Random Thoughts for the New Year


January 2003


A Holiday Surprise


On January 26 I arrived in my office to find it full of beautifully wrapped gifts. There must have been 50 or 60, each labeled for a boy or girl and with an appropriate age range. There also were bags of bath towels, bed sheets, and kitchen utensils. There were so many boxes and bags that I couldn't get to the computer. I couldn't imagine where everything had come from, why they were in my office, and where they were meant to go. We've never had a program for distributing material goods at all, so this really was a surprise.

It turned out that a woman and several children had dropped them off specifically for people in need and meant for them to be distributed to people who might otherwise have no Christmas presents. The person who received the gifts in my absence and who put them in my office for safe-keeping just assumed I knew about the delivery and didn't ask the woman's name.

Our first thought was to call the neighborhood food pantry and assistance program, but their office was closed for the week. Then we thought of one of our own volunteers who is an interpreter for Community Refugee and Immigration Services (CRIS) here in Columbus. Through his assistance, we were able to deliver the gifts to a non-profit agency serving Hispanic families in need, and they were distributed that very afternoon to homes in another area of the city.

* * * *

As I wrote the paragraphs above, I was about to end with this sentence: "Since we do not know who brought the gifts, we can't send a thank-you note. I hope the donors will see this message and know that their generosity brought joy to many families." As I typed the last words, the phone rang, and-another surprise-the woman who called was the very person who had brought all those gifts!

It turned out that she had been intending to deliver everything to the Interfaith Hospitality Network, a group of churches that takes turns housing homeless families. The gifts were all contributed by the children of Beechwold Christian Church as part of a Christmas project. She found our office by mistake!


I explained how we had distributed the gifts, and she was pleased that they had found their way to people in need. I am pleased that now I can send a thank-you note on behalf of the recipients, and that I can say here
Thank you,Beechwold Christian Church Sunday School

Horizon Interfaith #3


Our work at Marion Correctional Institution continues with the third group of 48 Jewish, Christian, and Muslim men in the Horizon Interfaith dorm. Eight regular volunteers travel with me to the prison on Monday evenings to participate in our program. The primary purposes of our work there are to build community, to provide opportunities for interfaith dialogue and understanding, and to teach conflict management skills and concepts.

We have an additional goal this year. We are working to create agendas and activities that can be replicated in new interfaith programs in other prisons. So far, the MCI Horizon Interfaith is the only one in the US that includes all three Abrahamic faiths, but there is great interest across the country, and we anticipate that other interfaith dorms will be established in Ohio and in other states. Our work at MCI has expanded each year. In our first year, we provided 10 weeks of programming. In the second, 2001-2002, prison administrators requested that we expand the program to 16 weeks. For this cycle, beginning in August and continuing through the end of May 2003, we are providing 32 weekly programs-about 3 each month. Our volunteers make it possible to accomplish this work, because the community connection is a key element for success.

Peace Education in a Time of War


These are difficult times for peace educators.
First of all, there's the question of language. Are we at war, or are our governments at something else? What does the word war actually mean, now in the 21st Century? Must a new generation learn the bitter lessons that soldiers and civilians have learned time and time again in the 20th Century? What about civil liberties-are we destroying our democracy in order to save it? And how can people of diverse opinions even talk to each other?
Here at the Interfaith Center for Peace, we ask all these questions and more. We are not alone, it appears, from the email and phone requests I receive daily. Sad to say, these are not new questions. "Issues of war and peace have divided Christians for centuries. Some years ago an Episcopal pacifist and a Marine, members of a congregation in Virginia, found themselves unable to talk with each other at coffee hour because of their deeply divided opinions. Finding this unacceptable, they set about to devise a strategy for dialogue among people of widely differing beliefs. With the help of other parishioners, they created a successful 6-session series for their own congregation and later made it widely available. We are now revising this guide to address the current situation and will facilitate the series in two local congregations in January and February. For more information, please contact the Center."



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