Monday, November 8th - 7:00PM Hershey Public Library
Folow the link for more info and registration
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Amish Grace: Writing the Story of a Tragedy-Dr. Donald Kraybill
Monday, November 8th - 7:00PM Hershey Public Library
Folow the link for more info and registration
Sunday, May 2, 2010
How to Build a Garden–Third of Three Articles from the New Community Project
By Beth Schermerhorn and Tom Benvento
New Community Project
Any good organic gardener will tell you that the key to a successful garden is good, healthy soil. A healthy soil is home to an abundance of nutrients, minerals and living organisms that make plants strong. Strong plants are less susceptible to pests and disease and are more likely to grow faster and produce more food. All of the bugs, worms, and microorganisms make up about half of soil’s weight. We depend on them to survive.
As spring approaches, now is the time to start thinking about your garden. Here are a few examples of things that we do at New Community Project’s Muddy Bike Urban Garden to build healthy soil, conserve water, have fewer weeds, and allow nature to do some of the work for us!
When designing our garden beds, we try to use nature as our example. One thing that nature teaches us is that plants do not grow in rows. Because of this, we design keyholes into our pathways, which create unique and beautiful gardens!
Keyhole design allows for a clear distinction between path and garden bed, keeping us off the beds so they stay nice and fluffy. It also allows us to access more of the garden with less path and works with the ergonomics of our bodies so that we aren't straining to bend and lean as much. Keyhole gardens can be designed like many patterns found in nature—or design one of your own!
Another technique that we use a lot is sheet mulching or lasagna gardening. We love it because it protects and uses the natural function of worms and microorganisms to break down organic matter. Sheet mulching also utilizes materials and resources that are often thrown to the wayside. Finally, sheet mulching conserves water, reduces weeding significantly and is composting right in the garden, saving us lots of time!
Here is a step-by-step guide to building sheet-mulched garden bed.
Finding lots of materials is important. Our city has a fall leaf pickup where material is mulched and free for city residents. Check with your city to see if they do the same. Cardboard is everywhere! Save your own and build relationships with nearby restaurants and grocery stores to collect cardboard. They are usually more than happy to give it away. Build connections with local farmers too. They are often desperate for someone to collect manure. Collecting all of your materials before you begin is key to sheet mulching.
We have been extremely satisfied with the results from sheet mulched gardens. By mimicking the way nature works, we are allowing her to continue to heal and help us create beauty with functionality. In the end, it can be healing for ourselves too.
New Community Project
Any good organic gardener will tell you that the key to a successful garden is good, healthy soil. A healthy soil is home to an abundance of nutrients, minerals and living organisms that make plants strong. Strong plants are less susceptible to pests and disease and are more likely to grow faster and produce more food. All of the bugs, worms, and microorganisms make up about half of soil’s weight. We depend on them to survive.
As spring approaches, now is the time to start thinking about your garden. Here are a few examples of things that we do at New Community Project’s Muddy Bike Urban Garden to build healthy soil, conserve water, have fewer weeds, and allow nature to do some of the work for us!
When designing our garden beds, we try to use nature as our example. One thing that nature teaches us is that plants do not grow in rows. Because of this, we design keyholes into our pathways, which create unique and beautiful gardens!
Keyhole design allows for a clear distinction between path and garden bed, keeping us off the beds so they stay nice and fluffy. It also allows us to access more of the garden with less path and works with the ergonomics of our bodies so that we aren't straining to bend and lean as much. Keyhole gardens can be designed like many patterns found in nature—or design one of your own!
Another technique that we use a lot is sheet mulching or lasagna gardening. We love it because it protects and uses the natural function of worms and microorganisms to break down organic matter. Sheet mulching also utilizes materials and resources that are often thrown to the wayside. Finally, sheet mulching conserves water, reduces weeding significantly and is composting right in the garden, saving us lots of time!
Here is a step-by-step guide to building sheet-mulched garden bed.
- Once a design has been made, use a shovel or other tool to break up the top layer of soil and grass. This loosens the soil for plant roots to enter, helps with water percolation and fluffs it with oxygen.
- After you have formed your beds, apply a 1-2 inch layer of compost, manure or any “green” materials (food scraps, green grass clippings). We recommend compost if building in the spring and manure in the fall so the manure has time to break down before planting. (Droppings from our rabbits are a ready source of nutrients for our gardens.) Water well, so that it feels like a wrung out sponge.
- Next, lay down a layer of cardboard or newspaper over the entire bed space. Make sure not to leave any gaps and to overlap pieces by at least 6 inches. Water well.
- Finally, lay down a thick layer of leaf mulch, straw, wood chips or any “brown” materials. This should be 6-8 inches thick. Water well.
Finding lots of materials is important. Our city has a fall leaf pickup where material is mulched and free for city residents. Check with your city to see if they do the same. Cardboard is everywhere! Save your own and build relationships with nearby restaurants and grocery stores to collect cardboard. They are usually more than happy to give it away. Build connections with local farmers too. They are often desperate for someone to collect manure. Collecting all of your materials before you begin is key to sheet mulching.
We have been extremely satisfied with the results from sheet mulched gardens. By mimicking the way nature works, we are allowing her to continue to heal and help us create beauty with functionality. In the end, it can be healing for ourselves too.
Happy gardening!
Learn more about the New Community Project at www.newcommunityproject.org
Learn more about the New Community Project at www.newcommunityproject.org
Earth in the Balance - Second of Three Articles from the New Community Project
Caring for the Earth–like it's the only one we have
The more we learn about planet earth, the more we see the interconnectivity of life. Humans often deny this—but we do so at our peril. How are we affected by the well-being of other parts of the ecosystem?
* When Passenger Pigeons became extinct, they no longer consumed acorns and other nuts, leaving these to deer mice, which promptly flourished—and with them, mouse ticks, which transmit lyme disease.
* One- third of bat species are endangered. As bats decline, insects thrive. Farmers must then use more pesticides to combat the insect invaders, which in turn leads to even fewer bats (99 percent of pesticides miss their target and enter the environment; pesticides kill 67 million birds and bats annually in the US).
* Sharks kill an average of 4-5 humans per year, we kill 50-70 million of them annually—usually for their fins. Without this keystone predator in the seas, mid-level predators such as skates and rays over-populate and then over-consume their resource base—shrimps and scallops. This has dramatically reduced the harvest of these seafood favorites in many coastal areas.
* The world’s oceans absorb 25-30 percent of the CO2 released by burning fossil fuels. The excessive carbon is now causing seawater to become highly acidic. One consequence: coral cannot form, and shellfish (lobsters, clams, etc.) cannot form shells in overly-acidic water—they are already gone from some areas of the ocean.
* Over 100 of the 150 most-prescribed pharmaceuticals in the US are plant- or animal-based, and most originated in tropical forests. These forests are disappearing at a rate of some 50,000 square miles per mile per year. (Cattle ranching is the primary cause of deforestation in the Amazon.)
Eminent biologist E.O. Wilson suggests these steps to preserve the planet’s biodiversity: Protect more land, especially remaining frontier and old-growth forests; rehabilitate lakes and river systems; make conservation profitable (eco-tourism; carbon credits, etc.); increase the capacity of zoos and botanical gardens to breed endangered species; support population planning.
What can you do? Raise or purchase organic foods; eat lower on the food chain; help the New Community Project save Amazon rainforest; visit the Amazon and the arctic on an NCP Learning Tour to experience species diversity—and threats to it; support girls’ education to lower birth rates; reduce fossil fuel use.
Article submitted by NCP Director: David Radcliff -- Contact him at dradcliff@newcommunityproject.org
Understanding: a matter of seeing relationships
The more we learn about planet earth, the more we see the interconnectivity of life. Humans often deny this—but we do so at our peril. How are we affected by the well-being of other parts of the ecosystem?
* When Passenger Pigeons became extinct, they no longer consumed acorns and other nuts, leaving these to deer mice, which promptly flourished—and with them, mouse ticks, which transmit lyme disease.
* One- third of bat species are endangered. As bats decline, insects thrive. Farmers must then use more pesticides to combat the insect invaders, which in turn leads to even fewer bats (99 percent of pesticides miss their target and enter the environment; pesticides kill 67 million birds and bats annually in the US).
* Sharks kill an average of 4-5 humans per year, we kill 50-70 million of them annually—usually for their fins. Without this keystone predator in the seas, mid-level predators such as skates and rays over-populate and then over-consume their resource base—shrimps and scallops. This has dramatically reduced the harvest of these seafood favorites in many coastal areas.
* The world’s oceans absorb 25-30 percent of the CO2 released by burning fossil fuels. The excessive carbon is now causing seawater to become highly acidic. One consequence: coral cannot form, and shellfish (lobsters, clams, etc.) cannot form shells in overly-acidic water—they are already gone from some areas of the ocean.
* Over 100 of the 150 most-prescribed pharmaceuticals in the US are plant- or animal-based, and most originated in tropical forests. These forests are disappearing at a rate of some 50,000 square miles per mile per year. (Cattle ranching is the primary cause of deforestation in the Amazon.)
Estimated total number of plant and animal species: 10-100 million. Number that have been indentified and named: 1.8 million. Estimate of species extinctions per day: 50-100. Comparison to historic extinction rate: 1000 times higher.
Eminent biologist E.O. Wilson suggests these steps to preserve the planet’s biodiversity: Protect more land, especially remaining frontier and old-growth forests; rehabilitate lakes and river systems; make conservation profitable (eco-tourism; carbon credits, etc.); increase the capacity of zoos and botanical gardens to breed endangered species; support population planning.
What can you do? Raise or purchase organic foods; eat lower on the food chain; help the New Community Project save Amazon rainforest; visit the Amazon and the arctic on an NCP Learning Tour to experience species diversity—and threats to it; support girls’ education to lower birth rates; reduce fossil fuel use.
Article submitted by NCP Director: David Radcliff -- Contact him at dradcliff@newcommunityproject.org
Justice—or Just Us - One of Three Articles from the New Community Project
Burma: Trouble in Paradise
Burma is the largest country in southeast Asia, used to be one of the world’s leading rice exporters, gave birth to a UN General Secretary (U Thant) and Nobel Peace Prize winner (Aung San Suu Kyi), possesses precious gems, petroleum, extensive forests, good farmland—and yet the majority of its 53 million people live a hand-to-mouth existence of poverty and repression, and its Nobel Laureate is under house arrest.
The main problem is a military government with little respect for its people or concern for the opinion of the outside world. While US sanctions have cost thou-sands of jobs, the regime still does plenty of business with its neighbors, including Thailand and China.
“My dream will come true”
In cooperation with our partners and with community leaders, NCP will be providing $11,000 in aid for tailoring and thatch-making projects for women’s groups, and for a reforestation initiative to provide seedlings of the Pin Sein tree to hill tribe communities where deforestation is rampant. The tree grows quickly, sends up new shoots when cut for firewood, and its leaves are both medicinal and the base for a favorite sour soup. NCP also hopes to send $5000 in scholarships for children from the delta whose families are still recovering from 2008’s Cyclone Nargis.Article submitted by NCP Director: David Radcliff -- Based in Elgin, IL, David travels widely around the U.S. doing presentations in schools, congregations, youth events, community settings, and regional and national gatherings. His areas of emphasis are living responsibly with the earth, living respectfully and justly with our neighbors, and generally confronting the culture of consumption for our own spiritual health and for the good of the planet, its people and coming generations. David is a graduate of Bridgewater College and Bethany Seminary (MDiv, DMin [peace studies]); teaches courses at Elizabethtown College in the areas of globalization, environmental care, and poverty and hunger; leads Learning Tours to the Arctic, Amazon, Nepal, Burma, Sudan, and Central America; received the 2008 West/Whitelow Humanitarian Award from Bridgewater College; and has traded in his car for a bicycle. Contact him at dradcliff@newcommunityproject.org
Friday, April 9, 2010
The Examen of Consciousness
This method of prayer is based on nearly 500 years of Jesuit spiritual tradition. St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, received this method of prayer as a gift from God and he believed that it was not only meant to enrich his own Christian life, but was to be shared with others. To Ignatius, gratitude is the most important step on the spiritual journey and when practiced will help us find God in all things and can transform the way we look at our lives and at others. This way of praying allowed him to discover the voice of God within his own heart and to experience a growth in familiarity with God’s will. Therefore, he encourages us to look back over the course of our day, and pay attention to what the Spirit of God is doing in and around us.
This five step way of praying takes about 10-15 minutes to complete. Once you have done the Examen a few times, you will find your own rhythm and method.
Here is an overview of the five steps of the Consciousness of Examen:
1. Recall that you are in the presence of God. Invite God to be with you during this sacred time and to help you be grateful and honest as you look back on the day.
2. Thank God for the blessings of the day. Review the day and let special moments of pleasure spring to mind, from the most significant and obvious to the more common and ordinary. Remember that God is found in the details. Honor the gifts of others in your life, but don’t forget to recognize the gifts in you, for they too are God-given.
3. Ask for awareness of the Holy Spirit’s aid. Ask to receive a deeper insight from the Holy Spirit so you can look deep into your actions and motives with honesty, patience and love. The Holy Spirit will inspire you to see with growing freedom he development of your life story.
4. Now examine how you have lived the past 24 hours. Recall the events of the day; explore the context of your actions – why did you do what you did? Who/what were you involved with, review your hopes and hesitations. Was your heart divided – wavering between helping and disregarding, scoffing and encouraging, listening and ignoring, rebuking and forgiving, speaking and silence, neglecting and thanking, etc.? See the opportunities for growth in faith, hope and love that were before you and how you responded to each opportunity. Examine what moved you to act the way you did. Notice where you acted freely. See where you now sense you were swept along without freedom. See where Christ entered into your decision-making where you might have paused to receive His influence and where you were oblivious to Jesus.
5. Pray words of reconciliation and resolve. Now that you have reviewed the past day, look upon yourself with compassion and ask for forgiveness for those times that you resisted God’s presence in your life and invite God to be part of your future. Give thanks for the graces you have received and the enlightening presence of God.
Reproduced with permission from: The Jesuit Center, Wernersville, PA.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Emmanuel’s Gift: Free Wheelchair Mission
Do you have a hero? No, I don’t mean a star baseball player or a winning quarterback. I mean a real hero. I mean one who does something so generous, so magnanimous that many lives are improved.
Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah is one of those life-changers. And he is indeed one of my heroes. Emmanuel was born in the West African nation of Ghana. Sadly, he was born with a malformed leg. Sad, but not unusual. In that nation of 20 million people, 2 million are disabled. That’s 10% of the population, 10 % who were traditionally thought to be unworthy of life. So many of these less-than-perfect babies were poisoned, or left to die in forested areas or hidden in homes. And if they were allowed to mature and grow, they often had no recourse but to beg in the streets.
Although Emmanuel’s father abandoned the family when he saw his son’s deformity, Emmanuel’s mother refused to harm her son, so he grew to adulthood knowing he could be productive and wanting to prove that others in similar situations were also able to contribute to their society. Upon hearing about the Challenged Athletes Foundation, a charitable group in California, Emmanuel contacted them, requesting a bicycle.
A bicycle, for a one-legged man? What was he thinking? Well, what he was thinking was to ride across his country, 380 miles, to show that citizens of Ghana with handicaps still deserved to be treated as viable citizens. Emmanuel did indeed meet this goal and is credited with single-handedly changing the way handicapped folks are treated in Ghana. He did this not only by riding to raise awareness, but he also provided invaluable aid to his fellow residents of Ghana by obtaining wheels for them, too.
No, not bicycles with wheels, but rather chairs with wheels.
So, isn’t that a “wheelchair?”
No, again, not the typical type of wheelchair you see here in the United States.
Can you picture one of those ever-present white plastic porch chairs? You know, the inexpensive ones you see around your neighborhood…or even on your own porch…during the summer. That’s the type of chair now being used by many of the physically disabled folks in Ghana because Emmanuel helped forge a long-distance relationship with the US-based Free Wheelchair Mission. Who would have thought that one of those plastic chairs could be motorized in such a way as to provide freedom for its owner? And for only 59 dollars and 20 cents.
“Founded in 2001, Free Wheelchair Mission is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to providing wheelchairs to the impoverished disabled in developing nations.”* To date 436,380 wheelchairs have been shipped to 76 countries, Ghana, of course, being one of them.
May we all have vision to see the miracles present among us, whether those miracles be courageous “world-changing” bike riders or simple plastic chairs which provide mobility, and a higher quality of life, for those in need.
-- Contributed by Bonnie Rhoads, ANE Peace and Justice Committee Member, Palmyra COB
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Want to know more about this amazing man? Emmanuel’s incredible life, emphasizing his tireless work on behalf of others, was highlighted in a recently-made documentary film, the DVD form of which is now available.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Bound Together: A Long Struggle For Justice
Two of our children began school in NW Baltimore where each was the only white child in her class. They were the minority students, but knew full acceptance in their elementary school. I believe our family’s positive experience with minority status was related to the fact that the civil rights movement we know in the US came out of the African American Southern church. Since it is February (Black History month), I’m thinking about this movement and wondering what insights it holds for us Brethren today.
Webster defines civil rights (assume USA) as rights belonging to an individual by virtue of citizenship, especially those guaranteed by the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution and subsequent acts of Congress. Our understanding of these rights is rooted in the thinking of founders like Thomas Jefferson who, in 1774 said, ”A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature and not as the gift of their magistrate.” A much higher standard that the laws of nature is the vision Jesus gave us of God’s kingdom, and it was this Biblical vision, thankfully, that inspired the Civil Rights movement we know best.
The Southern Black Church was the powerful community from which came the movement to resist the dehumanization of segregation. The value that each person is a child of God gave many the strength, courage, and discipline needed for the long struggle for justice. The value of returning good for evil and thus maintaining the moral high ground led to creative actions that showed the world the raw inequities of segregation. And the understanding that the Struggle was not “against flesh and blood, but principalities” helped shape the value that the fate of oppressor and oppressed were irrevocably bound. That leaders and membership were seeped in Christian scripture and faith gave opportunity for the Church (and others) to make a powerful testimony in the marketplace to Jesus’ love and power.
What can this example teach us: We are Brethren, steeped in scripture. All around us are civil rights issues of concern: immigration, extraordinary rendition, regular prison conditions, increasing gap between rich and poor, health care, etc. Unlike those in the Southern Black Church, most of us are not victims of human rights abuse, not even close to the abuse, so we can easily turn away from these concerns. But many of us believe our prosperity or downfall is bound together with that of “the least of these”, don’t we? We have the insights down to our core that “Jesus loves me” and “Jesus loves all the children of the world”. Surely these understandings motivate us to be disciplined and stay engaged with, rather than tuning out, the injustices around us. There is no formula for dealing with the overwhelming concerns of our world, but by prayer and faith, we can affirm our God still knows the way through wilderness. We have to follow.
Joan Huston, Mt. Wilson CoB
Webster defines civil rights (assume USA) as rights belonging to an individual by virtue of citizenship, especially those guaranteed by the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution and subsequent acts of Congress. Our understanding of these rights is rooted in the thinking of founders like Thomas Jefferson who, in 1774 said, ”A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature and not as the gift of their magistrate.” A much higher standard that the laws of nature is the vision Jesus gave us of God’s kingdom, and it was this Biblical vision, thankfully, that inspired the Civil Rights movement we know best.
The Southern Black Church was the powerful community from which came the movement to resist the dehumanization of segregation. The value that each person is a child of God gave many the strength, courage, and discipline needed for the long struggle for justice. The value of returning good for evil and thus maintaining the moral high ground led to creative actions that showed the world the raw inequities of segregation. And the understanding that the Struggle was not “against flesh and blood, but principalities” helped shape the value that the fate of oppressor and oppressed were irrevocably bound. That leaders and membership were seeped in Christian scripture and faith gave opportunity for the Church (and others) to make a powerful testimony in the marketplace to Jesus’ love and power.
What can this example teach us: We are Brethren, steeped in scripture. All around us are civil rights issues of concern: immigration, extraordinary rendition, regular prison conditions, increasing gap between rich and poor, health care, etc. Unlike those in the Southern Black Church, most of us are not victims of human rights abuse, not even close to the abuse, so we can easily turn away from these concerns. But many of us believe our prosperity or downfall is bound together with that of “the least of these”, don’t we? We have the insights down to our core that “Jesus loves me” and “Jesus loves all the children of the world”. Surely these understandings motivate us to be disciplined and stay engaged with, rather than tuning out, the injustices around us. There is no formula for dealing with the overwhelming concerns of our world, but by prayer and faith, we can affirm our God still knows the way through wilderness. We have to follow.
Joan Huston, Mt. Wilson CoB
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Poverty in America? Part II
In Luke 12: 13-21, The Parable of the Rich Fool, the rich man foolishly determines that he must build larger barns to house the surplus of crops with which he has been blessed so that he may enjoy his bounty for years to come. Let us not be foolish with the bounty we are blessed with, but instead, let us be mindful of those less fortunate than ourselves and share our bounty with God’s most needy children.
The following are just a few suggested methods of sharing your resources.
1. Donate food to a local food bank. Fast for one or two meals per week and consciously reallocate those unused resources to the hungry. Use this time of fasting to ponder what it may be like to go hungry. Pray that your sacrifice will provide an effective means to reducing poverty. Three meals per day seem a bit extravagant when compared with the truly needy.
2. Find a coat / clothing donation site and give-up your extra winter coat(s). You know, that lonesome coat that hangs in the back of your closet which you never really wear or only wear occasionally but you’ve been reluctant to get rid of. Someone less fortunate than yourself could really use that coat.
3. Sponsor a known family in need. Check in with them weekly to ask if they have any specific needs. Invite them to your home for a warm meal.
Luke 14:12-14 (NIV) "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."
4. Start a savings fund either at home or at the bank, and put away a small amount of money each week which you will give away to a family in need next Christmas.
If you are not confident that your resources are sufficient to help, please remember Mother Teresa who had “Three pennies and a dream from God to start a school for the poor.” While her superiors doubted that she had the resources to create such a school, she responded “with God and three pennies I can do anything.”
Additional thoughts and ideas on the subject of reducing poverty and hunger may be added to the ANE Peace Advocates Exchange Blog or you may contact me directly at toddarch@comcast.net.
Contributed by Todd A. Thomas, Annville Church of the Brethren, ANE Peace and Justice Committee
The following are just a few suggested methods of sharing your resources.
1. Donate food to a local food bank. Fast for one or two meals per week and consciously reallocate those unused resources to the hungry. Use this time of fasting to ponder what it may be like to go hungry. Pray that your sacrifice will provide an effective means to reducing poverty. Three meals per day seem a bit extravagant when compared with the truly needy.
2. Find a coat / clothing donation site and give-up your extra winter coat(s). You know, that lonesome coat that hangs in the back of your closet which you never really wear or only wear occasionally but you’ve been reluctant to get rid of. Someone less fortunate than yourself could really use that coat.
3. Sponsor a known family in need. Check in with them weekly to ask if they have any specific needs. Invite them to your home for a warm meal.
Luke 14:12-14 (NIV) "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."
4. Start a savings fund either at home or at the bank, and put away a small amount of money each week which you will give away to a family in need next Christmas.
If you are not confident that your resources are sufficient to help, please remember Mother Teresa who had “Three pennies and a dream from God to start a school for the poor.” While her superiors doubted that she had the resources to create such a school, she responded “with God and three pennies I can do anything.”
Additional thoughts and ideas on the subject of reducing poverty and hunger may be added to the ANE Peace Advocates Exchange Blog or you may contact me directly at toddarch@comcast.net.
Contributed by Todd A. Thomas, Annville Church of the Brethren, ANE Peace and Justice Committee
Poverty in America?
Does poverty touch your life? If not, maybe it should.
In The United States of America, one in five people live in poverty, while one-in-five people are living on the margin of poverty, perhaps one paycheck away from poverty level. By deduction, three-in-five Americans are not threatened by poverty. As an optimist, I see this as great news. Sixty percent of Americans are in a position to help the forty percent of Americans whom are living at poverty’s doorstep. However, from the viewpoint of a pessimist, it may appear that nearly every other person is living in venerable conditions. So as you eat dinner tonight, imagine your neighbor struggling to gather enough food to survive another day and think of ways that you might help them. Understanding and acknowledging what it means to live in poverty is an important first step in helping to solve the problem of poverty. But at what point in our lives do we put our own desires, goals and needs aside to open our hearts and to help our neighbor who does not have as much as we do?
Phil 4:11-13 (Phi) ...For I have learned to be content, whatever the circumstances may be. I know now how to live when things are difficult and I know how to live when things are prosperous. In general and in particular I have learned the secret of eating well or going hungry--of facing either plenty or poverty. I am ready for anything through the strength of the One who lives within me.
Unfortunately, there will always be someone with greater needs than our own. We are tempted to isolate ourselves from those unpleasant circumstances. How can we responsibly balance our own needs with the needs of a stranger? Is it possible for us to recognize when we are blessed with plenty so that we may redirect the surplus to the needy?
As Christmas vacations come to an end and we return to “business as usual”, the New Year will be full of opportunities to share stories of our own blessed Christmas experiences and family gatherings and our goals for 2010. Perhaps we may begin a new tradition by planning now to help those in need and to fit others into our 2010 Christmas experience by pledging to sacrifice our own resources over the next 12 months. I assure you that the joy of giving will in itself be a gift that you may appreciate over and over again.
Contributed by Todd A. Thomas, Annville Church of the Brethren, ANE Peace and Justice Committee
In The United States of America, one in five people live in poverty, while one-in-five people are living on the margin of poverty, perhaps one paycheck away from poverty level. By deduction, three-in-five Americans are not threatened by poverty. As an optimist, I see this as great news. Sixty percent of Americans are in a position to help the forty percent of Americans whom are living at poverty’s doorstep. However, from the viewpoint of a pessimist, it may appear that nearly every other person is living in venerable conditions. So as you eat dinner tonight, imagine your neighbor struggling to gather enough food to survive another day and think of ways that you might help them. Understanding and acknowledging what it means to live in poverty is an important first step in helping to solve the problem of poverty. But at what point in our lives do we put our own desires, goals and needs aside to open our hearts and to help our neighbor who does not have as much as we do?
Phil 4:11-13 (Phi) ...For I have learned to be content, whatever the circumstances may be. I know now how to live when things are difficult and I know how to live when things are prosperous. In general and in particular I have learned the secret of eating well or going hungry--of facing either plenty or poverty. I am ready for anything through the strength of the One who lives within me.
Unfortunately, there will always be someone with greater needs than our own. We are tempted to isolate ourselves from those unpleasant circumstances. How can we responsibly balance our own needs with the needs of a stranger? Is it possible for us to recognize when we are blessed with plenty so that we may redirect the surplus to the needy?
As Christmas vacations come to an end and we return to “business as usual”, the New Year will be full of opportunities to share stories of our own blessed Christmas experiences and family gatherings and our goals for 2010. Perhaps we may begin a new tradition by planning now to help those in need and to fit others into our 2010 Christmas experience by pledging to sacrifice our own resources over the next 12 months. I assure you that the joy of giving will in itself be a gift that you may appreciate over and over again.
Contributed by Todd A. Thomas, Annville Church of the Brethren, ANE Peace and Justice Committee
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