Sunday, Dec. 14 | 10:00 am | Parish Hall/Zoom -
On Sunday December 14, St. John’s will welcome back Ray Suarez at the adult forum for his 2025 Advent Reflection.
In his talk this year, Ray will explore themes from from his upcoming book Belonging, co-authored with his daughter, about how the Church negotiates the rest of the century with an American population that is more hesitant about joining up, and makes weaker attachments in all parts of life - personal, professional, and spiritual. What does the road ahead look like for our Church? How do we throw our arms around people sitting at home and watching us on a screen? Is “belonging” to a congregation simply going to be a different act, with a different meaning, in a world where people have “5000 friends” on Facebook, and are desperately lonely?
A St. Columba’s parishioner and good friend of St. John’s, Ray is currently the host of the PBS series Wisdom Keepers, which premiered on the public network in June 2025. In recent years, he has been the host of the public radio program and podcast On Shifting Ground and a visiting professor of Political Science at NYU Shanghai and the John McCloy Visiting Professor of American Studies at Amherst College. Earlier in his career, Ray hosted the daily news program Inside Story from Al Jazeera America, was Chief National Correspondent for The PBS NewsHour, and hosted Talk of the Nation from NPR. He is the author of Latino Americans: The 500-Year Legacy That Shaped a Nation (2013), The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America (2005), and The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration (1999). His journalism has been recognized with two DuPont-Columbia Awards, the Ruben Salazar Award from UNIDOS-US, and UCLA’s Public Policy Leadership Award for his reporting on urban America. Please don’t miss what promises to be a timely and thought-provoking talk.
Please don’t miss what promises to be a timely and thought-provoking talk! Join us Sunday the 14th at 10:00 am in the Parish Hall or on Zoom (link: bit.ly/STJNmain)