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A spacious square in front of the sea: this was the place chosen by the Uruguayan Council of Christian Churches to produce a video message during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Respecting the physical distancing measure, eight religious leaders gathered at Plaza Virgilio.

On May 24, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA hosted a memorial service for lives lost to COVID-19. In a time of physical distancing, the church ecumenical gathered online for “A Time to Mourn,” drawing thousands together to remember and lament. Grounded in our hope in the resurrection, the Rev. Elizabeth A Eaton, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, declared, “The body of Christ is COVID-positive.”

Two months ago, I would not have spent a Sunday afternoon driving through a deserted city. There were people out and about, walking with children in strollers, jogging, laughing. Some were driving to do errands and buy groceries. Although it was sunny, there was still a somber pall over the city. I am told the same is true of New York and Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, and other cities.

Cyclone Tino - the second cyclone to visit Fiji in less than 3 weeks - disrupted our plans to visit several climate-impacted communities in the island of Vanua Levu as part of the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace in the Pacific. Heavy rains rendered impassable the roads leading to the Naviavia community.

"He could make the stones sing." That was his reputation at the Ecumenical Centre; never mind that the image was less than flattering to the staff who worked there.

Do you know of the five stages of grief? When it comes to the climate crisis, I am close to having gone through all of them: years ago I could not believe how bad Mother Earth has been affected by how humans are treating her. I thought it can't be as bad as the scientists say: denial.

On April 19, the evening of Good Friday in Atlanta, I was putting my son to bed when I received a phone call from my brother, Johan, in Sri Lanka. Our dad, Stanley John Sahabandhu, had passed away in his home in the Western Province.

I was not yet born in 1968, but I have heard the stories: How the World Council of Churches Assembly in Uppsala, Sweden changed the world church agenda and put focus on social justice and equality. To live and to practice the Gospel. To show the reality and embrace of the Incarnation.

During the night of 3-4 October 2016, Hurricane Matthew tore through the southwest region of Haiti. Powerful winds and torrential rains washed away fields, livestock, and houses. The only bridge linking the region to the rest of the country was destroyed. Suddenly farmers who had been exporting agricultural produce could no longer feed their families.

Teenagers pose lots of challenges for any parent. Emotional, rebellious, and subject to inevitable pressures, it is undoubtedly difficult to raise children who are transitioning from becoming children to adults. I am in this situation—I have three. As I reflect on their growing into individualized people, I can only hope that, once they embark on their respective paths, they live in a society that is peaceful and accepting.

"Unterwegs für das Leben," on the road for life, was the name chosen for an initiative started by the women's work section of the Evangelical Church in Baden in the eighties. Christian women went walking together along the Rhine from Karlsruhe to Basel, going from place to place in order to collect signatures in opposition to the upgrading of armaments and to hand these over to the disarmament conference in Geneva. The walk was combined with evening peace prayer vigils held in local churches.

Nagasaki, 9 August 2015 — Why did “it” have to happen again? Why was Nagasaki also bombed in August 1945? Why was a weapon, which can kill an entire city, used against a second city?

Hiroshima, 6 August 2015 - What sights and sounds told this city’s story today? A graveside scream at dawn? The penetrating gong that sounded to mark the moment the atomic bomb exploded 70 years ago? Candle lanterns floating toward the sea on the evening tide? Or a young pastor’s confession, “I feel guilty”, because his family was spared 70 years ago by a last-minute twist of fate?