gaggle of kids and boogie boards, and with them, frequent interruptions. Now it may include an occasional grandchild, but usually it's just a small group of middle aged women. Our conversation today included a discussion about whether or not to tell a …
When Billy Graham preached at Ocean Grove's Great Auditorium in 1955, he was 36 years old. Last weekend, his grandson Will Graham preached three messages in the same venue at what the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) called the Jersey Shore Will Graham Celebration. At 36 years old, the younger Graham's vocal tone, delivery, and message reverberate with his grandfather's influence. Graham made the most of media hype over Family Radio founder Harold Camping's failed prediction that the Christian rapture would take place Saturday evening at 6 p.m., mentioning it in all three messages…
William (Will) Franklin Graham IV is the grandson of Billy Graham and the son of Franklin Graham. He is in town preparing to preach at the Jersey Shore Will Graham Celebration on May 20-22 at the Great Auditorium in Ocean Grove. Graham is an associate evangelist at Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and assistant director of The Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove. He just returned from the Philippines, where he preached to 97,000 people in four days. Graham is a graduate of Liberty University and holds an MDiv. from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Kendra…
Family Radio founder Harold Camping's widely publicized prediction that Jesus will rapture his church on Saturday, May 21 is foolish and irresponsible, said local clergy on Tuesday. But it serves as a reminder that people should live as if this day could be the last, they said. "I've already received an email today, as fate would have it, saying 'What do I do about that? Should I be frightened about that?" said David Cotton, parish associate at First Presbyterian Church of Manasquan and manager of Pastoral Care at Jersey Shore University Medical Center. "As a Christian, I completely believe …
Two weeks ago, when I covered an Islamophobia discussion at Lacey Township High School for Lacey Patch, the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Osama bin Laden seemed like a distant memory. In the past week, terrorism, bias, and inter-religious dialogue have dominated the news. There was, for example, welcome news from the Pew Research Center that favorable attitudes toward bin Laden among global Muslims have sharply declined since 2001. Engy Abdelkader was the featured speaker at the Lacey event. She is a Muslim American attorney from Monmouth County who began wearing a hijab after Sept. 11, 2001, in…
There are times when I am tempted to despise some of my co-religionists, like Sunday night when spontaneous celebrations broke out across the country after the president's announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed. Followers on my Twitter feed and friends on Facebook (mostly those who aren't natives of New York or New Jersey) began expressing their concern that Americans were celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden. The longer it went on, the more irritated I became. On Monday, when the scolding didn't stop, I began unfollowing people on Twitter. Proverbs 24:17 was one of the most …
I have a confession. Lent was a bust. Instead of having my priorities adjusted by the bodily disciplines of a 40-day fast, I succumbed to the demands of my schedule and felt like it was an accomplishment if I managed to abstain from meat on Fridays. I failed to do even that on Good Friday. My spiritual reading didn't go much better. The Lenten devotional booklet I picked up at All Saints Episcopal Church in Bay Head on Ash Wednesday sat mostly neglected on a shelf. I did read a book late in the season that reminded me it isn't only work that orders my days. It's chickens who must be tended …
The idea of a vocation retreat sounds like a contradiction in terms, but at Laity Lodge in the hill country outside San Antonio, Texas, these concepts are as intertwined as the branches of a gnarly old oak. I was there last weekend in my role as leadership editor of TheHighCalling.org to listen as highly accomplished business and nonprofit leaders grappled with the challenges of living out their vocational callings. I've offered here some words that probably should be explained, beginning with vocation, retreat and calling. We often think of vocation in terms of our jobs, but Laity …
What do a Congressman, a documentary about Nazi filmmakers, and a 10-time Emmy Award winning director have in common? A discussion about propaganda and human rights, of course! Evil Through the Eye of the Lens, an event held at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Monmouth County in Deal Monday night, combined a 100-minute subtitled documentary about Nazi filmmaker Veit Harlan, a talk on the difference between propaganda and art by acclaimed filmmaker David Grubin, and humanitarian awards for United States Congressman Christopher Smith and executive director of the New Jersey Commission on…
I married into a musical family. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law have been playing in bands at local clubs for some 30 years. So when they began telling me about a 12-year-old guitar prodigy from Point Pleasant that they'd been working with, I didn't think much of it, until I heard them all play together Friday night at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park. It was a launch party for Little Jimmy and The Midnight Son's first CD. Grateful Dead vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux sings backup vocals on the CD, and two members of her band played Friday night. "I've been into the Grateful Dead all my life…
