We have much to learn from the African concept of Ubuntu which outlines how an authentic individual is part of a larger and more significant relational, communal, societal, environmental and spiritual world, writes Revd Canon Nigel Genders

It’s a concept which is at the heart of the Church of England’s approach to education which sets out our commitment to educating for life in all its fullness through a broad and rich curriculum that enables children and young people to truly flourish. Such an education, with its focus on hope and aspiration, is vital in the light of a pandemic which has impacted massively on children’s mental health and wellbeing.

Today’s Government White Paper has stepped up momentum for schools to become academies, with the Government setting a clear aspiration for all schools to join a strong multi academy trust by 2030.

Since the beginning of the Academy programme, I have always spoken of the need for interdependence rather than an approach to the school system which has been driven by individualism and autonomy. Our work on rural and small schools has highlighted the need to work together and for schools to embrace change through formation of structural collaborations and partnerships, so I am delighted to see this emphasis in the White Paper.

Read it all and please follow the link to the full white paper (near the bottom).

As @educationgovuk sets out its White Paper today, Chief Education Officer @nigelgenders explains how Church of England Schools will play their part in the schools system of the future. https://t.co/XC0N4nzPkg

— CofE Education (@CofE_Education) March 28, 2022

There are no Covid fears here.

The district’s Covid-19 response center has registered just 11 cases since the start of the pandemic, and no deaths. At the regional hospital, the wards are packed — with malaria patients. The door to the Covid isolation ward is bolted shut and overgrown with weeds. People cram together for weddings, soccer matches, concerts, with no masks in sight.

Sierra Leone, a nation of eight million on the coast of Western Africa, feels like a land inexplicably spared as a plague passed overhead. What has happened — or hasn’t happened — here and in much of sub-Saharan Africa is a great mystery of the pandemic.

The low rate of coronavirus infections, hospitalizations and deaths in West and Central Africa is the focus of a debate that has divided scientists on the continent and beyond. Have the sick or dead simply not been counted? If Covid has in fact done less damage here, why is that? If it has been just as vicious, how have we missed it?

The answers “are relevant not just to us, but have implications for the greater public good,” said Austin Demby, Sierra Leone’s health minister, in an interview in Freetown, the capital.

Read it all.

It’s a pandemic mystery: Why has Covid been so much less lethal in sub-Saharan Africa? Research shows at least two-thirds of people have been exposed to the virus. Yet they’re not getting sick or dying. Are they? https://t.co/WphNh2Jdfq

— NYT Science (@NYTScience) March 24, 2022

How would you distinguish between apathy and close cousins like depression, despondency, and what might be called “dry spells”?

It’s important to note that I’m not using the term apathy in a clinical sense, but instead as it pertains to the things Christians purportedly value, the things of God. There is overlap between this kind of spiritual apathy and depression. But there are certain characteristics unique to each. Depression relates to things like suicidal ideation and a pervasive lack of energy or motivation in every area of life.

Apathy, however, tends to be more selective. With the young men I’ve mentored, they are not apathetic about everything. They might be quite excited about gaming, or their girlfriends, or the LA Lakers. Depression tends to be more pervasive, and it might require therapy or other forms of treatment that wouldn’t necessarily apply to apathy.

As for despondency, I define it as a deep sadness, or bewilderment, especially as it pertains to the things of God. If we’re dealing with despondency rather than apathy, what the despondent person needs most is to be comforted.

With dry spells, or what we might call the dark night of the soul, we’re dealing with something that is good and divinely orchestrated. God intends it for our good. The person going through the dry spell just needs help to persevere through it and press into God.

Read it all.

Uche Anizor’s college students know the importance of the Christian life. At least, intellectually.

“But they can’t get themselves to care the way they know, deep down, they should.”https://t.co/LBU1mvrX37

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) March 24, 2022

New every morning is the love
our wakening and uprising prove;
through sleep and darkness safely brought,
restored to life and power and thought.

New mercies, each returning day,
hover around us while we pray;
new perils past, new sins forgiven,
new thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven.

If on our daily course our mind
be set to hallow all we find,
new treasures still, of countless price,
God will provide for sacrifice.

Old friends, old scenes, will lovelier be,
as more of heaven in each we see;
some softening gleam of love and prayer
shall dawn on every cross and care.

The trivial round, the common task,
will furnish all we ought to ask:
room to deny ourselves; a road
to bring us daily nearer God.

Only, O Lord, in thy dear love,
fit us for perfect rest above;
and help us, this and every day,
to live more nearly as we pray.

Today the Episcopal Church celebrates John Keble, Priest and Poet, 1866 https://t.co/BmTmViXUHn

Photo by Robert Hawker Peniel Preston, mid 1860s, in the National Portrait Gallery pic.twitter.com/hQhCS4qXk3

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) March 29, 2022

Grant, O God, that in all time of our testing we may know thy presence and obey thy will; that, following the example of thy servant John Keble, we may accomplish with integrity and courage that which thou givest us to do, and endure that which thou givest us to bear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Save the date!

*Crime, Justice and the Human Condition*

Our next conference at Keble College, Oxford, will be held on 13 and 14 September 2022.

Find out more and register your interest: https://t.co/v5fUIYnOu5 pic.twitter.com/UUtXUZMtWv

— The Howard League (@TheHowardLeague) August 11, 2021

God of glory, present in all places and filling all things, treasury of blessings and source of life: come and dwell with us, cleanse us from all sin and grant us your salvation.

On the edge of life. #trees#thicktrunktuesday #ThePhotoHour pic.twitter.com/T5d2g2g77y

— Dharamveer Meena, IFS🌲 (@dharamveerifs) March 29, 2022

In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him, and said to them, “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days, and have nothing to eat; and if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way; and some of them have come a long way.” And his disciples answered him, “How can one feed these men with bread here in the desert?” And he asked them, “How many loaves have you?” They said, “Seven.” And he commanded the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd. And they had a few small fish; and having blessed them, he commanded that these also should be set before them. And they ate, and were satisfied; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. And there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away; and immediately he got into the boat with his disciples, and went to the district of Dalmanu′tha.

–Mark 8:1-10

This morning’s sunrise at Nauset Lighthouse, Eastham, Cape Cod National Seashore. #StormHour #capecod #sunrise pic.twitter.com/X2pstdKTLV

— Darius Aniunas (@dariusaniunas) March 29, 2022