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Wandering and homecoming is the stuff and substance of life.  Also the heart of the 23rd Psalm, beloved and old and yet ever new and beautifully enlivened in a surprising way: the the new neon installation by James Pfaff who wandered and returned.

In his 1967 book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr envisioned a “World House.” 

The birth of a child is a very significant, important and joyous occasion. It is perhaps a life-changing experience for those who become parents for the first time. The coming of a child is usually accompanied by celebrations, including religious ones. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how the world functions and how people relate to each other. The whole of my life I never imagined a moment where the world would come to a standstill, people giving up travelling and their busy lives to stay at home leaving the streets and public spaces empty. This shows how bad the situation was, at its initial stages. The month of March 2020 is one in which the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were felt in almost every country in the world. Leaders and policy makers rushed in to stop the spread of the deadly pandemic.

Patrick Matsikenyiri was born in Biriri, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and died in Mutare, Zimbabwe near his home village a few kilometers from the border of Mozambique, as a result of complications due to the COVID-19 virus. His career included virtually all aspects of church music — singing, choral directing, composition, hymnal editor, festival leader, professor, and enlivener of global songs in venues around the world.

In 1619 Angolans were brought from the continent of Africa to the shores of Virginia in what became the United States in North America. Contrary to the popular narrative, they had already resisted their enslavement in Angola.

“Conflict-related sexual violence” is understood as “rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced marriage and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against women, men, girls or boys that is directly or indirectly linked to a conflict.”

Will the COVID-19 pandemic be remembered as a time when everything changed, as a unique moment in history that all can personally relate to? It has already changed a lot for many – while many people have been hit very hard, almost all have faced totally new situations, having to adopt new daily routines, think differently.

When the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, was recently admitted to hospital with COVID-19, spending a few days in intensive care, a number of British politicians and journalists talked about how the virus was the great leveller. Everyone from street cleaners to world leaders could get the disease; no-one was immune, therefore, we must all follow the same social distancing guidelines. But as Iñigo Aymar of Oxfam has pointed out, COVID-19 is not so much the great leveller, but the great revealer.

Countries affected by COVID-19 are gradually lifting confinement restrictions that were introduced to contain and mitigate the spread of the pandemic. We are slowly, but surely, limping back to normalcy. Although it is too early to declare a victory against COVID-19, the spread of the virus is abating in many countries. But if we drop our guard, it is likely that the virus will regain a foothold in the weeks to come. Vigilance and patience will be needed in these pressing times.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the political, economic and social life of a troubled world, already suffering by the financial crisis and imposed neoliberal austerity measures. With this current crisis, a strange unity has risen; a unity in fear of illness and death, anxious uncertainty for the future and collective mourning for the tens of thousands of deaths.

In August 1976, I was among those who gathered at the WCC headquarters in Geneva for a special event to mark the 70th anniversary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s birth. On that occasion, Eberhard Bethge, his friend and biographer, remarked that it was difficult to think of Bonhoeffer as an old man of seventy years.

As part of the ongoing ecumenical journey to uphold the dignity and rights of children in Asia, the Christian Conference of Asia organised and facilitated the Asia Regional Consultation on “Upholding the Rights and Dignity of Children” in September 2018, held in Jakarta, Indonesia.