good morning. i'm here at saint mark's lutheran church. i welcome two guests this morning. the first guest is an author. good morning, gary. we're glad you're here with us this morning. you've written a wonderful book for children, families, adults, it's the gospel according to "sesame street," learning life, love, and death. so welcome. and we want to hear more about your book. >> it's a pleasure to be here. >> thank you so much. how did you get interested in connecting sesame street with

the gospel. >> i did my doctoral dissertation on sesamestreet. the creator was a wonderful woman pioneer, joan cooney came up with the show. i did research on her, my doctoral dissertation. the underlying rule, as far as the golden rule is in the show. it's taught in very subtle ways. besides teaching numbers and letters and colors and shapes, this is the underlying thing. >> love your neighbor as yourself. >> who are the people in the neighborhood. >> and who are your neighbors, that's right. as we're in the season of lent, we focus on loving our neighbors, caring for our neighbors and serving our neighbors. so i'm just s fascinated and

curious how these themes were taught to children and through which characters. let's start with big bird. tell us what did big bird teach us about the golden rule, loving our neighbors. >> big bird was designed specifically to be like a 2- year-old. the research has said we needed mr. bumbler kind of character who doesn't know very much and is constantly asking questions. so they designed big bird. and he's probably one of the most visible characters on the show. one of the chapters i write about is equating doubting thomas to big bird, as far as people doubted him for years because he had this friend snuffleupagus. everyone thought he was an

imaginary friend. eventually he gets revealed to everybody on the set. that's the connection between big bird and scripture. >> and of course big bird had a tender heart. >> very much so. >> similarly as we might feel drawn to jesus and jesus' tender heart for the poor, children, for the sick. >> yes, big bird is very compassionate. i think he models a lot of scripture as far as the gospels. >> well, learning life, love and death d h is a provocative word in this title. what does sesame teach children about death and how the to cope with death. >> externally, one of the most famous episodes of the show was the death of the character mr. hooper, who owned the shop, the candy store, and was very good friends with big bird. and so the adults, the humans

on the show had to teach big bird about what is death. and then mr. hooper's never coming back and the show did that very skillfully. they could have written him out of the show. they could have said he retired to florida or done something like that. but they decided to meet with it head-on. and they were able to in a very simple way teach big bird and it's probably as i said one of the most memorable episodes. it was on thanksgiving morning when families could watch together and parents could instruct children as far as taking off on the show, as far as what is death. >> as a pastor, i get asked over and over again from parents how do i help my children cope with the death of a grandparent or a sibling. here is a show that's helping parents do that. >> yes. and internally a number of people, key people on the show pass away. jim henson being the most notable. >> that's right.

>> he died at 53 of pneumonia. there was a mixture of emotion, because extreme sorrow but there was some regret and anger too because he had gotten to the hospital two hours before the antibiotics could have kicked in. he may still be alive today. >> we remember so fondly kermit the frog, one of jim henson's -- you called him his alter ego. >> yes. >> what did kermit represent in the show? >> kermit's really the glue. he holds everything together as far as the muppets. jim would say things through kermit the frog that he would not say in person, because jim was a very modest and humble kind of guy. >> well, that is the gift of watching a show like "sesame street," both as children, but

also as adults, and kind of continue to learn as adults. you were saying to me earlier that you were watching college students watching "sesame street" during the break and enjoying the show as much as when they were children enjoying the show. >> oh, it was amazing. this was very early on in the show's run. and so i saw them in the tv lounge and they're laughing. i thought what is this show? >> we'll find out more about that show in just a minute. thank you so much, while we take a break. [piano playing slow tune]

make your emergency plan today. good morning again. we are back. we said good-bye to our author, gary drabelbus. he wrote "the gospel according to sesame street."

now we say welcome to michael papass. he's the executive director of the san francisco interfaith council. the council is very involved in issues here in the city, but also uniting different religious groups to working together. so i know we're working on and i say we, because i'm a part of the it, we're working on housing issues. tell us about the constituency, who are we and why are we focused on housing? >> interestingly, the council itself was formed because the city came to the council and said we've got a homeless problem and that was 28 years ago. and in that time, the 800 congregations in the city and sound counsel city of san francisco, our faith based schools and hospital institution as as well as the faith based social service agencies that provide the social safety net for the most

vulnerable residents had a voice. and the council basically became that portal through which civic government could speak to the faith community and vice versa. >> even more important i think vice versa, the religious groups speaking to civic authority and being engaged with it. >> exactly. >> i know there's a crisis of housing in san francisco. we live it. we know about it. the council decided to get very involved, first with supporting a housing bond measure which was the first time ever, i believe. >> yes. you can imagine having constituency that is the most conservative orthodox to the most progressive liberal, that you have to be very careful when taking stances. but this fell so much in the purview of the council and the council also realizes that our faith community and our constituency are sitting on some of the most valuable and yet underutilized property in

some cases that we felt that we needed to be part of the solution and be part of the response. so when the city came to us and asked if we would support a $310 million housing bond that would provide relief and a real hope, and that it needed a two- thirds majority threshold to get to, we found ourselves in the position of advocacy on something that was so core and central to the city. >> i know people in religious communities want their church, their synagogue, their congregation to be engaged and respond to the crisis they see. many churches do that with homeless. we do that with the winter homeless shelter. the issue of housing it's hard to get our hands around because there's so much money involved and politics. how does the interfaith council provide a place for churches to get engaged with this?

>> first and foremost, we carved out a particular niche in housing. there are advocates for below market rate housing and advocates for market rate housing. we see our teachers and nurses and social workers having to move to stockton and richmond and being pushed out of the city. they're providing the essential services and so we thought that they needed a voice. and so sitting on property that could be repurposed in many ways for rental housing for these low paid workers that provide essential services is the niche that we took up. >> so you're talking about the possibility of congregations leveraging their property that might be available for another purpose for housing. >> i have to tell you, i've never seen such traction and unity and consensus among

religious leaders, prominent religious leaders in the city, to take this leadership position and realizing that seeing the demand and seeing people being pushed out and sitting on this property, they want to be part of the solution. and so we're working with some consultants who have been very, very helpful in guiding us along the way, if you will. they're owner representatives. >> i know development is a very complicated process in san francisco. it's very political and if the interfaith council can help religious communities negotiate, navigate this, that would be wonderful. we'll hear more about that in just a minute after our break.

good morning. we are back with michael

pappas, the executive director of the san francisco interfaith council. the council has taken up a big, critical issue, that is the issue of providing affordable housing for essential workers here in san francisco. as you were saying, congregations have land or they might have underutilized property that might be able to be used to help provide housing for essential workers. the question is, how? what's a housing trust? >> first and foremost, i think what you're going to see in san francisco more and more is the repurposing of properties. because there certainly is also a benefit to the congregation themselves when they can have a worship space on the first floor and then housing up above, you'll see a mutual benefit there. what is important is that we look at these properties as opportunities to provide that housing. we worked with university of

san francisco's institute to do a macro mapping of all of the properties owned by religious institutions in san francisco. we worked closely with the mayor's office of housing and the office of economic and workforce development to assess which of those properties would be good candidates for development. and from there, we had additional faith leaders step forward and say that we have certain properties that we feel that we could offer in this process as well. so we do have the properties and so right now what we're looking to do is feasibility studies to see how that would work. >> where's the money going to come from? development takes money and lots of it with construction cost in san francisco. >> to really provide essential housing -- because you have to understand, below market rate has its own restriction. >> that's right. >> what we need to do is we need to fill a gap, that's what we call it, between market rate

and what we call the essential housing sector. and so one of the things that we're exploring right now is the creation of a housing trust fund in which faith communities, even if they didn't have the land, but they could contribute to this revolving trust fund that would be able to make it possible for congregations, who were even exploring, to take the next step. i think that's an important thing. you're a pastor. you know about these things. >> i do. we tried to do development on saint mark's square. we have the land. we have property. we have people who want to do it. but it takes time. you have to find the right al. you cehartveai nly tohope we ca that, considering the new hospital is two blocks from us. we'd like to provide housing for those essential workers in

the hospital, the nurses, the techs a and all of that. >> that is needed. this is what we're getting at. if the housing trust fund was intact, we could be of support to a project such as you're speaking. and so this is something that we are seriously exploring right now and there's been a lot of interest. so we are looking forward to coming back perhaps at another point and sharing our progress with you. because we believe that it's very realistic and it's going to happen in the short run. >> short run. that's hopeful. i'd like to be optimistic. but we know that development takes time in san francisco. but with san francisco interfaith council and the long- standing work and reputation that you have, you'll be there in the long run to see these developments through and that's what's so critical.

>> certainly. and that is our macro vision for the project. but we also realize there's a demand now. >> that's right. >> if we don't step forward now, a lot of people will suffer. >> i think what's inspiring for me and what i'd like our viewers to hear is that here religious institutions are not just concerned about themselves and their own survival. they're really looking to serve their neighbors, to serve the greater good of san francisco and to provide housing for workers who are either having to leave the city because rents are too high, or have to relocate just simply elsewhere. >> you bring up a very important and central core element of our work, because we really believe that congregations and religious institutions have a moral obligation to respond. and there's a human rights issue at stake here. and we really believe that

housing is a human right in san francisco. i've been heartened to see really the sincerity and consensus among faith leaders in providing that housing, because of that moral obligation and because of the theological underpinnings. >> and the other piece too is here are interfaith groups working together. and so we are an example of jews and muslims and hindus and christians and all of the denominations and flavors working together on this one issue and i think that's really the gift of the interfaith council. >> we were founded to bring people of different faiths together, to celebrate our diversity, to build understanding, but to serve our community. >> and in this day and age, that's needed more than ever. we thank michael pappas from the san francisco interfaith council and the good work he's doing on behalf of housing. we'll be back.

welcome back to mosaic. we are in the season of lent and with me is reverend hugh burroughs who is also the producer of mosaic and my mentor and colleague. we want to talk about lent. we are in the 40 days of lent, this wonderful season before easter. >> we are, so i thought i would remind us something about how lent gets formulated and what it's all about. we all remember that the formula of lent is the first sunday after the first full moon after the vernol equinox. by that we set easter and we move back 40 days, excluding sundays, and on holy saturdays that's 40, so easter's the 41st day.

it's lunar based. this is interesting because if we look back, the jewish calendar for setting dates also lunar based. that's why passover will often overlap. >> that's right. >> with holy week. not only that, ramadan for the muslims is based on sighting of the new moon. >> first new moon . >> when it's sighted is something of a controversy so people kind of argue about that. for the buddhists they thailand and burma it has to do with the new moon and the coming of the rainy season. they have a lent when the monks have to stay inside of the monastery. at the end of the rainy season, they get to come out and they're presented with new robes. many of the religious faiths are cycled on the new moon.

we're just being a part of that. the big controversy here in the west came when julius caesar started a new calendar in 40bc. this went great until 1500 when people noticed the seasons were beginning to get a little bit out of sync. and so the good pope gregory convened a group of people and they deliberated and looked at the sky and discovered there was an 11 day gap. >> what happened? >> caesar added 11 minutes to the 365 days and if you multiply 11 minutes by 1500 years, you come up some days short. so they skipped 10 days in the middle of the 1500s, which -- there's good german lutherans agreed to this about 60 or 70 years later and the japanese

not until the 1700s and parts of slovenia are still arguing about it. the orthodox and the catholic have different observances of easter and that's why. it goes back to good pope gregory and julius caesar. >> okay. with all that in mind, we are in the season of lent and lent i want to remind people comes from a word which means spring. i think of lent as the church's springtime. it's a time to focus on faith practices that help us grow in our faith. so the church encourages and invites people to focus on practices such as prayer, service to the poor, worship, reflection on scripture, those kind of basic, back to basic faith practices that help our faith grow, in essence springtime, we want our faith to he grow.

it's this intensive 40 days of preparation, yes, to easter, but also a time of simple living, back to basics. our eating is simpler. we've had fat tuesday. the fat's been removed out of our diet, presumably, and now we go back to simple living and being more mindful of god and god's gifts in our lives. >> for instance, at saint mark's, what do you do leading up to easter from holy week? >> during the season of lent we have mid-week services. we add services mid-week on wednesdays. we also have a light soup supper, simple meal. people can come for that. after the service, we have a bible study on the last seven words of christ. again, just meditation and opportunities for people to refocus, recalibrate their lives on what god is calling them to do and be. i'm finding people are hungry for this in the midst of distractions, in the midst of

anxiety over politics and war and life. this is a time to remind ourselves of the promises of god and certainly lent originally, in the early christian communities, was a time for baptismal preparation. it's where the baptismal candidates were preparing most intently to be baptized at easter vigil. it was a time of preparation. it's also a time of repentance, turning back to god. god has never turned his back on us. we turn around and realize god has been there for us all along. lent is a time to recalibrate and refocus on god in our lives. >> when does lent end? >> lent ends at holy week, that great week before easter. it ends on thursday, then we go to good friday, easter vigil and then of course we celebrate

christ's resurrection on easter sunday. 40 days, we don't want people to miss it. go back to church. you'll be welcomed during lent. we wish you a healthy, happy and very meaningful lent during this time. and a thank you to hugh burroughs. welcome and thank you for joining us on mosaic.

welcome to "bay sunday." i'm your host, kenny choi. you know "hamilton" fever has hit the bay area and if you're one of the lucky ones that got tickets and you may have paid a small ransom. we found lucky high school kids who got to see the tony award- winning show for the price of ha history lesson. kpix 5's emily turner had the hottest assignment of the week. >> reporter: people will be up around the block and waiting weeks paying top dollar. but these students get to see it for free. ♪ >> reporter: today's ud