The ideological framework Abe Weissman begins to shed in season five of ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ unfortunately is pernicious and alive and well in today’s world.

We don’t need churches steeped in ideology, left or right. We need local churches. We need churches on the ground, on the streets, and in the margins; churches who know their communities and whose communities know that they are loved and welcome in their spaces.

That is what I wish a rainbow flag on a church meant: safety, accountability, growth mindset, active allyship. I want churches that commit to being different from the torrential rains of homophobia and transphobia that threaten to drown us. Not just a little different, but actively working against the forces that threaten us.

What is it precisely we learn through travel? What’s uniquely different about going to, or having been to, other places, as compared to simply reading about them in books or watching slideshows about them (or in the new media era, reviewing Facebook posts about them)?