The Rev. John Thomas “Jack” Mathison, navigator of peace, died on May 24 at age 97 after a period of declining health, in Richmond, Virginia, according to an obituary published in the Washington Post this week. He was the widower of Elaine (Sauerwein).
The Rev. Deborah Lee asked participants in a recent webinar to close their eyes and think about what it feels like to be secure.
“What were the things that brought about a presence of calm and peace and soothing — a relaxed, not vigilant nervous system?” Lee said, bringing viewers out of the exercise. “The absence of the threat of physical harm, the absence of hunger, the absence of worry, the absence of debt, the absence of fear.
Natalie Pisarcik, a member of First Presbyterian Church of Boonton, New Jersey, has already bravely shared her story of deep depression and the intention she once had to end her life before asking God to forgive her for what she called “a terrible mistake,” forgiveness Pisarcik said she did receive.
Far from “the peaceful easy feeling we experience when all is well and all is right,” God’s peace is “something really robust and active,” a peace “that is the most present in the presence of pain, in the hardest moments of my life, in situations that feel impossible.”
Major General Kermit D. Johnson, the Army’s former Chief of Chaplains who served for two years at the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Office of Public Witness, is being remembered by the United States Army Chaplain Corps Regimental Association following his Jan. 9 death at age 91.
The Peace & Global Witness offering — one of four annual special offerings of the PC(USA) — supports peacemaking and reconciliation ministry worldwide.
Belarus, part of the former Soviet Union, is one of the most conquered countries in Europe. Universally gentle, its people have been forced to learn patience. But recently they declared, “no more,” and have taken to the streets by the thousands.
