<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif"><span id="gmail-docs-internal-guid-e7141339-7fff-3067-4d27-ebb8033124ed"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.2;text-indent:18pt;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><font size="4"><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">The Today's Issues group meets at 9:30 on Sunday mornings in person in the parlor of the Religious Education buildings next to the church and on Zoom at:  </span><a href="https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8583258484?pwd=RFdJUGZOZkU4THArWFpnVkllZzh1dz09" style="text-decoration-line:none"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman";background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;text-decoration-line:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8583258484?pwd=RFdJUGZOZkU4THArWFpnVkllZzh1dz0</span></a><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">   </span></font></p><font size="4"><br></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.2;text-indent:18pt;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><font size="4">This week, May 1, 2022, we will discuss Winslow Homer’s paintings currently featured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.  We will view them on the screen in the parlor during the discussion.</font></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.2;text-indent:18pt;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><font size="4"><br></font></span></p><font size="4"><img src="cid:ii_l2kikuvs0" alt="image.png" width="472" height="192"><br><br></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.2;text-indent:18pt;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><font size="4">Many of the paintings can be viewed in our first reading, <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PgUhGyAKLRyFPhH1dh4UdCCg2HVJamyo1b8AbUH30gc/edit?usp=sharing" style="text-decoration-line:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;text-decoration-line:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">The Melville of American Painting</span></a><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">. from The May Atlantic Magazine. </span><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-style:italic;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">In a new exhibit, Winslow Homer, once seen as the oracle of the nation’s innocence, is recast as a poet of conflict.  </span><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">If you happen to take The New Yorker, there is an article about the same exhibit in the April 18 issue, page 55 </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/04/18/war-race-and-winslow-homer-william-r-cross-american-passage-metropolitan-museum-exhibition" style="text-decoration-line:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;text-decoration-line:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Winslow Homer’s Depiction of a Divided America</span></a>. <span style="font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">It only has one picture, but it discusses many of the same paintings.</span></font></p><font size="4"><br></font><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.2;text-indent:18pt;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><font size="4"><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">We will also discuss the recent election in France, focusing especially on the decline of the French left as discussed in </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/10Zi8gwG3pwk3t1ilR3pB20V-ol8XScmN21PmrXzqfuo/edit?usp=sharing" style="text-decoration-line:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;text-decoration-line:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">A Failure of Imagination</span></a> from<span style="font-family:Georgia;white-space:pre-wrap"> the April 21 issue of The New York Review of Books.  </span><span style="text-indent:18pt;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-family:Georgia;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span><span style="text-indent:18pt;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-family:Georgia;font-style:italic;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">The French left has not only abandoned its traditional constituents, it has also been unable to defend a positive vision of the multicultural society that France has become.</span></font><span style="text-indent:18pt;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Georgia;font-style:italic;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">  </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.2;text-indent:18pt;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="text-indent:18pt;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Georgia;font-style:italic;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br></span></p><img src="cid:ii_l2kitbio1" alt="image.png" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="472" height="242"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.2;text-indent:18pt;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="text-indent:18pt;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Georgia;font-style:italic;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.2;text-indent:18pt;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Georgia;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></p><br><br></span></div></div>