ITEMS OF INTEREST
PRAYERS AND HOPE FOR JILL CARROLL—FROM A FELLOW JOURNALIST
" 'I CAN'T EVEN LOOK AT THAT, it's too awful,' my editor said, turning her head away from a bank of television monitors and covering her eyes with her hands earlier this week when coverage of a car chase in Houston gave way to photos of Jill Carroll, our 28-year-old colleague from The Christian Science Monitor who was kidnapped January 7 in Iraq....
"I don't know Jill. In fact, I'd never seen her byline or read anything she'd written before last weekend. But she is my sister, my colleague, a fellow idealist who believes that what she writes might have the power to make the world a better place. For someone. For everyone....
"For reasons I won't spend time and space deconstructing right now, sometimes it's easier to feel empathy for someone with whom you share a commonality, be it gender, race, religion, age, culture, or, in this case, vocation.... How must our friends at The Christian Science Monitor be feeling? How would I feel if those were images of Annie or Maudlyne or Lori or Monifa flashing across CNN, Fox News, and Al-Jazeera? What would I do? What could I do?
"The first and last line of defense for many of us would be prayer. I'd pray. We'd all pray, even those of us who don't really believe in prayer. Or in God. I've prayed for Jill this week. I'm praying for her right now. So are thousands of people around the world.
"The Christian Science Monitor was founded in 1908 by a woman, Mary Baker Eddy, who believed passionately in the power of prayer. The paper is not a religious publication—it carries only one explicitly religious column each day — despite being owned by the church Eddy founded, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. But the paper has an implicitly spiritual mission, one that by all accounts Jill — a young woman from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who moved to the Middle East a few years ago because she wanted to understand the region and humanize the lives of its inhabitants — believes in with all her heart: 'to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.'
"According to one of Eddy's biographers, she insisted on her paper being named The 'Christian Science' Monitor because it was a kind of promise, that 'no human situation [is] beyond healing or rectification.' [Words from an accompanying article] are not mine. They belong to an anonymous colleague of Jill's at The Christian Science Monitor. They might not be the exact words I'd have chosen, but the heart of what the writer is saying is what I'd want to say were I in his or her shoes.
"Do not lose hope. Do not despair. Believe that change can happen. Pray. For Jill. For her family. For her colleagues. For her captors. For mercy. For all of us."
Cathleen Falsani
"Praying for our colleague facing death in Iraq"
Reprinted with permission. © 2006 Chicago Sun-Times. January 20, 2006
OUR THOUGHTS HAVE POWER
"[THE WORK OF RENOWNED CELL BIOLOGIST, Bruce Lipton] over the last 40 years studying how cells process information led him to the conclusion that genes do not control our behavior. Instead, genes are turned on and off by influences outside the cell. These include our thoughts and beliefs, which Lipton argues can shape our DNA, a theory that he presents in The Biology of Belief (Elite Books, 2005).
"Lipton, a former professor at the University of Wisconsin Medical School and the Standford School of Medicine, was a lifelong atheist until the mid-'80s, when his discoveries about the way cells function convinced him that God does exist ....
"[In a recent interview, Lipton commented,] 'This basic idea we have that we are controlled by our genes is false. It's an idea that turns us into victims. I'm saying we are the creators of our situation. The genes are merely the blueprints. We are the contractors, and we can adjust those blueprints. And we can even rewrite them.'
"[Responding to the question, 'Like a lot of scientists, you once considered yourself an atheist, but now you feel there is some divine presence out there. So what do you think God is?' Lipton said,] 'I believe it's all that there is—nothing is not God. Everything that we can imagine is the One ....'"
From an interview by David Ian Miller
SFGate.com
PEACE PROCESS IN SUDAN OPENS WAY FOR HISTORIC CHURCH MEETING
"IN THE CONTEXT OF LISTENING AND LEARNING, three Episcopal Church representatives ... traveled to Juba, Sudan, for the Episcopal Church of Sudan's provincial synod January 23—29, held within its own country for the first time in more than a decade....
"'For the Episcopal Church of Sudan to be able to hold its own synod with all orders of bishop, clergy, and laity represented and for it to be able to fulfill the various legislative processes—to make that happen in southern Sudan at this time is a remarkable achievement,' said Margaret Larom, director of Anglican and Global Relations. 'And to be able to meet at the church's historic headquarters in Juba is especially significant. It symbolizes perhaps the start of a new time in the life of the Church of Sudan.' ...
"'We also hope to gain a better understanding of what faces [the churches] now so that we can do better advocacy. It's an information gathering opportunity in every way,' [Larom said.] ...
"For many years, some of the southern Sudanese bishops have had to function from locations outside Sudan, such as Nairobi, Kenya, and Kampala, Uganda. Bishops from the north whose headquarters have been in Khartoum have found themselves ministering to displaced people from dioceses in the south....
"Episcopal Relief and Development [ERD] is providing education and training for Sudanese students enrolled in vocational colleges at the Kakuma camp in northern Kenya, where they are learning skills that will help them provide food and income for their families.
"ERD is also providing critical aid to help displaced people in the Darfur region and neighboring Chad. Through partner agencies, ERD is supplying ... humanitarian assistance to refugees in three camps in Farchana, located in the central region of the Chad border. Women and children are receiving mental health care services. Children will attend schools at the camps and their mothers will receive life skills and health education."
Matthew Davies
"Listening: Sudanese synod holds historic meeting in Juba"
Episcopal News Service. January 26, 2006