NP counseling fund

[Doug Millison]

You may not know that this fund continues to provide non-religious
psychological counseling services for survivors of the Oklahoma bombing,
the same kind of services it has already begun offering in New York. The
UCC is not a fundamentalist church, it is a progressive,  Protestant
denomination, which affirms gay and lesbian members and pastors, known as a
peace and justice church. I mentioned this fund in this particular email
because I had just heard about it at week at our church here locally.  Our
local UCC churches are sponsoring an interfaith gathering on November 11
which will include Muslim clergy, a rabbi, and UCC clergy.  We will discuss
the following questions:

1. Would you share with us for a few minutes what at the core of your faith
sustains and renews you in good times and bad?  And perhaps share a story
that exemplifies why your faith is so important to you.

2. In what sense is peace a core value in your tradition, and how are you
instructed/inspired to live into peace, to achieve it, personally and in
community?

3. In the midst of violence and uncertainty, what resources does your
tradition offer for the anxious, the grief-stricken, the wounded, and the
displaced?

4. Could you tell a story or two from your scripture or from history or from
your personal experience - stories about unexpected friendships and deep
relationships between people of different faiths?  How are these friendships
born, and how do the players escape the traditional structures keeping us
apart?

5. In your tradition is there room for ALL God's children, regardless of
their faith?  Is there any universal inclusive vision of humankind that
honors our diversity and might be an image for us to hold up?

6. If through the love of God, we miraculously learn to live harmoniously in
this world over the next 25 years, if we succeed in burying animosity and
embracing an authentic peace, what would the world look like?

7. As people of faith who share so much in spite of our differences, what
can we do collaboratively, here and now, to be a healing influence in our
own neighborhoods and the world?

-Doug


davemarc:
Still catching up with old email....

From: Doug Millison <nopynching at yahoo.com>
>
> Just today, I pointed to a
> web site where people can donate $ that wlll go
> directly to pay for counseling services for victims of
> the attacks -- I don't recall anybody else pointing
> out such a resource, but perhaps I missed it.

Yeah, I'm not sure I saw anybody else pointing out the recommended
resource -- http://www.ucc.org/disaster/d091901a.htm -- which, when I
checked it out, turned to be a site for a United Church of Christ
internal
fund administered by United Church of Christ Wider Church Ministries.

A wider variety of resources can be found all over the web, including
the
site http://websearch.about.com/cs/underattack/index.htm

d.



Doug Millison - Writer/Editor/Web Editorial Consultant
millison at online-journalist.com
www.Online-Journalist.com