Thursday, January 29, 2009

Christian Justice by Metropolitan Philaret (Voskresensky)

The first element for a proper relationship with other people is justice. Without this basic element, even one's goodness can turn out to be useless - if partiality and one-sidedness appear in it instead of truth. There are, however, marked differences in the conditions of just relationships between people.

Legal or, loyal justice (from loi-law): This is the lowest form of just relationship, the most wide-spread in civil and state life. A loyal person strives to precisely fulfil state and civil laws which are mandatory for him and for others. In addition, he usually fulfils all his personal transactions and obligations exactly and punctually. He does not, however, go a step further than these legal norms and boundaries, to make concessions and condescensions. This type of person can be cold, unsympathetic and pitiless. Such a person of iniquity neither creates nor violates laws - but will take what is his own without concessions, even if his neighbor will suffer from this. Of course, in our time such legally just persons are comparatively orderly, since they fulfil their obligations honorably. For an Orthodox Christian, nevertheless, it is clear that such a relationship is insufficient, because it is not Christian but purely pagan.

Justice of Correctness: In the moral respect, this form of justice is significantly higher than the previous one. We refer to a person as correct, who in his relationships with those around him, strives to fulfil what is necessary not only according to external laws and customs, but also according to his conscience. Therefore, he treats everyone equally, and is peaceful, polite and careful with all. He willingly responds to a request for a service and tries to do everything that he has promised, often freeing other people from difficulties by this. In comparison to dryly loyal people, it is easy and pleasant to live and work with such correct, conscientious people. Still, this is far from Christianity since such compassion and responsiveness is seldom constant and faithful to itself, and it reaches a point where it fades and dries up.

Christian justice: This is the complete type of justice - the justice of the Christian heart. Its basic, wise, clear and comprehensible principle is expressed in the Gospel by the words: "So then, whatever you wish that others would do to you, even so do you also to them." (Mt.7:12). The apostles' council repeated this in a negative form: "do not do to others what you do not wish done to yourself." And so, do not bring any falsehood or lie or offense or evil into life. All people are your neighbors; do not do to them what you do not wish for yourself. Moreover, not only must we do no evil, but we must do good, according to our conscience, from the heart, being motivated by the Gospel law of love, mercy and forgiveness. If you want people to treat you sincerely, then open your heart to your neighbors. Do not be an egoist, do not consider your rights as loyal and correct people do, rather place the welfare and good of your neighbor above all your rights, according to the law of Christian love.

It very often happens in life that we are too condescending to ourselves, but are too demanding and strict to our neighbors. Christian justice speaks otherwise. The Lord said, "Why do you look at the twig in your brother's eye, but you do not feel the beam in your own eye? Hypocrite, first remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see how to remove the twig from your brother's eye." For this reason, ascetics of Christianity, while grieving so about their own sins, being almost pitilessly strict and demanding of themselves, were so all-forgiving and compassionate to others, covering the faults of their neighbors, with kindness and love. In general, the Christian rule of life teaches us that, in such sorrowful events as arguments and misunderstandings, we must not seek to find guilt in others, but in ourselves, in our own lusts, obduracy, self-love and egoism. Thus, Christian justice demands from us condescension towards others. Even this, however, is not sufficient. It calls us to see, in every person, our own brother, a brother in Christ, a beloved creation and image of almighty God. And no matter how a man might fall, no matter how he darkens the image of God in himself by sins and vices, we must still seek the spark of God in his soul... "Sins are sins, but the basis in man is God's image...Hate sin, but love the sinner," St. John of Kronstadt once said.

Together with respect for the person of our neighbor, we must also exhibit trust in him. This is especially necessary when a person who has fallen into error comes forth with the Evangelical words, "I repent" and promises correction. How often the good intention of such a repenting person is met with mistrust and coldness, and the good desire for correction disappears, being replaced by anger and a destructive decision ... Who answers for the destruction of this soul? A sincere, loving Christian, on the contrary, joyfully receives the good volition of the neighbor, emphasizing his full trust and respect toward the repenter and, by this, often supporting and strengthening on the right path one who is still weak and faltering. Of course, it sometimes happens that a person who has promised to correct himself, will either through weakness of will or through a conscious desire to deceive, misuse the trust of the neighbor. But can this crush the feeling of trust and good-will toward his neighbor in a believing Christian love, of that love about which the apostle said that it "covers all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." (I Cor.13:7).

source: http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0094/__PI.HTM

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Norman Finkelstein speaks on Gaza

Dr. Norman Finkelstein spoke at the University of Alberta on January 22, 2009. His talk dealt with Israel's responsibility in the situation in Gaza and the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Co-sponsored by the Palestine Solidarity Network, Canada Palestine Cultural Organization, Alberta Federation of Labour, U of A Muslim Students' Association, Canadian Arab News, and U of A Department of Political Science.




Dr. Norman Finkelstein answered questions from the audience following his talk at the University of Alberta on January 22, 2009.


St. Cosmas: Love your neighbor

- My Christians, how are you doing here? Have you got love for each other? If you want to be saved, do not ask for anything else here, in the world, but love. Is there any of you who has got this kind of love towards his brothers? Let him rise and tell me so that I may wish him well and make all Christians forgive him. He will receive such forgiveness which he would have been unable to find had he given thousands of pounds of gold.
- Holy man of God, I love God and my brothers.
- Good, my child. You have got my blessing. What is your name?
- Costas.
- What do you do for a living?
- I am a shepherd.
- Do you weigh the cheese which you sell?
- I do.
- You, my child, have learnt to weigh cheese and I have learnt to weigh love. Is the scales ashamed of its master?
- No.
- Let me then weigh your love now and, if it is right and not false, then I shall wish you well and I shall make all Christians forgive you. How can I know, my child, that you love your brothers? Now that I am here and walk and teach the people, I say that I love Mr Costas like my eyes, but you do not believe me. You want to try me first and then believe me. I have bread to eat, you have not. If I give a piece of it to you, who have not, I show that I love you. But if I eat the whole loaf and you are hungry, then what do I show? I show that the love that I feel for you is false. I have got two cups of wine to drink, you have not. If I give you some of it to drink, then I show that I love you. But if I do not give you, my love is false. You are sad. Your mother or father has died. If I come to console you then my love is true. But if you are crying and weeping and I am eating, drinking and dancing, my love is false. Do you love that poor child?
- I do.
- If you loved him, you would buy him a shirt because he is naked so that he would also pray for your soul. Then your love would be true. But now it is false. Is not it so, my Christians? We cannot go to paradise with false love. Now, since you want to make your love gold, take and dress the poor children and then I shall make them forgive you. Will you do this?
- I will.
- My Christians, Costas understood that the love which he had till now was false and wants to make it gold, to dress the poor children. Because we have edified him I beg you to tell three times for Mr Costas, may God forgive and have mercy on him.
source: http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0442/__P1.HTM

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Church Starts Discovery Recovery Program

Life hurts, but God heals is the theme of St. Mary’s expanded recovery program, Discovery Recovery. St. Mary the Protectress Orthodox Community, 1000 South Michigan Street, Plymouth, Indiana, is expanding its recovery program and ministry. Several new Christian 12-Step classes and support groups are being added. The program celebrates God’s healing power in all of our lives through working through the 12-Steps of recovery for life’s hurts, hang-ups, habits, and additions. The program is no just for those with addictions. The program’s foundation is God’s healing grace in solving life’s problems. The classes provide Christian fellowship to grow and become strong. It is supportive, respectful and confidential. The programs are a place to learn and grow spiritually and find a turning point in one’s life. Its goal is to be a safe haven of refuge and caring.

According to St. Mary’s pastor, Father Theodosius Walker, many people ask themselves who they really are when no one is around. Many people, he says, never feel they are good enough for friends and families, and often ask if they are good enough even for God.

Father Theodosius described the community as a community for people who have given up on church. Their mission is to show all people the unconditional love and grace of Jesus without any reservations due to lifestyle or religion, past or present. Participants in the program do not need to be Christian, said Father Theodosius. It is a program for people of any faith, little faith, and no faith.

The Discovery Recovery 12-Step classes are on Sunday afternoons at 2 pm; Tuesday mornings at 10 am; and Tuesday evenings at 7 pm. There are small group discussions after each of the classes. These new classes will start Sunday, February 8th and Tuesday, February 10th.
There are also open AA meetings at St. Mary’s on Wednesday at 10 am and 7 pm.

For more information about discovery Recovery at St. Mary’s, please call St. Mary the Protectress Orthodox Community at 574-540-2048.

The community is under an allegiance to the hierarchy of the Universal Syrian Orthodox Church under His Holiness Ignatius Zakka I Iwas as its supreme head. The local head of the church in Malankara is the Catholicose of India, His Beatitude Baselios Thomas I, ordained by and accountable to the Patriarch of Antioch. St. Mary the Protectress Orthodox Community is located at 1000 South Michigan Street, Plymouth, Indiana. For more information, please contact the pastor Father Theodosius Walker at (574) 952-4671.

Who am I really when no one is around?

Who am I reaaly when no one is around? Am I never good enough for family and friends? Am I good enough for God?

Discover Recovery! Life hurts, but God heals. We celebrate God's healing power in our lives through working the 12-Steps of recovery for life's hurts, hang-ups, habits, and addictions. We accept God's grace in solving our life problems. The program and classes at St. Mary's are Christian fellowship to grow in and to become strong. It is supportive, respectful, and confidential. St. Mary's is a place to learn and grow spiritually and find a turning point in your life. It is a safe haven and a caring community.

The program and classes are at St. Mary the Protectress Orthodox Community, 1000 South Michigan Street, Plymouth, Indiana. The times for the classes are: Sunday 2 pm; Tuesday 10 am; Tuesday 7 pm. There are also AA and NA meetings at the community.

All are welcome...those of faith and those without faith.

St. Mary's is a community for people who have given up on church. Our mission is to show all people the unconditional love and grace of Jesus without any reservations due to their lifestyle or religion, past or present. This love has no agenda behind it (Cor 13:5). This grace sets no time line or personal agenda or standard for spiritual growth (Rom 4:4-5) The idea is to be a part of people's lives because we truly care for them rather than to fulfill a religious duty; to walk with them through all their struggles as a part of their lives, not as a religious outsider. Religion is a false perception of holiness that focuses on law and kills the true message of Christ Jesus. Jesus loves you. Jesus heals you. We know He loves and heals us also. We have been just where you are today. Join us.

You can discover more about our programs by emailing us at monastery@synesius.com, or by calling the community at 574-540-2048.

[Saint-george-taybeh] speaking schedule 2009

From: Maria Khoury <khourymaria@hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:10:05 -0500
To: webpage taybeh church <saint-george-taybeh@saintgeorgetaybeh.org>
Subject: [Saint-george-taybeh] speaking schedule 2009

Dear Friends of Saint George Taybeh,
Christ is in our Midst!


I am sharing my schedule with you at the end of this article in case I am in your area to be in touch.  Since all of the news out of Gaza is just one bad story after another, I wanted to share an article of hope that people can make peace.  I also ask for your prayers to organize another Taybeh Oktoberfest, October 3 & 4, 2009, the 5th annual village festival in Taybeh.  With Christ’s love,  maria
This was posted at realbeer.com
Pints For Peace: Israeli & Palestinian Brewers <http://www.realbeer.com/blog/?p=940>
January 14th, 2009 | Posted by Jay Brooks
“Tit-for-tat clashes in Gaza may escalate into the next quagmire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Thus was the dire prediction of Time Magazine <http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1718816,00.html> on Monday, March 3, 2008. And a scarce 10 months later, on Tuesday, December 30, 2008, Time unfortunately had to publish another headline: “Attacking Gaza: The Fog and Rain of War <http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1869068,00.html> .” This unfortunately is an all too familiar story from the endless conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Violence appears to be the new normal in the Middle East, with neither side able to find common ground for peaceful coexistence. The diplomats have tried and failed, as have the soldiers!

Professionals devoted to hops and malt instead of vitriol and weapons, on the other hand, seem to have a knack for bridging gaps that political leaders may find insurmountable. A perfect example is an article in The Jerusalem Post of December 11, 2008, which — barely three weeks before the outbreak of yet another round of war — quotes an Israeli talking about “the divine Palestinian brew Taybeh.” The man quoted as calling the Palestinian brew “divine” is Gad Divri, a brewer and the General Manager of Beer-D, a Tel-Aviv brewing supply company. Taybeh is made by Nadim Khoury, the owner-brewer of the Taybeh Brewing Company. Taybeh is the only brewery in Palestine. It is situated in the small village of Taybeh outside the Palestinian West Bank capital of Ramallah. Fittingly, Taybeh means “delicious” in Arabic.

Nadim obviously reciprocates the esteem accorded him by his Israeli colleague, as was evident at the 10th annual post-BRAU-Beviale Bavarian Party at the Weyermann Malting Company <http://www.weyermann.de/usa/index.asp?sprache=10> , on November 15, 2008. What the diplomats and the generals have not been able to accomplish in decades, happened over pints of Barley Wine, Rauchbier, English Bitter and Pumpkin Ale — all made in the Weyermann Pilot Brewery in Bamberg: A Palestinian and an Israeli brewer sitting peacefully side by side, smiling, exchanging ideas, and enjoying each other’s company!

As happens every year, Weyermann had invited friends and business partners from all over the world to the annual bash on the Company grounds … and almost 300 people from 35 countries came — from Russia to France to Australia to the United States.

In a world divided by so much strife, the unity of people involved in beer takes on a poignant significance: Wherever people make hot wort and cold beer instead of hot and cold war, it seems, the brew can still bring people from all cultures and all walks of life together … even Palestinians and Israelis


Maria C. Khoury 2009 Holy Land Presentations with Book Signings Promoting CHRISTINA BOOKS and Witness in the Holy Land.
 
Saturday, Jan 31, 2009.   
Fellowship of St. John the Divine Meeting/Presentation 12 noon
Hosted by: St. John of Damascus Church, 300 West St., Rt. 135, Dedham, MA, 02026  
Tel: 781-326-3046

Friday, Feb 6-8, 2009.  
Mid Winter Meetings, Antiochian Archdiocese
Antiochian Village, 140 Church Camp Trail, Bolivar, PA 15923
Tel:  724 238 3677

Saturday, Feb 14, 2009 2 pm Children’s program
Kimisis Tis Theotokou Church, 2111 Davidson Street, Aliquippa, PA  
15001
Fr. Christopher Bender Tel:  724 375 5341

Sunday, Feb 15, 2009    
Divine Liturgy 10 am/Presentation
All Saints Church, 601 West McMurray Road, Canonsburg 15317.
Fr. George Livanos  
Tel: 724 745 5205

Friday, Feb 20, 2009    
7:30 pm Book Signing Reception  
Eight Days Books, 2838 E. Douglas, Wichita, KS 67214
Tel: 800 841 2541
 
Saturday, Feb 21, 2009    
Keynote presentation morning and afternoon
St. George Orthodox Cathedral, 7515 E. 13th at Broadmoor, Wichita, KS, 67206
Fr. Paul O'Callaghan Tel: 316-636-4676
 
Wednesday, Feb 25, 2009  
6:30 pm Community Evening/Presentation
Annunciation Cathedral, 2500 Clairmont Rd., N. E., Atlanta, Georgia
Fr. George Alexson, Tel 404 633 5870
 
Sunday, March 1, 2009  
10:00 am Liturgy/Children’s program
SS Constantine & Helen Church, 35 Lake Parkway, Webster, MA  01570
Fr. Luke Veronis  Tel 508 943 8361

Saturday, March 7, 2009  
Vespers 6 pm/Presentation 7:30 pm
St. Michael Church, 3701 St. Michael Church Dr, Louisville, KY, 40220
Fr. Alexander Atty   Tel: 502-454-3378S

Sunday, March 8, 2009  
Divine Liturgy 10 am/Presentation 11:30 am
St. Andrew Antiochian Orthodox Church
1136 Higbee Mill Road, Lexington, KY 40503
Tel:  859 223 5091


Friday, March 13, 2009.  7:30 pm Salutations/Presentation
St. Anthony’s Antiochian Church, 385 Ivy Ln, Bergenfield, NJ, 07621
Fr. Joseph J. Allen 201-568-8840
 
Saturday, March 14, 2009.    
Religious Education Teachers Seminar
Greek Orthodox Metropolis of New Jersey
Hosted by St. Barbara Church, 2200 Church Road, Toms River, NJ 08753
Tel: 732 255 5525
 
Sunday, March 15, 2009.  
 Divine Liturgy 10 am/Presentation
St. Thomas Church, 615 Mercer Street, Cherry Hill, NJ  08002
Fr. Emmanuel Pratsinakis Tel 856 665 1731
 
Friday, March 20-22, 2009 7:30 pm Salutations /Presentation
Annunciation Cathedral, 555 North High Street, Columbus, OH 43215
Fr. Michael Kontos  
Tel:  614 224 9020

March 26-28, 2009    St. Emmelia Orthodox Homeschooling Conference               

Antiochian Village 140 Church Camp Trail, Bolivar, PA 15923
Tel:  724 238 3677




Christian monastery in Turkey fights to keep land

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE50L08720090122?
sp=true

By Ibon Villelabeitia
 
MIDYAT, Turkey (Reuters) - In a remote village near the Turkish-Syrian border, a land dispute with neighboring villages is threatening the future of one of the world's oldest functioning Christian monasteries.
 
Critics say the dispute, which has become a rallying cry for Christian church groups across Europe, is a new chapter in the long history of religious persecution of the small Christian community by the Turkish state.
 
Tucked amid rugged hills where minarets rise in the distance, a smallgroup of monks chants in Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ, inside the fifth-century Mor Gabriel monastery. It is a relic of an era when hundreds of thousands of Syriac Christians lived and worshipped in Turkey.
 
"This is our land. We have been here for more than 1,600 years," said Kuryakos Ergun, head of the Mor Gabriel Foundation, surveying the barren land and villages from the monastery's rooftop. "We have our maps and our records to prove it. This is not about land. It's about the monastery."
 
The dispute, on which a court is due to rule on February 11, is testing freedom of religion and human rights for non-Muslim minorities in this overwhelmingly Muslim country that aspires to join the European Union.
 
The row began when Turkish government land officials redrew the boundaries around Mor Gabriel and the surrounding villages in 2008 to update a national land registry.
 
The monks say the new boundaries turn over to the villages large plots of land the monastery has owned for centuries, and designate monastery land as public forest. Christian groups believe officials want to ultimately stamp out the Syriac Orthodox monastery.
 
Their allegations come as the EU has said the ruling AK Party government, which has Islamist roots, needs to do more to promote religious freedom alongside its liberal economic and political reforms.
 
"This case relates to the political criteria Turkey has to meet to become a member of the European Union," said Helena Storm, First Secretary of the Sweden embassy in Ankara, who has traveled to the monastery to follow court hearings.
 
"It is important that freedom of religion and property rights for minorities are respected in Turkey," she said.
 
Local government officials reached by Reuters in the town of Midyat and in the provincial capital of Mardin declined comment on the case, noting it was going through the court.
 
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has pledged to press ahead with difficult EU reforms, including rights of minorities.
 
"ANTI-TURKISH"
 
In the name of Turkey's strict secular laws, authorities have over decades expropriated millions of dollars worth of property belonging to Christians. Syriacs, Armenians and Greek Orthodox Christians -- remnants of the Muslim-led but multi-faith Ottoman Empire -- are viewed by many as foreigners.
 
Syriacs are one of Turkey's oldest communities, descendants of a branch of Middle Eastern Christianity. These Christians, united by a language derived from Aramaic, are split into several Orthodox and Catholic denominations.
 
There were 250,000 Syriacs when Ataturk founded Turkey after World  War I from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.
 
Today they number 20,000. Syriacs migrated throughout the 20th century to Europe, fleeing first persecution by the new secular republic, and later to escape violence between Kurdish separatist rebels and the Turkish military in the southeast.
 
A local prosecutor in August 2008 initiated a separate court case against the monastery after mayors of three villages complained the monks were engaged in "anti-Turkish activities" and alleged they were illegally converting children to the Christian faith.
 
Monks say the mayors are instigating anti-Christian feelings by accusing Mor Gabriel of being against Islam. Villagers in neighboring Candarli, a settlement of 12 humble houses with no paved roads, said they had nothing against Christians and accused the monastery of taking land they need for cattle.
 
"There is a continued campaign to destroy the backbone of the Syriac people and close down the monastery," said Daniel Gabriel, director of the human rights division of the Syriac Universal Alliance, a leading Syriac group based in Sweden.
 
"These proceedings cannot take place without the sanction of the Turkish government. If the government wanted to protect the Syriac Christian community they would stop this case," he said.
 
Many churches and monasteries in southeast Turkey -- known to Syriac Christians as Turabdin or "the mountain of worshippers" -- are now abandoned and in ruins.
 
"You need people to have a church. Without the community, the church is only a building," said Saliba Ozmen, the metropolitan or bishop of the nearby city of Mardin.
 
INVASIONS AND RAIDS
 
The Conference of European Churches, a fellowship of 126 Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican and Old Catholic churches from European countries, has said it is "deeply concerned about the threat to the survival of the monastery." The group has raised the issue with the EU and Turkish officials.
 
Considered the "second Jerusalem" by Syriacs, Mor Gabriel was built in 397 AD near the border of today's Syria and Iraq.
 
The ochre-colored limestone building has seen invasions by Romans, Byzantines, Crusaders and Islamic armies, and the monastery was once raided by the Mongol leader Tamerlane.
 
After falling into disuse, Mor Gabriel was revived in the 1920s and today it teaches the Syriac faith and Aramaic language to a group of
35 boys, who live and study at the monastery.
 
By law, Syriacs must attend state schools where teaching is in Turkish, but they can be taught about their own language and religion
outside school hours.
 
Three black-clad monks, 14 nuns and a bishop live within the walls, preserving the ancient Syriac liturgy and tending to the orchards and gardens. They worship in a chapel with Byzantine mosaics. In its heyday, Mor Gabriel housed 2,000 monks and nuns.
 
Mor Gabriel receives more than 100,000 visitors a year, many of them from the Syriac diaspora in Germany and Sweden.
 
A trickle of Syriac families have returned in the last few years from the diaspora, encouraged by a drop in violence and Turkey's easing of language and cultural restrictions on its minorities as part of EU-linked reforms.
 
Syriac church leader Ozmen said there are powerful conservative  forces opposed to change in Turkey, but he is optimistic. He pointed  to this month's launch of a once-banned Kurdish language channel on state television.
 
"Multiculturalism has been part of Turkey since the Ottoman times," he said. "It is our best guarantee for the future."
 
(Editing by Sara Ledwith and Tom Heneghan)

 

Sunday, January 25, 2009

A Prayer in Time of Economic Crisis

We pray for our country in this time of economic turmoil. We pray that you lead and direct our elected leaders and supply them with divine wisdom and understanding.
God of mercy, hear our prayer
We pray for those in our community who have lost their jobs, their health insurance, and their homes. We pray that you strengthen them in this time. We pray that they would be restored and made whole.
God of mercy, hear our prayer
We pray for justice for workers who seek protection from employers who abuse their rights. We pray that you give them courage to stand and be brave, as the workers at Republic windows did when they refused to leave the factory until justice was served.
God of mercy, hear our prayer
We pray for employers who have dealt with us unrighteously, stealing wages from workers and putting profits before people, bowing to the idols of greed. We are all your children, and we pray that you would transform their hearts.
God of mercy, hear our prayer
We pray for our neighbors and our community. We pray that injustice will not prevail on our watch, as we hold our government accountable for their actions.
God of mercy, hear our prayer
We pray against the worship of wealth. May the lessons of the past guide us into a path that will heal our land of its economic woes, in a way that lifts up all. Allow your compassion and love to prevail.
God of mercy, hear our prayer

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Heminger House Offering Volunteer Training

Women interested in volunteering at Heminger House Shelter for Women and Children are invited to attend a training session at 10 a.m. on Sat., Feb. 7 at Heminger House.

Volunteers must be over the age of 18, female, and must attend a training session in order to work on the premises of the shelter for victims of domestic violence. Volunteers are needed to do office work, transport residents to appointments, in fund-raising, and in various roles.

The volunteer position may also be tailor-made to fit the skills of the volunteer. For example, a seamstress may want to volunteer to host a monthly sewing class or an aerobics instructor may set up a weekly class at no cost for residents. Youth groups may volunteer to do things off-site, such as bake birthday cakes which can then be frozen until they are needed on birthdays. Groups may also hold garage sales or food drives for the house.

Please register via email to hemingerhouse@yahoo.com or by calling (574) 936-7233. Directions to Heminger House will be given over the phone to potential volunteers.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Let the healing begin…again

Let the healing begin! Today is the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Literally millions of people have descended on Washington, DC. The attention of most of the USA is on Washington today, as is the attention of many of the world’s government. At noon today, a new President will take his oath of office. Yes, today is a day to say, “let the healing begin.”

No, I am not talking about racial reconciliation. I am not even talking about current events. I am actually talking about something that we do as a nation every four years. This election has not been the first election with acrimony, hard fighting, and predictions of doom. Those have happened in several elections during the lifetime of this nation. In spite of that, come inauguration day, this nation–with the glaring exception of the inauguration of President Abraham Lincoln–puts aside the fighting and comes together for a peaceful transition of power.

There are too many nations where a transition of power is bracketed by national violence, fears of insurrection, etc. There are many nations where the transition of power is the signal to begin “show trials” against the previous administration. But not here. By and large, with the one exception, a transition of power is a peaceful time when we put down our rhetoric, pull together, and honor the incoming new President. And, with small exceptions, the healing from the campaign rhetoric begins. We say that the new President gets about 100 days of peace from both Congress and the press. And, that is very unusual in most countries in the world. [Again, there have been a couple of exceptions in our history.]

And, in those 100 days, the new President has the opportunity to set a course for the nation. Those 100 days are the opportunity a new President has to show his mettle, to show that he understands the United States of America and her people and to set a course that will benefit all of us. Not all Presidents have handled this period well, but–with one exception–all Presidents have had this chance. And that is most unusual in the world.

And so, today, it is with great joy that I shout out, “Let the healing begin…again.” Or, to paraphrase a sentence that was used in England when the old King/Queen died and the new King/Queen immediately took the throne (though the coronation could be much later), “The President has left office. Long live the President!”

source:http://www.orthocuban.com/2009/01/let-the-healing-beginagain/

President Barack Obama 2009 Inauguration and Address


President Barack Obama took the oath of office as the 44th president of the United States and delivered an inaugural address focusing on the themes of sacrifice and renewal on January 20, 2009.

Historical Inauguration Speeches

Greetings/Inauguration of Barack Obama as President

From:  HG Yuhanon Mor Meletius Metropolitan

Dear all,
I wish to convey my greetings to all our members living in US on the day of the oath of office of Mr. Barack Obama as the 44th president of United States of America. I hope and pray things will be better for the country and the rest of the world with the new President in office. The country and its citizens can be proud of transcending the barrier of color to put an African American in to the highest office of the nation. Hope he will rise to the expectations of the people in
that country and all around the world.

Yuhanon Mor Meletius Metropolitan (Thrissur)

 
  

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Americans sing out

Do I hear an Amen

Prayers for peace

Nothing is more basic to Christian life than prayer. It is the foundation of all other response, not an alternative to response. Please find time each day to be aware of wars now going on in the world and to pray for peace.

Wars or near-war conflicts are currently being fought in Afghanistan, Burundi, Chechnya, Colombia, Congo, Georgia, India and Pakistan (over Kashmir), Iraq, Israel-Palestine, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, and Sudan. The list of countries at war regularly changes, but the reality of war is immediate and daily in the lives of millions of people.

Here is a short service of prayer which may be useful to you.

We thank You, Master and Lover of mankind, King of the ages and giver of all good things, for destroying the dividing wall of enmity and granting peace to those who seek your mercy. We appeal to You to awaken the longing for a peaceful life in all those who are filled with hatred for their neighbors, thinking especially of those at war or preparing for war. Grant peace to your servants. Implant in them the fear of You and confirm in them love one for another. Extinguish every dispute and banish all temptations to disagreement. For You are our peace and to You we ascribe glory: to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and forever and unto ages of ages. Amen.

We pray, Lord our God, for all those who suffer from acts of war, [especially for the victims and all those in the struggle in ............................].

We pray for your peace and your mercy in the midst of the great suffering that people are now inflicting on each other. Accept the prayers of your Church, so that by your goodness peace may return to all peoples. Hear us and have mercy on us.

Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy.

Lord our God, remember and have mercy on our brothers and sisters who are involved in every civil conflict. Remove from their midst all hostility, confusion and hatred. Lead everyone along the path of reconciliation and peace, we pray You, hear us and have mercy on us.

Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy.

Let all believers turn aside from violence and do what makes for peace. By the strength of your mighty arm save your people and your Holy Church from all evil oppression; hear the supplications of all who call to You in sorrow and affliction, day and night. Merciful God, let their lives not be lost, we pray You, hear us and have mercy.

Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy.

But grant, O Lord, peace, love and speedy reconciliation to your people whom You have redeemed with your precious blood. Make your presence known to those who have turned away from You and do not seek You, so that none of them may be lost, but all may be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, so that everyone, in true love and harmony, O long-suffering Lord, may praise your all holy Name.

Amen.

source: http://incommunion.org/articles/introduction/prayers

Friday, January 16, 2009

From the Chuch of God in Gaza

January 12, 2009

From the Church of God in Gaza

To the beloved Saints in Palestine and the world

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

From the valley of tears, from Gaza that is sinking in its blood, the blood that has strangled the joy in the hearts of one and a half million inhabitants, I send you this message of faith and hope. But the message of love is imprisoned; choked in our throats as Christians; we do not venture to even say it to ourselves. The priests of the Church today are raising hope as a banner, so that God will have mercy on us and have compassion on us and keep a remnant for himself in Gaza so that the light of Christ that was lit by Deacon Philip at the establishment of the church will not be extinguished and continue to shine in Gaza. May Christ`s compassion revive our love for God even though it is currently in "intensive care".



I announce to you from the heart of the father and priest, the death of the daughter of our school in Holy Family, the dear, Christine Wadi al-Turk, the first Christian to die in the war. Christine was in the tenth grade in our school and she died this morning, Friday, January 2, 2009 as a result of fear and the cold. The windows in her home were open to protect the children from glass fragments and the missiles that pass above it. The bombing that hit her neighbor`s home caused her whole body to shake in horror. She could not bear all this, so she went to complain to her Creator about her situation and request a home and a refuge where there is no crying, screaming or wailing, but joy and happiness.



Our brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus,



What you see on television and what you hear is not all of the harsh reality experienced by our people in Gaza. The television and radio cannot transmit the whole truth because of its immensity in our land. The bitter siege on Gaza has become a hurricane that is growing every hour until it has become a war crime, a crime against humanity. If the people of Gaza are now presenting their tragedy to the court of conscience of every human, who has "goodwill", the time to come is the time of God`s just court.

The children of Gaza and their parents are sleeping in the corridors of their home, if there are any, or in the toilets and bathrooms for their protection. They are trembling with fear at every voice, movement and bombardment and the heavy shelling of the F-16 planes.



It is true that these planes in most of their flights so far, have targeted the main government and Hamas headquarters, but all of these headquarters are near people`s homes, and are not more than 6 meters away, which is the legal distance between buildings. Therefore, people`s homes have been severely damaged and many children have died because of this. Our children are living in a state of trauma and fear. They are sick from it and for other reasons such as the lack of food, malnutrition, poverty and the cold...



As for the tragedies that are occurring in the hospitals, you can say what you like. These hospitals did not have basic first aid before the war and now thousands of the wounded and the sick are pouring into the hospitals and they are performing operations in the hospital corridors. Many of them are sent to the Rafah crossing to Egypt, those who pass may not return as they die on the way and the situation of the people in the hospitals is frightening and sad, hysteric.



I would like to tell you a story that happened in the hospital with the Abdel Latif family. One of her sons had disappeared during the first bombing and his family looked for him, but did not find him on the first or the second day of the war. On the third day, while the family was walking around the hospital, they came upon the Jaradah family who were surrounding one of their injured sons who was disfigured. This injured young man had had one of his legs amputated, his face was disfigured, not because of the aircraft shelling, but because glass had fallen on him while he was in the hospital after the planes had bombed part of it. The Abdel Latif family approached the Jaradah family to console them, and when they approached the injured man, Mr. Abdel Latif discovered that he was his son and not the son of the Jaradah family. Amid the family controversy, they waited for the wounded man to wake up and say his name so that the Abdel Latif family would take him...



I summarize my letter to you by lifting our suffering to God and to you. Our people in Gaza are treated like animals in a zoo, they eat but remain hungry, they cry, but no one wipes their tears. There is no water, no electricity, no food, but fear, terror and blockade ... Yesterday the bakery refused to give me bread. The reason being that the baker refused to feed me with flour that is not worthy of humans so that he will not disrespect my priesthood. The good flour had finished, and what flour he had was inappropriate for human consumption. I have avowed to not eat bread for the duration of this war.



We want you to raise your continuous prayers to God, and not to hold a mass or service without remembering the suffering of Gaza before God. I am sending short messages from the Bible to our parishioners to increase the hope in their hearts. We have all agreed to pray this prayer at the top of every hour: "O Lord of peace rain peace on us, O Lord of peace, grant peace to our land. Have mercy, O Lord, on your people and do not keep us in enmity forever. Please stand with us now and sing this prayer with us.



Your prayers with us move the whole world and teach it that any love that is prevented from reaching your brothers and sisters in Gaza is not the love of Christ and the Church. The love of Christ and the Church does not recognize political and social barriers, wars and so on. When your love reaches us, it makes us feel that we, in Gaza, are an integral part of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and our Muslim brothers and sisters in our midst are our people and our destiny, we have what they have and we suffer like they do, we are all the people of Palestine.



In the midst of all this, our people in Gaza remain rejecting war as a means for peace and confirming that the road to peace is peace. We in Gaza are steadfast and have resolution in our eyes: "between slavery and death, we have no choice." We want to live to praise the Lord in Palestine and witness for Christ, we want to live for Palestine, not die for it, but if death is imposed on us, we will not die except honest, brave and strong.



We join you in your prayers so that Christ may give us His real peace, so that " The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. Isaiah 11:6.



The peace of Christ, that peace to which you are called to be one body be with all of you and protect you. Amen.



Your Brother,

Father Manuel Mussallam

Priest of the Catholic Church in Gaza

source: http://www.abouna.org/Details.aspx?id=2012&tp=6

Thursday, January 15, 2009

We have a dream too

What are you going to be doing Monday? We all have a dream. I invite you to join me on Monday at our church in Plymouth and join your prayers with ours...a prayer that all of God's children may realize their dreams. St. Mary the Protectress Orthodox Church is located at 1000 South Michigan Street, Plymouth, Indiana. There is not much I get right, but I know that with the Holy Spirit's help, I can pray with compassion and tears. Can not be with us. Take a few moments at noon on Monday and speak out with us to God...no matter who you call Him.

Media war over Gaza

Israel and Hamas are fighting on two fronts in Gaza - a military battle, and a battle for public opinion. People around the world are being confronted with horrifying images of war, as well as all sorts of spin from various sources in the ongoing Gaza tragedy. As the combatants attempt to control the message, the media sphere is also crowded with self-promotion by secondary players.


SOURCES: Future TV, Lebanon; Al Arabiya, U.A.E.; Saudi Arabian Television, Saudi Arabia; Al Jazeera English, Qatar; Press TV, Iran; Israel National News, Israel; TV5, France; BBC, U.K.; NBC News, U.S.; Russia Today, Russia.

--
Global Pulse is a fast-moving and informative television and web series that helps you navigate the news of the world by comparing and contrasting TV news reports. See all the episodes of Global Pulse at http://linktv.org/globalpulse

One Parish’s Engagement with its Homeless Neighbors

by Jill Wallerstedt

The morning begins as most do: friends coming for breakfast. A table spread with toast, peanut butter, jelly, butter, honey, bagels, cereal and milk makes you want to fill your belly, then have a cup of coffee or tea and chat about what’s going on around our small town.

We are part of St. Brigid Fellowship, an outreach to the homeless here in Isla Vista, California. To be homeless is to be nameless, avoided, shunned, blamed, hungry and exposed to the elements. Each morning that St. Brigid’s opens its door, every visitor is known by name, has a place to belong, and finds friends, acceptance, food, clothing and help getting out of any situations they wish to leave.

Isla Vista is a densely-packed, square-mile beach-side community which abuts the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). It is home to students from UCSB and Santa Barbara City College, who make up 85 percent of the population, as well as homeowners, low-income workers, and homeless (many of whom prefer the term “unhoused” because Athe earth is our home.”)

Neighboring Santa Barbara deserves its reputation as a beautiful haven for the wealthy, lying between scenic foothills and the Pacific Ocean, and blessed with nearly year-round sunshine. For the not-so-wealthy, the limited housing and high cost of living make it difficult to make ends meet. Isla Vista and Goleta offer lower cost housing, but even so, a one bedroom apartment in Isla Vista rents for $1,100 a month. Students who rent on the nicest, beach-side streets pay $850 each for the privilege of sharing a bedroom with an ocean view.

Many of the unhoused come to Isla Vista because it is a small community and easy to navigate. The parks are their hang-outs. It’s illegal to sleep in the parks or in vehicles anywhere in Isla Vista at night, so a lot of sleeping happens during the day. Those with income are eligible for low-cost housing, but the waiting time is two to five years once you apply. The existing shelters are almost always full. There are no social services available here: the nearest ones are six miles away and the rest are in downtown Santa Barbara, twelve miles away. To survive, those without income or government benefits get money for food and alcohol by panhandling (or “spanging spare changing) or collecting cans and bottles to recycle for money.

St. Athanasius Antiochian Orthodox Church is near the heart of Isla Vista on a parcel of land surrounded by these parks. Our parish has been here since the early 1970s, long before we became Orthodox converts in 1987. We had a monthly food distribution for the poor for many years and have served Christmas breakfast for many years since.

In 1999 a group of Protestant volunteers asked if they could use our church kitchen to serve a weekly meal to the homeless on Thursday nights. They brought pre-cooked meals to our stove-less kitchen, set tables up outside, held a Bible study and then served dinner. I remember looking at the meeting on the patio, and think¬ing how nice it would be if they came into Vespers with us.

When this group could no longer provide meals, Fr. Jon-Stephen Hedges, our assistant pastor, took over. He moved the meal night to Monday and served one-pot soups and stews he cooked at home and hamburgers he grilled on the church barbecue. Attendance grew, perhaps because the only overtly religious elements to the dinners were the prayer beforehand and the cook’s clerical collar.

Fr. Jon got to know Aour neighbors on the streets,” as he calls them, and earned their trust. He heard their stories, made friends, helped where he could. They started to drop by his office on the church property during the week, and eventually, his other church work suffered. At the time, I was looking for a new job, and I was blessed to be offered a full-time job by the church in 2005: half-time raising money for our church school, St. John of Damascus Academy, and half-time working as assistant to Fr. Jon in his various duties.

Within a few months we realized that our work on the streets needed its own office. We rented space in the next-door medical clinic with a room for my office, a sitting area and supply closets, and a meeting room where mental health workers, job counselors and other providers could meet with us and our “clients.”

We opened the doors three mornings a week for drop-ins. Fr. Jon-Stephen named the ministry after St. Brigid, the Irish saint who was a compatriot of St. Patrick’s and who is commemorated both east and west. The scroll on her icon reads: “To care for the poor; To lighten everyone’s burden; To comfort the suffering.” This became our motto. The church agreed to a modest budget for our ministry.

Fr. Jon continued to see our neighbors in his office, but he was able to refer the simpler, day-to-day needs to me. The work started slowly. I handed out hygiene supplies, sleeping bags, coats, bus tokens, rain gear, and socks which were purchased by the church or donated. We offered the use of our telephone for calls and messages, and our address for applying for benefits and receiving mail. We served coffee. I met people and established friendships. I learned street names (Pirate, Wolf, Leprechaun, Veg-man) and their real names. I learned how to respond to angry outbursts as well as abject misery. I laughed and cried with people. I heard what it was like to be on the streets: stories of how others treated them, looked at them, how inequitable the system was. I became used to missing teeth, dirty hands, unkempt hair. The requests were so direct: AIt was freezing last night. Do you have anything warm to wear?” “I need a tarp to put over my sleeping bag when it rains.” “How do I get on food stamps?” “Do you have clean socks?”

We never intended to meet every need, especially those that were addressed by other organizations in Santa Barbara. We installed a rack with brochures about local services. From the start we were blessed to have the presence of Jennifer Ferraez, a parishioner who is also a Santa Barbara County Mental Health Outreach Worker for the Homeless. She arranged weekly visits to St. Brigid as part of her outreach, and taught me about the resources available in our community. She also provided the mental health assessments, referrals and counseling so many of our people needed. She is my sounding board and an ever-ready source of information.

As my unhoused friends started to trust me, they confided more. In this some¬times painful, personal exchange I heard about failed marriages, abusive child¬hoods, deep sorrows. I often felt overwhelmed. Prayer became a constant ally. I met people who were alcoholic or drug dependent, had mental illness, chronic medical conditions B and some with all three. I had my first face to face conversation with someone who was psychotic (he confided he was a superhero and offered to teach me to fly.) Most wanted housing, some lived in vehicles, others were happy on the streets if they could keep warm and fed.

I learned to make referrals for food stamps and general relief, how to help someone apply for SSI. Sometimes I couldn’t help in any other way but to listen, and mostly this was the most important. A public health nurse visited once a week, and the clinic downstairs began to see homeless people without charge.

About a year into the work, we had to move while the clinic remodeled. Since the move was to be temporary, we rented a portable construction office for $125 a month, a large trailer that occupied four spaces in our parking lot. I hung yellow lace curtains in the windows, which were quite silly really. St. Brigid’s new home quickly became known as “the dumpster with curtains.”

In the narrow trailer I had two storage cabinets in the back, my desk, filing cabinet and computer in the middle, and a table in front across from the door for a coffee pot and a computer that people could use. We stored sleeping bags and blankets under a slanted, built-in drafting-table, and put the phone and reference books on top of it. Actually, this is all that’s needed to start an outreach ministry - an open door, some basic supplies, an open heart.

Jennifer continued to come in once a week and to the Monday night dinners to help and teach. Fr. Jon-Stephen’s office was still next door on the church property and he came by daily. People began to drop by in greater numbers, not just to get something they needed but to hang out and talk. A sense of community emerged.

Somewhere along the line I developed my two rules: the first is that St. Brigid’s is a place of peace, a refuge from the streets, and that shouting, swearing and anger belonged elsewhere. (Some of the men who came in were so sensitive that if someone outside even used a loud voice in happy conversation, they would become upset and unable to talk.) The second rule was not to take coffee from the coffee pot before it finished brewing. I also inconspicuously monitored conversations and re-directed any that were inappropriate or disruptive.

We started serving peanut butter and jelly and bread with the coffee; then we got a toaster. The food table was outside the trailer. When it was cold we all wore coats. We jury-rigged a tarp outside that we could sit under when it rained, but we still got wet. One particularly rainy, blustery day, a friend got a large tarp out of her van and we all worked together to hang it around the church’s Sunday awning. I learned how to make ties from pieces of torn t-shirt. It worked fairly well as the only rain shelter in the area that day. We used the trailer for two years, then found out that the medical clinic was sold and we could not return to our office there.

We recently moved into a larger trailer on the church property and now have the luxury of two rooms: one for an office, and the other for our food table, supplies, computers, chairs and beginning library. When it’s sunny we use the deck outside and when it rains, we will even have a roof. What a concept!

We’re now open five days a week for breakfast. With a grant we received we are hiring a 15-hour-a-week helper, Nikki Coalson, a young woman in our church. This means I can work with people in crisis while she makes sure everything runs smooth¬ly. We are applying for other grants to expand our services.

I wish I had time to tell you the stories. Each person has his/her own, and together we have made new ones. Our team B all part time in the work B has made referrals for alcohol/drug detox, found people housing, gotten them benefits, seen them succeed, seen them relapse and start drinking again, shared joys, arranged reunions with family, had friends die.

The Monday night dinners have continued, drawing more people, some who never come in the mornings. Members of our church and the community help cook and serve, including doctors, nurses and politicians. There is now a group of UCSB pre-med students who have started a group called “Street Health Outreach”. They also cook a Saturday morning breakfast once a month and do street rounds the other Saturdays.

St. Brigid Fellowship has become a community, and a unifying force in Isla Vista. Fr. Jon-Stephen works Athe big picture” to make connections with other agencies and publicize our work as well as continuing his personal relationships here. Fr. Jon carries a badge as Chaplain to the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department and several other agencies. On him, the badge is a bridge. He also has an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT-B) certification. All of us work together to solve homelessness one person at a time. We’re part of Santa Barbara County’s Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness.

As for philosophy, we use an “incarnational model,” meeting people on the streets as Jesus did, addressing immediate needs and starting relationships that can lead out of homelessness. This is not a one-way ministry, us to them. All of us, both housed and unhoused, work together to solve problems.

When things are tough, we look at others as Mother Teresa did, as Christ in his distressing disguise, and do all with love. As St. John Kronstadt reminds us: “Never confuse the person, formed in the image of God, with the evil that is in him; because evil is but a chance misfortune, an illness, a devilish reverie. But the very essence of the person is the image of God, and this remains in him despite every disfigurement.”

This work is a blessing. My faith has grown, as has my prayer life.

If you or your parish is considering starting an outreach ministry, just know that it can be done simply. The most important part is taking the time to listen and talk. Your ministry can be handing out socks or sack lunches in the park, or feeding people once a week, or giving gift certificates to fast food or grocery stores. Whatever it is, take the time to talk. Introduce yourself and ask their name. You would be surprised how meaningful just exchanging names is to a person who is used to being snubbed and ignored. Don’t think you have to address all of the problems you will encounter - just do your part and listen to the Lord who will walk along side you and give you guidance, joy and peace.

Feel free to contact me, Fr. Jon-Stephen Hedges, and Jennifer Ferraez at office@saintb.sbcoxmail.com, or (805) 968-8028.

Better yet, join us for breakfast and a cup of coffee. We would love to meet you.

Jill Wallerstedt has lived in Isla Vista, California for 30 years. She lives in a house dedicated to St. Xenia with two roommates and works for St Athanasius Orthodox Church as a homeless outreach worker and a fund-raising professional. Her dream is to be a full-time writer and live in community.

Then and Now: Confessions of an Outreach Worker

Then, when I saw a homeless person, I saw the dishevelment, shuffling, and shopping cart. Now I see a person with a story. Not likely a happy story, but there might be some joy in it. Maybe grace.

Then I saw filth, poor hygiene, beards and thought, go to a shelter. Now I know that the street is safer for some people, and there are not enough beds to go around for the rest.

Then I noticed the skin sores and rashes, hacking coughs, missing teeth. Now I see the bigger problems: the ?structure resistance” keeping a person away from services; the bad receptions at health clinics; the perfunctory dismissals for inability to pay; the lack of dental providers even for those with benefits.

Then I saw the blank stares and the “off in their own world” look and thought mental illness. Now I know that it might be a sane defense against the constant stares and comments of others.

Then I thought, get a job. Now I know the devastation of untreated mental illness and substance abuse, the consequences of severe child abuse, the effects of 35 years in jail. I know that the simple lack of a shower and clean clothes can cost a person their job.

Then I asked, Why doesn’t someone solve this problem? Now I ask - what is your name? Do you have somewhere safe to sleep? Are you warm enough? Do you want to talk?

Then I saw anonymous people, lumped together in my brain in the category “Avoid if at all possible, be kind if not able to avoid, keep your hand on your purse.” Now I know Rainbow from Little Rick. I know how people get their street names: Nira Dave, Buckethead, Veg-man. More importantly I know their given names, the names I call them by. A name is the beginning of identity.

Then I thought all homeless were alike. Now I know that some avoid everyone, including other homeless people, while others find strength in numbers. I know who drinks to excess and who can hold their liquor, who I can count on for help and who will just use me. I know why the women are on the street and why they always have a boyfriend, no matter how bad he is.

Then I believed everyone’s story. Now I take everything with a grain of salt until I can verify it.

Then I felt lower middle class, comparing myself to most others in Santa Barbara. Now, my car, roof, shower, washer, money, and health insurance seem like incredible wealth. Keys are a status symbol.

Then I wondered where brilliance and madness intersected and how to tell the difference. I still wonder.

Then I saw objects. Now I see individuals.

C Jill Wallerstedt

source: http://incommunion.org/?p=1066

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Time to Stop the Mideast Comparisons

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090110_time_to_stop_the_mideast_comparisons/

By Robert Fisk

This article was originally printed in The Independent.

It all depends where you live. That was the geography of Israel’s propaganda, designed to demonstrate that we softies—we little baby-coddling liberals living in our secure Western homes—don’t realise the horror of 12 (now 20) Israeli deaths in 10 years and thousands of rockets and the unimaginable trauma and stress of living near Gaza. Forget the 600 Palestinian dead; travelling on both sides of the Atlantic these past couple of weeks has been an instructive—not to say weirdly repetitive—experience.

Here’s how it goes. I was in Toronto when I opened the right-wing National Post and found Lorne Gunter trying to explain to readers what it felt like to come under Palestinian rocket attack. “Suppose you lived in the Toronto suburb of Don Mills,” writes Gunter, “and people from the suburb of Scarborough—about 10 kilometres away—were firing as many as 100 rockets a day into your yard, your kid’s school, the strip mall down the street and your dentist’s office…”

Getting the message? It just so happens, of course, that the people of Scarborough are underprivileged, often new immigrants—many from Afghanistan—while the people of Don Mills are largely middle class with a fair number of Muslims. Nothing like digging a knife into Canada’s multicultural society to show how Israel is all too justified in smashing back at the Palestinians.

Now a trip down Montreal way and a glance at the French-language newspaper La Presse two days later. And sure enough, there’s an article signed by 16 pro-Israeli writers, economists and academics who are trying to explain what it feels like to come under Palestinian rocket attack. “Imagine for a moment that the children of Longueuil live day and night in terror, that businesses, shops, hospitals, schools are the targets of terrorists located in Brossard.” Longueuil, it should be added, is a community of blacks and Muslim immigrants, Afghans, Iranians. But who are the “terrorists” in Brossard?

Two days later and I am in Dublin. I open The Irish Times to find a letter from the local Israeli ambassador, trying to explain to the people of the Irish Republic what it feels like to come under Palestinian rocket attack. Know what’s coming? Of course you do. “What would you do,” Zion Evrony asks readers, “if Dublin were subjected to a bombardment of 8,000 rockets and mortars…” And so it goes on and on and on. Needless to say, I’m waiting for the same writers to ask how we’d feel if we lived in Don Mills or Brossard or Dublin and came under sustained attack from supersonic aircraft and Merkava tanks and thousands of troops whose shells and bombs tore 40 women and children to pieces outside a school, shredded whole families in their beds and who, after nearly a week, had killed almost 200 civilians out of 600 fatalities.

In Ireland, my favourite journalistic justification for this bloodbath came from my old mate Kevin Myers. “The death toll from Gaza is, of course, shocking, dreadful, unspeakable,” he mourned. “Though it does not compare with the death toll amongst Israelis if Hamas had its way.” Get it? The massacre in Gaza is justified because Hamas would have done the same if they could, even though they didn’t do it because they couldn’t. It took Fintan O’Toole, The Irish Times’s resident philosopher-in-chief, to speak the unspeakable. “When does the mandate of victimhood expire?” he asked. “At what point does the Nazi genocide of Europe’s Jews cease to excuse the state of Israel from the demands of international law and of common humanity?”

I had an interesting time giving the Tip O’Neill peace lecture in Derry when one of the audience asked, as did a member of the Trinity College Dublin Historical Society a day later, whether the Northern Ireland Good Friday peace agreement—or, indeed, any aspect of the recent Irish conflict—contained lessons for the Middle East. I suggested that local peace agreements didn’t travel well and that the idea advanced by John Hume (my host in Derry)—that it was all about compromise—didn’t work since the Israeli seizure of Arab land in the West Bank had more in common with the 17th-century Irish Catholic dispossession than sectarianism in Belfast.

What I do suspect, however, is that the split and near civil war between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority has a lot in common with the division between the Irish Free State and anti-treaty forces that led to the 1922-3 Irish civil war; that Hamas’s refusal to recognise Israel—and the enemies of Michael Collins who refused to recognise the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the border with Northern Ireland—are tragedies that have a lot in common, Israel now playing the role of Britain, urging the pro-treaty men (Mahmoud Abbas) to destroy the anti-treaty men (Hamas).

I ended the week in one of those BBC World Service discussions in which a guy from The Jerusalem Post, a man from al-Jazeera, a British academic and Fisk danced the usual steps around the catastrophe in Gaza. The moment I mentioned that 600 Palestinian dead for 20 Israeli dead around Gaza in 10 years was grotesque, pro-Israeli listeners condemned me for suggesting (which I did not) that only 20 Israelis had been killed in all of Israel in 10 years. Of course, hundreds of Israelis outside Gaza have died in that time—but so have thousands of Palestinians.

My favourite moment came when I pointed out that journalists should be on the side of those who suffer. If we were reporting the 18th-century slave trade, I said, we wouldn’t give equal time to the slave ship captain in our dispatches. If we were reporting the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp, we wouldn’t give equal time to the SS spokesman. At which point a journalist from the Jewish Telegraph in Prague responded that “the IDF are not Hitler”. Of course not. But who said they were?

Why Do They Hate the West So Much, We Will Ask

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090109_why_do_they_hate_the_west_so_much_we_will_ask/

By Robert Fisk

This article was originally printed in The Independent.

So once again, Israel has opened the gates of hell to the Palestinians. Forty civilian refugees dead in a United Nations school, three more in another. Not bad for a night’s work in Gaza by the army that believes in “purity of arms”. But why should we be surprised?

Have we forgotten the 17,500 dead—almost all civilians, most of them children and women—in Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon; the 1,700 Palestinian civilian dead in the Sabra-Chatila massacre; the 1996 Qana massacre of 106 Lebanese civilian refugees, more than half of them children, at a UN base; the massacre of the Marwahin refugees who were ordered from their homes by the Israelis in 2006 then slaughtered by an Israeli helicopter crew; the 1,000 dead of that same 2006 bombardment and Lebanese invasion, almost all of them civilians?

What is amazing is that so many Western leaders, so many presidents and prime ministers and, I fear, so many editors and journalists, bought the old lie; that Israelis take such great care to avoid civilian casualties. “Israel makes every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties,” yet another Israeli ambassador said only hours before the Gaza massacre. And every president and prime minister who repeated this mendacity as an excuse to avoid a ceasefire has the blood of last night’s butchery on their hands. Had George Bush had the courage to demand an immediate ceasefire 48 hours earlier, those 40 civilians, the old and the women and children, would be alive.

What happened was not just shameful. It was a disgrace. Would war crime be too strong a description? For that is what we would call this atrocity if it had been committed by Hamas. So a war crime, I’m afraid, it was. After covering so many mass murders by the armies of the Middle East—by Syrian troops, by Iraqi troops, by Iranian troops, by Israeli troops—I suppose cynicism should be my reaction. But Israel claims it is fighting our war against “international terror”. The Israelis claim they are fighting in Gaza for us, for our Western ideals, for our security, for our safety, by our standards. And so we are also complicit in the savagery now being visited upon Gaza.

I’ve reported the excuses the Israeli army has served up in the past for these outrages. Since they may well be reheated in the coming hours, here are some of them: that the Palestinians killed their own refugees, that the Palestinians dug up bodies from cemeteries and planted them in the ruins, that ultimately the Palestinians are to blame because they supported an armed faction, or because armed Palestinians deliberately used the innocent refugees as cover.

The Sabra and Chatila massacre was committed by Israel’s right-wing Lebanese Phalangist allies while Israeli troops, as Israel’s own commission of inquiry revealed, watched for 48 hours and did nothing. When Israel was blamed, Menachem Begin’s government accused the world of a blood libel. After Israeli artillery had fired shells into the UN base at Qana in 1996, the Israelis claimed that Hizbollah gunmen were also sheltering in the base. It was a lie. The more than 1,000 dead of 2006—a war started when Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers on the border—were simply dismissed as the responsibility of the Hizbollah. Israel claimed the bodies of children killed in a second Qana massacre may have been taken from a graveyard. It was another lie. The Marwahin massacre was never excused. The people of the village were ordered to flee, obeyed Israeli orders and were then attacked by an Israeli gunship. The refugees took their children and stood them around the truck in which they were travelling so that Israeli pilots would see they were innocents. Then the Israeli helicopter mowed them down at close range. Only two survived, by playing dead. Israel didn’t even apologise.

Twelve years earlier, another Israeli helicopter attacked an ambulance carrying civilians from a neighbouring village—again after they were ordered to leave by Israel—and killed three children and two women. The Israelis claimed that a Hizbollah fighter was in the ambulance. It was untrue. I covered all these atrocities, I investigated them all, talked to the survivors. So did a number of my colleagues. Our fate, of course, was that most slanderous of libels: we were accused of being anti-Semitic.

And I write the following without the slightest doubt: we’ll hear all these scandalous fabrications again. We’ll have the Hamas-to-blame lie—heaven knows, there is enough to blame them for without adding this crime—and we may well have the bodies-from-the-cemetery lie and we’ll almost certainly have the Hamas-was-in-the-UN-school lie and we will very definitely have the anti-Semitism lie. And our leaders will huff and puff and remind the world that Hamas originally broke the ceasefire. It didn’t. Israel broke it, first on 4 November when its bombardment killed six Palestinians in Gaza and again on 17 November when another bombardment killed four more Palestinians.

Yes, Israelis deserve security. Twenty Israelis dead in 10 years around Gaza is a grim figure indeed. But 600 Palestinians dead in just over a week, thousands over the years since 1948—when the Israeli massacre at Deir Yassin helped to kick-start the flight of Palestinians from that part of Palestine that was to become Israel— is on a quite different scale. This recalls not a normal Middle East bloodletting but an atrocity on the level of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. And of course, when an Arab bestirs himself with unrestrained fury and takes out his incendiary, blind anger on the West, we will say it has nothing to do with us. Why do they hate us, we will ask? But let us not say we do not know the answer.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

[Saint-george-taybeh] Gaza


Greetings from Boston

and hope you are having a good day
if you like the following article, please share it with others, you local publications
or any website that might help spread more awarness, if you have time
you can listen to the new song by Michael Heart


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlfhoU66s4Y <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlfhoU66s4Y>

God be with you, maria
 
Lethal Competition in the Holy Land
Maria C. Khoury, Ed. D.
I think I became angry at my brother the other day expressing my wish and hope that the Israeli leadership should be punished over the accused war crimes in Gaza.  
So my brother just laughed on the phone saying:  “Don’t hold your breath…Remember they are the Chosen People…Israel is above all laws...”  
I am deeply trying to reflect that the “Chosen People” did not actually even accept the Messiah or the reason that God selected them to deliver salvation to humanity which actually, I, as an Orthodox Christian baptized onto Christ became the New Israel since Christians accept Christ as Lord and savior, are we not the Spiritual Israel?
Please don’t be confused that the Israel we sing and chant in our gospels is the Israel on the ground right now with the tanks, the gunships and the war tactics.  
Our Israel is a spiritual homeland.  The Israel that right now  is using white phosphorous chemical warfare and dense inert metal explosives in Gaza to cut human beings into hundreds of pieces or if these Palestinians survive this new type of high density explosive they will have long term cancer effects, is not the Israel of my gospels.  
Even if you are the “Chosen People,” it does not allow you to treat other human beings with cruelty and killing more than 930 and injuring over 4,000 in less than eighteen days.  No descent person or chosen person should act or react with this madness because it goes against humanity and what it means to be a descent human being.
Gaza has seen the worst carnage ever with this deadly game that Israel and Hamas are literally playing with innocent civilian lives.  I remember when my son Canaan was born, Feb 27, 1987, there was not even a Hamas member in existence but Israel had to find a way to break the word of the late Yasser Arafat in the streets of the West Bank and to find ways to divide the Palestinians.   Israel supported the creation of Hamas as the Islamic Resistance Movement since Arafat and his Fatah movement wanted a secular free Palestine.   
A handful of Hamas members emerged and than we began to see hundreds, thousands until finally in January 2006, fair and square, under international microscope, Hamas won the majority of the votes for the Palestinian Parliament and became millions in numbers.  But, with this Hamas victory, it is the Palestinian people that had to pay the highest price following the international financial boycott which collapsed the country since the world did not like the way the Palestinians voted and this finally led to Palestinians killing each other.   
Right now on the ground in Palestine, for all those of us who never supported Hamas and are not Hamas members, after this brutal and fierce fighting in Gaza, I am thinking each and every Palestinian will be a Hamas supporter. Violence is never the answer but this war will help create more fanatics.  It will never finish until each and every Palestinian is dead.  And right now, those of us modern, moderate people who are working for freedom in Palestine using peaceful methods are losing ground.
The Israelis have been successful to completely take everything from the Palestinians, their homes, their lands, personal properties, their future and their hope but the one thing they want to specifically destroy, especially with this war, is the will power of the Palestinian child to be free.  It is this spirit that cannot be destroyed.  Living on the wrong side of the Wall, in a complete open prison which sometimes I escape because of my American passport, makes me see that Palestinians need peace with justice.  I really don’t understand how there will be peace for Israel and the right for Israel to exist when for the last nine years in the West Bank and Gaza our life as normal has stopped to exist and people forget that Palestinians cannot do simple things like  freely go to school, work, hospitals, holy places, etc. Israel controls all the boarders and their security and brutal occupation has cost the United States government more than 100 billion dollars since the creation of Israel (1948). Of course, oppressed people will resist and it will continue to cost the American taxpayer more than 6.8 billion dollars a day until the international community looks at the root cause of the problem not just military solutions.

As the battle rages fiercely in Gaza, I am not sure what language people feel comfortable using.  
I mean they don’t like words like ethnic cleansing, genocide or massacre or slaughter but really, please, give me one good word when entire families are killed at the same spot, the mom and the kids and the grandmother and hundreds of them at the same time.  Don’t bother to Google the photos you will simply throw up at the violent graphics.
Please give me a nice word when no one condemns the Israeli occupation forces for their attacks on journalists and media outlets and the enormous devastation and humanitarian disaster.  I cannot keep up with the statistics after four journalists were killed, eight mosques were bombed, the schools, the hospitals and the one hundred thousand people that had to flee their homes for safety in a place that has nothing safe about it.
Please give me a nice word when many people like doctors, human rights workers and members of several European parliaments want to take medical supplies into Gaza and help Palestinians but Israel continues the blockade.  Or when hospitals supported by a global humanitarian alliance of churches and agencies are targeted by F16 fighter jets of the Israeli Air Force forcing them to shut down and not give the desperate needed medical services.   

Reflecting more carefully, I can see why my brother is laughing at my undying hope since Israel is the target of at least 65 United National Resolutions for its violations of human rights and still the American government has no harsh words to tell them.  Furthermore, since 2000 the Israeli army has uprooted and destroyed more than one million trees to punish Palestinians and since 1967 has demolished more than 18,000 Palestinian homes but no one is telling them to stop.

At the end of the day, Israel and Hamas must talk so why do they have to be responsible for so much bloodshed?  Pray for a peace with justice and this madness to stop.  If you believe in the “one person can make a difference” philosophy contact your senators and representatives and ask them to hold both sides accountable and vote for the security and human rights for all people not just Israel since technically speaking what fault did the Palestinians have to pay the price for the discrimination that Jews received in Europe. What right did Britain have to grant Jews another people’s country.  But these are not popular questions in our media and instead everyone is sending me emails asking me why is Hamas firing rockets into Israel?  

There is no simple answer and you don’t have to live there to see that more understanding and reconciliation is needed on all sides and this is exactly why our Christian presence is more important than ever in a land that needs the message of Christ’s peace and love for humanity.  It has been more than two thousand years after Christ’s birth in the Holy Land and I guess not much has changed.  But it reaffirms that the hope of each and every Christian is the promise of eternal life.  (John 3:16; John 6:40)

Prayer for peace

For God’s mercy upon us, His unworthy servants, that we may all be protected from hatred and evil actions, that we may have instilled in us unselfish love by which all shall know that we are disciples of Christ and God’s people, as were our holy ancestors, so that we may always know to decide for the truth and righteousness of the Heavenly Kingdom, let us pray to the Lord.

For all those who commit injustice against their neighbors, whether by causing sorrow to orphans or spilling innocent blood or by returning hatred for hatred, that God will grant them repentance, enlighten their minds and hearts and illumine their souls with the light of love even towards their enemies, let us pray to the Lord.

O Lord, how many are our foes who battle against us and say: there is no help for them from God or man. O Lord, stretch forth Thy hands that we may remain Thy people in both faith and works. If we must suffer, let it by in the ways of Thy justice and Thy truth — let it not be because of our injustice or hatred against anyone. Let us all fervently say: Lord have mercy.

Again let us pray to God, the Savior of all men, also for our enemies — that our people Lord who loves mankind will turn them away from attacks on our Orthodox people, that they not destroy our churches and cemeteries, that they not kill our children or persecute our people, but that they too may turn to the way of repentance, justice and salvation. Let us all fervently say: Lord have mercy.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Bill Moyers on Mideast Violence

Bill Moyers reflects on the recent violence in the Middle East. PLEASE NOTE: This essay containins video and images of the Israeli and Palestinian casualties including children - in Gaza as well as the Pulitzer prize-winning photo of the nude Vietnamese girl running from napalm bombing. Some viewers may find the images disturbing, but they are in context and germane to the subject matter. Bill Moyers Journal airs Fridays at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). For more: http://www.pbs.org/billmoyers