This newspaper’s long-running (five years) Faith Matters column offers a snapshot of the many faces of faith in Franklin County and the North Quabbin area. Statistically speaking, 2019’s 52 columns featured 32 men and 30 women (some columns were authored by more than one person); 19 first-time contributors; seven lay leaders and four schools or colleges. Denominations represented included Protestant, Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist, Unitarian Universalist, Evangelical, Jewish, the Dzogchen Community, Christian Science, Sangha meditation, and the Interfaith Council of Franklin County.

How do they get chosen? Simply, they ask. We schedule all faith leaders who respond to our invitation printed with every column. Faith leaders can be active or retired, full- or part-time, chaplains, lay leaders or denominational heads. What do they write about? Anything they choose. We do not edit their remarks, except for length. To show how seriously we take this column, our award-winning Senior Photographer Paul Franz takes a portrait of every columnist, which is run large on Saturday’s Religion Page.

Looking ahead, the Greenfield Recorder is planning a weeklong front-page series examining faith in Franklin County and the North Quabbin area. Our reporters will be investigating trends and challenges facing churches today and how congregations are responding to the needs of their members and communities. Stay tuned for this in-depth examination, The New Face of Faith, coming this spring.

In the meantime, here are some observations from 2019 contributors to Faith Matters:

“We’ve seen often how readily evil comes by believers and non-believers alike who think they have a monopoly on the truth, then proceed to bludgeon the rest of us into doing things their way. The more authentic path — the path of genuine faith — is to acknowledge that life is ambiguous and that we human beings are chimeras: bundles of contradictory parts both inside ourselves and in our relationships with one another. Hence, our constant need for God’s mercy and forgiveness.” —The Rev. Ted Thornton, Episcopal priest, retired

“Being the church does not mean showing up on Sunday or tithing or going to Sunday school. Some of us find those things meaningful and helpful as we seek our faith journey together. But to be the church means to be in the world as God would ask us to be.” —The Rev. Kelly Gallagher, associate conference minister, Mass. UCC

“Churches, like people have a life cycle. There is a cycle of birth, growth, decline and death. There is grieving with the closing of a church as there is grieving when a human life ends.” —The Rev. Dr. Dale Proulx, Robbins Memorial Congregational Churches

“As a hospice chaplain, I often enter into places where people feel diminished both physically and mentally, ravaged with cancer, respiratory and cardiac disease or dementia. A central part of my job is to affirm the abiding presence of the divine in all of us — what many call the soul.” —Ben Tousley, M. Div., spiritual counselor for Cooley Dickinson Hospice

“This is a great definition of religious life: Inconvenient. Eccentric. Clumsy. Congregations and communities walking through thick and thin and into the company of God’s grace. We stumble and help each other get up again. And on our best days, we give up the fantasy that we can find fulfillment, or shalom, on our own.” —The Rev. Marguerite Sheehan, Trinity Church

“God meets us where we are, and can and does offer us hope and presence and love when we are down and out. BUT, God does not make us down and out so that we will turn to God. That is, and always has been, our choice.” —The Rev. Dr. Candi Ashenden, Athol Congregational Church and United Congregational Church

“When I preach about Moses in front of the burning bush and he says, ‘Take off your shoes, you’re standing on holy ground,’ I sort of feel like I need to take off my shoes — I’m standing on holy ground.” —The Rev. Kate Stevens, CSA farmer