The National Geographic honors this season and this new year, 2026, by paying attention to one central question: What do all our usual, even cherished, expectations and traditions mean in the midst of what I’d call just the right amount of excessive CHANGE?
It is not enough to rebuild everything to get it all back the way it was, especially in the face of soul-shattering events like mass murders, raging rampant fires, wars waged in the name of PEACE, murders of young children in schools, and the politics of racism in the name of divine LOVE?
We have to build back better using community resilience and, yes, simple lovingkindness, a word I learned as a very young child in my Sunday School class. This combined with exciting stories in the Bible, a book all about people getting into trouble and other people helping them out for no reason except lovingkindness. There was no “principal’s office” to send me to, so lovingkindness stuck to my soul—and stayed.
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The Rev. Grace Park, associate pastor of Pacific Palisades Presbyterian church, lauds the faithfulness of her congregation. In spite of the destructive fire that destroyed their entire building, they stayed together. Where to meet? They borrowed other people’s buildings and Lo! Divinity was still there, like any good traveling salesperson should be.
Still, what does it mean to be church when you do not have your own building? That is what The Pacific Palisades people kept asking. To rebuild would cost $20 million. This sum was unmanageable. They kept talking and worrying about the future. In the rubble was a photograph, taken by Gideon Mendel, of a bible fallen open, to the Book of Job.
Church is about people, not pews and books and a script, not even a proper denominational title to claim as a name. It is about people gathered together to focus on lovingkindness—everywhere, for everyone, at all times, no matter what!!!
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