Presbyterians Today - A Time for Healing

Dear Readers, For the next couple of months while Layton is on parental leave, you will be hearing from me. Hi, I am Melody. I am writing to you as I sit on my porch, watching plants push through the wet ground and the gray clouds roll above. April showers bring May flowers, after all. Spring always reminds me that things aren’t necessarily how they appear. Throughout the winter months, the trees and shrubs in my yard have looked dead. But you can’t fool me. I knew all along that life was coursing through those wonderful branches, even though I couldn’t see the evidence. To be willing to look beyond what the physical senses tell us and instead acknowledge as true something we haven’t seen is the purest definition of faith. Spring is a time of rebirth. It’s not only that the trees start blooming again and the leaves, flowers and birds seem to burst into life again after a long period of resting. In the same way, rebirth is also happening in our bodies and our spirits. This is a time when your body is naturally increasing in energy. It’s like the sap is also flowing in our veins — filled with more energy. It is a perfect opportunity to embark on a healing journey. We are launching a new series around the themes of “healing” and “repair.” The first piece addresses the wounds of transphobia and how to minister to those in pain. The journey to healing is a collective one, and that means we must walk it together. You can read the first installment below. The seasons change, and we change. As you go about your day-to-day this spring, how will you be open to change and rejuvenation?

Melody K. Smith Associate Director for Digital and Marketing Communications

Healing the Wounds of Transphobia

Do we heal? Or is it a matter of moving pain around to find a place where it rests a bit easier? Or perhaps a space is carved out — not ease, but intensity. The heart becomes an ocean, holding the strange creatures dwelling at the sea bottom, the fierce storms that tear everything apart, the light on waves — piercingly beautiful. In the religious and legal attacks on our trans siblings, we are experiencing a communal wounding — an indulgence in hatred and contempt whose multiple forms no one can evade.

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PC(USA) delegation begins to right a historic wrong in Juneau, Alaska

A Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) contingent comprised of both national and mid council officials visited Juneau, Alaska in August and October 2023 following action by the 225th General Assembly calling on the church to “issue apologies and reparations for the racist closure of Memorial Presbyterian Church” in 1963. The formal apologies were made and responses offered at a worship service on Oct. 8, 2023 at Ḵunéix̱ Hídi Northern Light United Church in Juneau.

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Spreading the Vision of Matthew 25 across the Church

Matthew 25 is a living translation of Jesus Christ — strengthening relationships, transforming your church, and bringing alive your commitment to those who are marginalized or in need in your community and the world around us. Make no mistake, Jesus is calling us to perform ordinary acts of compassion in daily life. But we have also been called to consider the factors that led to these conditions, to confront the causes of inequality, to confess the sin of greed and to correct the problem of poverty — whether in our own nation and neighborhood, or around the world.

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