product. that's why we're your retirement company. the estate of william j. carter. the jane henson foundation. and the corporation for public broadcasting. welcome, i'm bob abernethy. it's good to have you with us. second-degree murder charges were filed this week against george zimmerman, the volunteer neighborhood watchman who shot and killed unarmed teenager, trayvon martin. the announcement came after weeks of protests demanding zimmerman's arrest. several religious groups also called for an investigation into martin's death. recent polls show that attitudes about the case vary dramatically by race. joining me with more on this are kim lawton, managing editor of this program, and harold dean trulear, associate professor of applied theology at howard university in washington, d.c., and national director of the healing communities prisoner re-entry initiative. professor, welcome, we're glad to have you here again. >> thank you, it's my privilege. >> good to see you again. >> the contrast in the way people saw this case in florida just couldn't have been more stark. overwhelming differences in the way whites and blacks saw it and what they saw in it. how did you see it? >> i identified with it. i have two sons. they're grown. when they were teenagers, part of their training in learning how to drive was what to do when you're pulled over by the police so you don't end up being a statistic. and i think for a number of african americans the facts of the case as they've come out and as some of the speculation has gone, it just fits so closely to a lot of our experience, even, whether we're poor, whether we're middle class. >> and that sense of continuing injustice. it seemed like this really pricked those feelings. >> yeah, i think it did and that's why you see the level of emotion, i believe, that's coming out. we recognize this. we've seen this before in some, various ways, shapes or forms. >> and beyond this, beyond the -- what do you call it? the outrage about racial injustice, beyond that, is something more that you see, that you've been working on, the question of violence. >> absolutely. we live in a violent nation. we settle conflicts through violence. things escalate. this case is a perfect example of an initial confrontation escalating into a violent conclusion. those types of things happen all the time and we've lost our ability to be civil about discussion and disagreement. the number-one cause for homicides in this country is arguments. it's not drugs on the street, it's not other things like that, it's conflict. >> but is that racism or is it black on black? >> most of it, in terms of homicide, is black on black. i think that both racism fits the mold and then also the way in which african american males have turned on each other. trayvon martin was 14 times more likely to have been killed by trayvon martin than he was george zimmerman. >> but that's a very provocative statement, and i'm wondering how -- what kind of reactions you get within the african american community when you say something like that. >> you get a negative reaction when you do it by making it either one case or the other. what we're trying to do, those of us that are working on this issue, is trying to say let's expand the conversation. both situations are unacceptable -- being killed by another african american male or being killed by a non-black town watchman. they're both unacceptable and we need to be working on violence reduction in all cases. >> and within the faith community, what resources do you see there to help in this? >> well, there are a number of models that have been going around the country. the most important thing is getting out on the streets and building relationships, developing the kind of community where people get to know each other and begin to learn how to resolve conflict. you've seen it in boston through the ten-point coalition over the years. this new program -- well, it's not so new now, but operation ceasefire that's come out of chicago. it's not a faith-based program but there are a number of people of faith who are involved in it. and they're all focusing on resolving conflict through means that are other than violent. >> but that's something, i would guess, that is uniquely done by blacks in black neighborhoods. you don't see a role there for whites, do you? >> oh, absolutely. >> do you really? >> oh, yeah. in fact, one of the top people who's doing violence reduction in boston was a native israeli who had fought in the israeli army. what gets valued is not color, it's the fact that you are real and that you're present. and i know that there are white people who have done successful work in anti-gang strategies, anti-violence initiatives. it can cross color lines. >> but do you want people in churches to go out into the violent neighborhoods and build relationships? >> they already have those relationships. we are, those are our sons, those are our grandsons, those are our daughters. so for me, it's not a matter of going into a neighborhood. we're already located there. we already have connections there. >> professor harold dean trulear of howard university in washington, d.c. in other news, mitt romney is poised to become the first mormon nominated for president on a major-party ticket. romney became the presumptive republican nominee after rick santorum exited the race earlier this week. but doubts remain over how strongly romney will appeal to religious conservatives who voted heavily in the primaries so far, mainly for santorum. in connecticut, lawmakers voted to repeal the state's death penalty, making it the 17th state to abolish capital punishment. it's the fifth state to do so in the last five years. if you have ever wondered what it is really like to be the pastor of a church, there's a book out about that. it's "this odd and wondrous calling," by two seasoned united church of christ pastors who know well the frustrations and joys of ministry, including some of the things that drive pastors crazy. ♪ >> at the wellesley congressional church in wellesley, massachusetts, outside boston, the senior minister is the reverend martin copenhaver. >> we worry about so many things, so jesus says what we all long to hear -- do not be anxious. do not worry. >> at the first congregational church of glen ellyn, illinois, a suburb of chicago, the reverend lillian daniel is senior minister. >> let us greet one another with a sign of god's peace. peace be with you. >> recently, lillian and martin were together in glen ellyn. they talked with us about the church and its challenges. >> this is what drives me so crazy about the "spiritual but not religious" people who see god in the sunset. you know, anybody can see god in the sunset. but what is remarkable is that you can see god in the committee meeting with other people who you disagree with, and that's to me the miracle. >> god can actually be found inside the church among flawed, quirky, broken people who are somehow bound together, and try to even see god in one another. >> ministry is constant, they said, never nine to five, and preaching is just part of it. they insisted ministry is often fun, and lillian spoke of what she called the weird interplay of the sacred and the earthy. >> the time right before you are leading worship, and so you've got a sermon that you are trying to memorize, and you are trying to be prayerful and lead hundreds of people in worship, and you walk in the sanctuary, and somebody says, "lillian, we're out of toilet paper in the men's room." >> lillian has been a pastor for 19 years. she has seen a lot of life. she once played bass guitar in a punk rock band, and she still sits in occasionally. ♪ >> lillian has campaigned for social justice and is married to a union organizer. they have two teenage children. recently, she went to guatemala on a mission trip to build houses. her father was a foreign correspondent. she has lived in seven countries. >> it makes me feel angry when people think that the ministry is somehow removed from the real world, as though we have never heard swear words before. you know, we've heard some of the grittiest stuff you can hear. we've visited people in prisons. we've heard from folks when their lives are really at a low point. you're eating with people, and you are talking with people, and you hear some of the worst things that people have done, and they are just sharing real life with you. >> lillian loves preaching and preparing for it. >> we get to immerse ourselves in scripture and really study this stuff. and then we distill that and share it with the congregation. to me, that is such a privilege. >> but in today's world, lillian says, the church's message can sometimes seem unwelcome. >> i think we live in a society of rampant narcissism, and the church rubs like sandpaper against that. you are selling a message that a lot of people just don't want to hear in this sort of "it's-all-about-me" culture. >> churches such as lillian's try to live the concern for others that they teach. this was a gourmet eight-course dinner and auction to raise money to send forty young people on a week-long work project this coming summer to help build a soup kitchen for the poor. the ample menu suggested a problem for many ministers, obesity. >> food is the socially tea party -- social acceptable addicts of the church. >> ministers are always being plied with food. it's one of the things if you pay a call on somebody they have a coffee cake. ♪ >> martin is the son and grandson of ministers, comfortable with many styles of worship. >> this is our sabbath, our day of rest, a word that means literally a day for quieting the heart. >> martin puts a high priority on encouraging young people to consider becoming ministers and on training young ministers on the job. so does lillian. >> i remember i was an intern in divinity school at my first church, and the minister, my supervisor, turned to me in the meeting and said, "lillian, would you like to open us with prayer?" and i said, "no, i wouldn't like to." you know, i thought he was just asking if i wanted to, and later he said "that's not an option." and i said, "well, i don't know how to do it." and he said "nobody knows how to do it. you just have to do it." >> the way to learn how to pray is to pray. >> sometimes, even the most experienced ministers face situations that test them, such as one that faced martin when he taught a sunday school class of very smart fourth graders, 10-year-olds. >> what came before god? >> oh, man, that's a good one. >> where is heaven? >> heaven is where god is. >> how do we know god exists? >> if god is good, why did he also create bad? >> that is the biggest puzzle. >> at last, the closing prayer. >> so god, we thank you that we might continue to stretch our hearts and minds toward you, never being afraid to ask and always seeking to learn. >> i asked both pastors how they had known they were being called to ministry. >> a sense of being compelled. i cannot not do this. >> you keep coming back to it over and over again. when you try to walk away, it's impossible. >> both pastors say the satisfactions, for them, far exceed the problems. >> we are invited in and given privileged access to people's lives, and that is not always joyous in the happy sense, but it's a great, deep, abiding joy to share in people's lives in that way. >> most clergy would far prefer to do a funeral than a wedding. you feel that the work that you are doing is profoundly important, and you are there to say something that nobody else in the world can say. >> we get a chance to be wise. not that all ministers are wise, but we get a good crack at it, because we see people in a variety of circumstances. we meet at that intersection of a human and the divine. we live in community. wisdom is always acted out in community. >> go in peace. >> ministry is a lot like parenting in that it can be really difficult at times, but it never feels not worth doing. it really is joyous work. >> hi, guys, hey. glad calls just as you are, and you don't have to be this phony-baloney person. you've been called to be exactly as you are and in that to proclaim this word that is bigger than yourself. >> lillian's and martin's book is "this odd and wondrous calling." we have a special report today about a growing social issue -- how to care for our aging population. typically, that responsibility falls on families, especially on the adult children of elderly parents. but all too often, those family members are ill-equipped for the task. kim lawton looks at the cial, emotional and spiritual challenges of caring for an aging parent. >> three years ago, anne stine was a busy mother with three young children, and a husband who was on the road a lot. then her 87-year-old father, a very independent world war ii veteran who lived about an hour away, suffered a stroke. >> and what i found was a man who was no longer independent. he was confused and worried and starting to bark orders. so it was a very emotional time for him, and it was a scary time for both of us. >> her dad, who lived alone, needed a lot of care. and the issues surrounding his care were overwhelming. >> the doctors came in and the social workers come in and they start all these questions, "where do you want your dad to go in rehab? are you set up in medicare and medicaid?" the list went on. and i was just a mom with three little kids and not prepared, not prepared to take on that responsibility. and yet i had to. >> according to a recent study, 36% of all caregivers are adult children taking care of an aging parent. and that's expected to rise dramatically. people 85 and older are the fastest growing group in america, and census projections say their numbers will more than double to 11.5 million, by the year 2035. >> author jane gross says it's a situation our entire society is unprepared to deal with. her own education began about a decade ago, when she and her brother needed to care for their ailing elderly mother. as a journalist for "the new york times," gross was used to getting information easily. but with this, she says she felt clueless on multiple fronts. >> medical. various entitlement programs like medicare and medicaid and how they work. residential, where was she going to live? legal. financial. those are the most obvious ones but they don't overlap and, you know, you can't make three phone calls and figure them all out. >> based on her experiences, gross started the "new old age blog," and wrote a book called "a bittersweet season: caring for our aging parents and ourselves." with so many people living longer, gross believes one of the biggest social questions is how to pay for their care during the period of long, slow decline. >> my mother was as well-prepared as a person can possibly be for the end game, if you will. i mean, she had every document known to man in perfect order. and she had a decent amount of money. she spent $500,000, bare minimum, out of pocket, her own money, and then wound up on medicaid. >> gross says healthcare benefits don't include provisions for home health care or assisted living. >> you can get a new heart but you can't get somebody to take you to the supermarket. the assumption is that families will do that for themselves and families will pay for it themselves until they're impoverished and then the government will pay for them, if there's any medicaid. >> complicating the situation even further, as is often the case, gross and her brother had to work through longstanding tensions in their own relationship as well as what she calls old family baggage with their mother. >> if there were some way for people in the moment to understand which of it is real and which of it is baggage and leave the baggage at the door, they would come out of it much better. >> the many difficult problems can take a severe emotional toll, especially for women, who are the majority of parental caregivers. gross says she never realized how many exhausted, stressed-out caregivers were out there, until she became one of them. >> you would see them all the time in the parking lot of either the assisted living community or the nursing home, invariably slumped over the steering wheel and crying. and then suddenly you realized it's very hard. >> do you need me to stop and bring you lunch? >> anne stine says she felt torn between managing the care of her father and still meeting the needs of her children. >> you have the little ones who demand so much time and then if you're in a situation where your parent is also demanding a lot of time, you do become sandwiched and you're also pulled in both directions and what is the right thing to do, and priorities. ♪ >> a committed episcopalian, she says for her, it was a spiritual issue. >> i needed support from my church and my faith community right off the bat. i knew that i had to rely on god's strength and not my own. leaning on god's strength, leaning on my faith community i turned to my church and said, "i don't know how to do this. i don't know how i'm going to get through this. >> if we're caring for other people, we're no good unless we take care of ourselves, and believe me, i have to remind myself of that quite regularly. >> reverend kate bryant is rector of stine's church, st. james episcopal church in leesburg, virginia. she went through a similar experience with her own mother, and says the spiritual aspects can often be overlooked. >> ads -- as in any caregiving situation, that care can be so demanding emotionally, physically, and it's also demanding spiritually. i think a lot of people who are in care giving situations ask "why is god doing this to me? where is god in the midst of all this?" and they really struggle with spiritual matters as they pertain to aging parents. >> bryant says many people in her congregation were dealing with aging parents, so she and stine began searching for faith-based resources and support groups. but there didn't seem to be any. >> in my frustration i said something like, well there should be. i mean, when you become a parent, there's all these support groups and information, you're bombarded with it, but nothing when you have to take care of a parent? >> they started the "caregivers for aging parents" ministry at st. james. the ministry provides practical resources for parental caregivers and pairs those who have gone through it with those who are just beginning. >> know where your parents' finances are kept, what that situation is, do you have a living will, do you have a healthcare proxy, some of that information you can get at any local council on aging, it's laying over the spiritual component that's so important in the context of a church community. >> in the end, gross says the most important lesson she learned was not letting the logistics completely overwhelm what was truly important. >> the decisions that seem like they matter so much when you're making them by and large don't, but the quality of the time does. and you know, since time is finite, i would worry less about fixing stuff that ultimately can't be fixed and worry more about gathering memories and feeling good about the experience. >> body of christ -- >> for bryant, caring for an aging parent led to a new understanding of the biblical commandant to honor your father and your mother. >> when we are children, we interpret that word honor as meaning being obedient. as parents age and become elderly or are aging, that honor takes the form of kindness, thoughtfulness, care giving. >> how old were you in this picture? >> 21. >> 21. >> and despite the demands, or perhaps because of them, stine says she has found that caring for an aging parent can indeed be a spiritual blessing. >> and this experience has actually given me so much in return and it's really caring, really serving. the depth that goes into your soul when you don't know how you're going to do it, you really seek god and see god firsthand in the midst. >> i'm kim lawton reporting. ♪ artist thomas kinkade passed away in his home in california this week at the age of 54. kinkade's inspirational landscapes and his use of religious imagery were hugely popular, especially among evangelicals. he was often called the "painter of light." kinkade's family said he appears to have died of natural causes, but his death is being investigated. finally, coptic and eastern orthodox christians observed holy week this week, in preparation for pascha, or easter, on sunday. because they follow a different calendar, eastern christians perform the series of traditional rituals leading up to easter at a different time than western christians. also, this weekend, sikhs celebrate one of their most important holidays, vaisakhi. often vaisakhi is observed as a harvest festival, but the day also marks the time in the 17th century when sikhs first identified themselves as a defined group. many hindus also observe vaisakhi as a time of renewal and rebirth. that's our program for now. i'm bob abernethy. you can follow us on twitter and facebook, find us on youtube, and watch us anytime, anywhere on smart phones. there's also much more on our web site. and because our web site is a finalist again this year for the prestigious webby award from the international academy of digital arts and sciences, you'll find a link to where you can vote -- for us, of course. join us at pbs.org. as we leave you, more scenes of holy week for eastern christians. ♪ major funding for "religion and ethics news weekly" is provided by the lily endowment, an indianapolis-based private family foundation dedicated to its founders' interest in religion, community development, and education. additional funding also provided by mutual of america, designing customized, individual, and group retirement products. that's why your retirement company. the estate of william j. carter, the jane henson foundation, and the corporation for public broadcasting.