The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What is China saying about this?
The official Xinhua News Agency said that the China Wildlife Conservation Association has signed agreements with San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and the Madrid Zoo Aquarium of Spain “concerning cooperation on the conservation of giant pandas, as part of efforts to step up the protection of the species on a global level.”
A new round of giant panda conservation collaborative research was about to begin, Xinhua said, focusing on the prevention and control of major diseases for giant pandas and the protection of habitats and wild populations. “These efforts will establish an international academic exchange platform to promote exchanges in the protection of flagship species and umbrella species. They will also promote people-to-people exchanges between China and foreign countries.”
That message was amplified at a Foreign Ministry briefing, when spokeswoman Mao Ning said, “We expect the new round of cooperation can further enrich research results on vulnerable species like the giant panda, promote people-to-people exchanges and enhance friendship between people.” continue our cooperation with the United States on panda conservation, and do our best to meet the wishes of the Californians so as to deepen the friendly ties between our two peoples.”
The decision to send pandas to San Diego and continue talks with the National Zoo signals that at least for now, China plans to continue its “panda diplomacy” — the lending of giant pandas to countries around the world as a show of goodwill — despite tensions between the two countries.
After the pandas left the
National Zoo in Washington last year, only one giant panda program in the United States remained — at Zoo Atlanta. That loan is expected to expire late this year, and that would have left the United States with no giant pandas for the first time since 1972, when Beijing presented two pandas to President Richard M. Nixon as the two Cold War rivals prepared to normalize ties by the end of the decade. At the time, observers called the recall of the giant pandas “punitive panda diplomacy.”
Last year, Chinese internet
becoming overstimulated.
“It’s difficult to live in a world where people communicate with their body,” said Hardwick, who retired last year.
Today, Hardwick is known as “the autism pastor.” He speaks to faith groups across the nation about the need to make places of worship more inclusive and accessible for people with disabilities.
“When I was growing up, people didn’t talk about disabilities that much,” he said. “People with disabilities were invisible to the broader community. Today, we no longer have to be in the shadows.”
Hardwick’s church instituted several programs to help others with sensory processing issues and other disabilities. The church offered sensory kits that include noise-canceling headphones, which help calm those sensitive to loud noises from, for example, the organ, drums and choir. They made changes in the lighting to make it easier for those with mobility or vision issues. They improved signage in the parking lot and inside the church.
Including more people with disabilities
According to the Collaborative on Faith & Disabilities website, 84% of people with disabilities say their faith is important to them. A third of parents changed their place of worship because their child was not included or welcomed.
Another study in the Journal of Disability & Religion examined clergy’s thoughts on training and including children with disabilities.
It found that 68% of religious leaders said they had not received training about supporting children with disabilities in congregational settings, and 66% said they would like training on supporting parents of children with disabilities.
Despite those statistics, just 10% of faith communities make disability awareness a priority.
Dom Kelly, founder and president of the Atlanta-based New Disabled South, an advocacy group for people with disabilities, thinks he knows why.
“I think religious organizations have a long way to go when it comes to both inclusion and accessibility,” he said.
And, as the population of people with disabilities grows, Kelly said, those groups “must either gain more members or push more people away.”
Kelly can offer suggestions to make spaces more accessible.
“I’ve been able to come up with access solutions that aren’t expensive and they may not think about. They may not have the same solutions that we do,” said Kelly, who is an ambulatory wheelchair user, which means he doesn’t have to use it all of the time.
“The accessibility part is really the bare minimum,” he said. “That should be a given. We want to be able to be included in all the ritual practices that go on in religious spaces.”
Advocates say people with disabilities do not want to be viewed as “the other.” They want to be treated and included like everyone else in the congregation. That means singing in the choir and being part of various congregational committees.
Advocates hope more churches leaders will ask themselves what accommodations are possible: What does it cost to move the choir to the floor so everybody can sing? What happens if a congregant doesn’t have hearing aids but is deaf and can’t read sign language? Or are there people with digestive issues who can’t take communion?
A range of solutions
The disabled community is broad and can include a wide range of disabilities, such as hearing loss, vision issues, mobility issues, the effects of a stroke or heart attack or some other illness.
“If you live long enough, at some point in time everyone will be disabled in some form or manner,” said Teresa L. Fry Brown, the Bandy Professor of Preaching at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. Brown recently led a three-day conference, called “No Longer Invisible,” to spark conversations around disability among individuals and communities of faith. “It’s a human reality.”
Bishop Dedric Avery of Salt and Light Truth Center in Decatur was serving as a chaplain for a high school football team and standing on the sidelines when he got hit during a game. As a result of his injury, doctors told him that he would never walk again without an aid.
Avery no longer preaches from the pulpit, which would require him to walk up five steps. Instead, he delivers the sermon from a spot in front of the sanctuary.
Norma Stanley and her daughter, Sierra, now go to Avery’s church. Sierra, now 35, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and microcephaly when she was 9 months old. Microcephaly is a birth defect in which a person’s head is smaller when compared with standardized charts. It can cause developmental delays, vision and mobility issues.
Stanley used to take Sierra to a DeKalb County church, but she said they didn’t always feel comfortable or welcome. Eventually, they both stopped going to church and instead watched services online until they found Salt and Light Truth Center in Decatur.
“I wanted people to be comfortable, but I also wanted Sierra to be comfortable with who she is,” Stanley said.
Other places of worship also have programs in place.
Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta has an active deaf ministry. It also has launched a new ministry that serves as a support group for members who are disabled or need some special help, and it enlists members who have training in special education.
The Rev. John H. Vaughn, the historic church’s executive pastor, said the church is compiling a glossary of terms, expanding the number of assisted listening devices, and plans to conduct a survey to get a better sense of congregants needs.
Ebenezer is renovating its education building and considering a sensory room. The church also uses golf carts to transport people from a nearby parking lot to the sanctuary.
“We’re really taking this journey to be much more intentional about what it means to embrace the beloved community, and the beloved community means he said.
Yvette Pegues could walk when she joined First Baptist Church Woodstock 20 years ago, but complications from surgery left her unable to walk. She is now CEO of “Your Invisible Disability Group,” a nonprofit she started. It helps newly disabled and diagnosed people find resources.
A former Ms. Wheelchair International, Pegues said she found allies in her pastor and church family, who made sure she could still be a fully involved member.
Today she sometimes does the altar call and helps run the information desk. When she sang with the choir, the other singers would leave the choir loft and come down to the main floor to accommodate her.
First Baptist Church Woodstock is building an entire mission program for people with disabilities to go on mission trips. The church’s Thrive Special Needs Ministry works with youth and adults who currently range in age from 2 to 60, said director Valeria Lobo.
Passion City Church also has sensory rooms to serve youth who have physical or mental disabilities so they can gather with others their age.
The ultimate goal, said Jennifer Sheehan, a church spokeswoman, is to provide an inclusive space with all the other children and youth for worship and teaching. “There is always a volunteer specifically for those with needs, and we provide items like headphones to bring comfort in a louder environment,” she said.
Rabbi Joshua Heller, senior rabbi at Congregation B’nai Torah in Sandy Springs, said the congregation has a vibrant outreach program for people with disabilities. It includes working with youth with special needs to have bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah where the rituals match their abilities.
“We’ve recognized the importance of letting people with disabilities be their own advocates,” Heller said. “God created all of us as we are.
“There is an idea in Judaism that every soul is of infinite value; therefore, the community has an obligation to make sure every person has the ability to participate as fully as they can.”
being met, even in your passion, you will run away.
“We really care about how we feel, and if we don’t align with something enough to even consider it a relationship of value, for us anyway, abandoning it makes sense. At the core of it all is it’s us that we’ve picked.”
Added Houston, 27, a musician and entrepreneur who is on the cusp of Generation Z, “Gen Zs really believe in putting ourselves first, and understanding that, yes, hard work is needed to get where we need to go. But if it’s not serving us a purpose, if it’s not aligned with where we’re going, then we’re not doing it.”
For a zoomer, abandoning a job can mean just that — not returning to work and not communicating those intentions to the employer. Some have left jobs by sending an email or through a social media post. Forget about the traditional two-week notice that most employers expect.
But zoomers are not alone in terms of dissatisfaction in the American workplace, as the pandemic, political friction and social issues have roiled the U.S. A 2023 Gallup workplace report pointed out that “quiet quitters” now make up at least 50 percent of the U.S. workforce. Gallup defined quiet quitting as “the idea spreading virally on social media that millions of people are not going above and beyond at work and just meeting their job description.”
Gallup noted a decline in engagement and employer satisfaction especially among Gen Z and younger millennials (those below age 35) working remotely. It noted that as “a significant change” from pre-pandemic years.
“Since the pandemic, younger workers have declined significantly in feeling cared about and having opportunities to develop — primarily from their manager,” the report indicated.
A major factor that Generation Z professionals point to when it comes to leaving jobs is “how we saw society before us,” Sinclair said. “We don’t want to be the way the adults ahead of us were. We do not want to be our grandparents, working until they’re 65, 70 at shops and jobs, and for employers who treat them horribly, who don’t even give them the space (by saying), ‘Hey, look, this job is taxing on you mentally; take some time off.’ We don’t want to be that.”
For Houston, it’s a matter of choosing something opposite of what he witnessed with his late father — working a job at which he was answering phones. “Personally, it comes from watching the older generation staying at jobs that they hate,” he said.
Management development professional and executive business coach Nancy Lewis said those in Gen Z “will not stay in a job that they hate, like many Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) did. They’re not going to be in a job that they don’t like.”
Lewis, president of Fayetteville-based Progressive Techniques Inc., also said, “They want to do something that’s meaningful, do something that’s going to make you feel that you’re making a difference.”
That mentality and the idea that adults before them did not “pick themselves” has led many zoomers to create their own “spaces,” Sinclair said, through, for example, independent contract work or as social media influencers. The latter, she points out, have the potential to make within a span of four years what someone of their parents’ generation made by the time they reached age 70.
But Sinclair makes it clear it’s not all about money. Having work-life balance, where an employee can take off outside of a paid holiday or sick day, such as a “mental health day,” is important to zoomers.
“I work four or five days a week, and if I don’t want to go to work one day or I’m not feeling good or I need just a mental health day, I (can) plan that,” Sinclair said.
It just requires that she give her clients a week’s notice. “I could not do that at a regular 9 to 5,” she said.
Sinclair added that zoomers do take into consideration
Jeffrey Houston Jr., musician and entrepreneur
Kaylor Bell, above, entrepreneur and social media strategist
Gen Zs ‘will not stay in a job that they hate, like many Boomers did . ... They want to do something that’s meaningful, do something that’s going to make you feel that you’re making a difference.’
Nancy Lewis, management development professional
that their way of doing things could be “viewed as disrespectful” or as if they “lack loyalty.” But choosing themselves comes first, with some zoomers noting how employers don’t reciprocate — for instance, when workplaces let an employee go without notice or when a potential employer doesn’t convey the decision not to offer a candidate a position.
Sinclair said she is mindful of the importance of giving notice, as she did in the past. But she allows that one struggle for zoomers is not communicating “when we need assistance, or our needs aren’t being met.” Often the result is the employee walking away from a job.
Kaylor M. Bell, who works as an office assistant for a psychiatrist in Peachtree City and is separately a social media strategist and makeup artist, believes Gen Z employees should not walk away from a job before the three-month mark of employment.
Bell, 27, said zoomers should determine if a job is a good fit
“before you’re in the role.” She suggests figuring that out upfront by asking good questions and researching the company.
“Once you accept the offer, I think you will always be faced with struggles and trials that you probably didn’t anticipate,” Bell said. “But that’s going to be with any opportunity that you have.”
Bell said she’s never left a position on short notice and that she feels a sense of loyalty when she’s working for a company, largely because of her Christian Walk.
“I want to make sure that everything I’m doing is honorable, that everything I’m doing is just a good example,” Bell said. “I want to do everything I can to make sure an opportunity does not fit before I move on.”
Bell received a master’s degree in biomedical science from Morehouse School of Medicine in 2022 and plans to take the Medical College Admission Test with the goal of rising to a career as a surgical oncologist.
Zoomers “will need some resilience” after taking a job, she said. But if workers find after three months that an opportunity isn’t working, “then it would be best for you and the company that you move on. Because you’re probably not doing a good job at what they need you to do, and apparently the company isn’t suited for you.”
Employment has a different face today, said Lewis, who through her company advises public and private sector companies worldwide. Lewis said days of loyalty in the workplace are behind us.
“We’ll never go back to pre-pandemic days,” she predicted. “The era of working 20 years for a company is gone, and I think that’s hard for organizations, especially the government, to handle.”
Speaking of Generation Z and in some cases millennials (the generation born between 1981 and 1996), she noted that some have gone through job interviews, “accepted the job and not shown up.” For those who do take the offer, “You might get them for two, three years. You might get them for six months. You might get them for six days.”
She advises employers that “millennials and zoomers need more attention. They need to know that they’re valued and appreciated. They need feedback on an ongoing basis.” Otherwise, they may “think they’re not doing a good job.”
The need for feedback, she suggested, is in part because of helicopter parents — parents who insist on excessive levels of involvement and control in their children’s lives — “fixing stuff for them.”
As an example, Lewis recounted instances where parents have gone on interviews with their offspring. She added that some parents even will call an employer over a review and suggest that the boss hurt their child’s feelings.
Houston, who took a break from studies at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, after his father died, has checked all the boxes covering the ways a zoomer will leave a job. He has given notice and also stayed on a job for only a week and left without notice. This includes quitting his package-handler position with a major online retailer in October after completing two weeks of eighthour-a-day training, then three days of work. He said he did so because he wasn’t “getting proper hours” or “anything that I’m asking for.” He exited two jobs before that because of similar concerns.
“It really ties into how I was treated and certain respect and boundaries that I have that are set up while I have a job,” Houston said.
After three years of college, where he majored in graphic design, Houston launched his own company, LeVII WORllD, in 2018. He sells merchandise such as clothing and works in music as a producer and engineer; he also sings and raps. He said he’s open to additional work and that he enjoys opportunities that allow him to be outdoors, preferring not to work inside for long hours.
Houston said he doesn’t mind working more than one job or working on a contract basis, even if that means not having benefits such as vacation and health insurance.
After all, he said, companies give workers benefits for jobs that are “sending you to the hospital most of the time. Why would you do that to yourself for so long?”
He doesn’t regret choices he’s made, adding, “If you believe in yourself, it will come. If you work hard enough, it will come.”
For employers to retain employees, Lewis suggests that they recognize what Gen Z and other generations of workers need.
“It’s not one size fits all,” Lewis said. “When you have myriad people on your team, you can’t do cookie cutter; it’s, ‘Who needs what?’ You must get to know your people at the appropriate level
— ‘I know you need this ...’ In the long run, it will gain you a team that will be more productive and perform at a higher level.”
Treating Gen Z differently, Sinclair and Houston said, includes recognizing their need for a life that includes more than work. And many in Gen Z are convinced their purpose includes shaking up “an entire system,” Sinclair said.
The zoomers’ push for the workforce to look different, she and Houston said, is paving the way for generations to come. Those future workers, they believe, may benefit more from their efforts than zoomers themselves will.
As members of Gen Z are choosing themselves, Lewis urges that they not lose sight of the importance of relationships in their professional lives.
“Everything happens because of relationships,” she said. “If you don’t have to burn a bridge, don’t burn it.”
She added that young professionals can seek assistance from coaches or mentors to help them navigate difficult career decisions.
“Everything that will happen will happen through a relationship, and you never know who’s going to be able to open that next door for you,” Lewis said. “So you want to make sure that you learn how to build relationships.”
Further, she reminds employers of the value of every employee, including those from Gen Z.
“Every generation brings something special to the workplace,” Sinclair said, “and we need to cultivate that.”
Georgia Writers Association director Garrard Conley is the son of a Baptist preacher whose 2016 memoir “Boy Erased” chronicles his parents’ attempt to change his sexual orientation through conversion therapy. It was made into a 2018 movie starring Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe.
Diving into a different aspect of queer Christian suppression, Conley’s debut novel, “All the World Beside,” is an evocative and mystical work of historical fiction that animates a love affair between two men in 18th-century Puritan New England.
“Queer people of all religious backgrounds exist, and history will bear these truths out,” Conley states in the author’s note as he details the research that informed his sensitive and complex narrative. Set during the “Great Awakening,” a time of expanding religious fervor in the American colonies, the novel commences in 1730 in the fictionalized settlement of Cana, Massachusetts.
The story centers on the Rev. Nathaniel Whitfield, a character whose background shares similarities with historical evangelist George Whitefield. Nathaniel is a minister famous for converting 500 souls in a mass revival that led to the founding of Cana. Now tasked with the spiritual growth of the settlement, Nathaniel struggles to reconcile his feelings for Dr. Arthur Lyman and how they affect his relationships with God, family and community.
Nathaniel is expected to usher forth another Great Awakening. Considered the apex of religious enlightenment, it is imagined by Nathaniel’s wife, Catherine, as an event where “the crying lasted several hours, people fell out of the pews and broke into violent paroxysms upon the ground.”
Given the theatrical nature of an awakening, the authenticity of each person’s conversion is confirmed by scrutinizing changes in their behavior over time. This breeds suspicion among neighbors and fosters an environment of judgment and extremism. When another awakening doesn’t materialize, Nathaniel’s benefactors worry the preacher has fallen out of grace with God. As the town’s suspicions are stoked, the Whitfield and Lyman families are subjected to enhanced scrutiny for exhibiting behaviors that deviate from a narrow definition of normalcy.
Resentful of the time Nathaniel spends away from the family, especially after his connection to Arthur becomes evident, Catherine becomes depressed over her alienation from her husband. To pick up Catherine’s slack, their preteen daughter, Sarah, takes charge of domestic duties and is often referred to as the “woman of the house” — a circumstance that causes tongues to wag in Cana.
Arthur’s wife and daughter are also shunned by Cana by Garrard Conley; Riverhead Books; 352 pages; $28. because they are not an original founding family and are perceived as outsiders, so they seek an alliance with the Whitfield women. Conley uses these female friendships to gently explore, with honesty and sensitivity, how the ripples of intolerance spread throughout the lives of all involved parties.
The relationship between Nathaniel and Arthur breathes life into the cloistered stuffiness of life in Cana. While Nathaniel struggles with his sexuality, Arthur accepts both their connection and his own feelings. Nathaniel pours over the Bible fruitlessly searching for permission to love Arthur. But Arthur has no problem sourcing the divine in their union. He focuses on finding ways to be together and describes their relationship as “not only love but something added to it, something older, ancient, hidden away.”
“All the World Beside” is as much a character-driven examination of the cost of suppression as a compelling dip into spiritual realism. A mystical quality emerges early on as Nathaniel begins to view his infant son, Ezekiel, as the manifestation of his sin and questions if the child is possessed.
Both Whitfield children reveal elements of the supernatural. Sarah has visions, possesses unattainable knowledge and displays an awareness of the divine that is both unnerving and empowering for her to reconcile. She quickly realizes her father’s focus is not on his family or flock but on Cana’s resident doctor.
Her awareness sharpens into dogmatic religiosity and soon it seems Sarah, not Nathaniel, may be the person to lead Cana to its next revival. Despite a professed belief in female equality, the community’s reaction to Sarah as a spiritual leader causes further complications for the Whitfield family.
In contrast to Sarah’s clairvoyance, Ezekiel’s supernatural qualities present as developmental delays. Conley’s depiction of this character captures the soul of misunderstanding and loneliness. As other children experience the awakening, Ezekiel is left to conclude that God has passed him over — as his father is wont to do. Their father-son relationship is indelibly shaped by Nathaniel’s guilt, resulting in confusion for Ezekiel throughout his life.
Conley draws direct parallels between “All the World Beside” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classical Puritan exploration of adultery, “The Scarlet Letter.” The difference is the compassion with which Conley gifts his complicated depiction of forbidden love. While Hawthorne’s story descends into a moral rebuke of religious hypocrisy, Conley’s stays fixed on the human cost of secrets and lies.
In the author’s note, Conley concludes that as Hester’s art transforms her scarlet A from a brand of shame into a symbol of beauty, Conley underwent a similar metamorphosis while writing “Boy Erased.” In crafting “All the World Beside,” he has filtered his personal experiences through an even more suppressive time in history. The result is a contemplative depiction of the endurance required to survive religious intolerance that is probing, redemptive and brimming with compassion for the human race.