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PAGE B3SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 2007
ReligionPage edited by Justin D. Beckett
Ask the clergyMcClatchy Newspapers
The great supperBy Rev. DR. TimoThy R. De BeaumonT, SR.
Jesus told many parables and while dining with some of the Jewish religious leaders called Pharisees, He told of a great feast. “A certain man gave a great supper and invited many; and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, “Come, for all things are now ready.” But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, “I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.” And another said, “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you
to have me excused.” Still another said, “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.” So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being an-gry, said to his servant, “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.” And the servant said, “Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.” Then the master said to the servant, “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall
taste my supper.” As we read this story, consider
this ‘certain man’ as ‘God, the Father’, preparing a feast for His Son, Jesus. God sent His Son, Jesus, as a servant to invite first the Jew to salvation, because salvation is of the Jew first. (John 4:22; Romans 1:16, 17) But most of the Jews of Jesus’ time refused His invitation and asked to be excused. After their rejection of God’s invitation, the invite went out to all mankind. God planned this feast before the foundations of the world and we Christians believe this feast to be the ‘Supper of the Lamb’ spo-ken of in Revelation 19: 6-9. But what
excuse do you have for not accepting the invitation?
This is a private party, all are invited, but you must R.S.V.P. The price to get into this party has already been paid. Jesus paid our way with His life on the cross. Today, there is still room at God’s great feast. “Are you poor, lame and been maimed by sin? Have you lived your life blind to God’s truth and won-dered what life is all about?” To R.S.V.P. to your invitation pray this sample prayer, “God, thank You for inviting me to Your supper. I accept Your invitation. I know I don’t deserve to attend, because I have sinned and broken Your laws. I
ask You to forgive me of all my sins. Thank You Jesus for paying the price for my sins and as of this very minute I make You, Jesus, Lord and Savior of my life. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit to lead and guide me in my new life. Amen”
Pastor Timothy R. De Beaumont, Sr.
Gate Way Chapel
http://www.gatewaychapel.com/
Do you have a perspective you would like to share on a contemporary religious issue? If so, please write to Religion Editor Justin Beckett at [email protected] or call 951-6254 to set up an in-office appointment.
By eRiK DeRRStaff Writer
Just as people need to eat, sleep and breathe to live, they also need to reach out and lend a hand to others to truly live well, says Dr. Nirmala Murthy.
“The nature of the spirit is to be compassionate,” she says.
Murthy directs the High Desert chapter of the Art of Living Foundation, an inter-national nonprofit that works to create a better global community by showing people how to better accept and care for themselves and each other.
That deeper understanding leads peo-ple to a heightened inner peace and well-being, which can then positively effect ev-erything else in their lives, Murthy says.
“There is only one mind in this world, one consciousness,” she says. “If one changes, the rest will automati-cally change.”
Located along Highway 18 in Apple Valley, the chapter offers training work-shops based on the teachings of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, a scholar and spiritual leader from India who 25 years ago es-tablished the Art of Living Foundation. The foundation has since grown into one of the world’s largest volunteer non-governmental organizations that provides humanitarian assistance and education in at least 146 countries.
The center, which draws an estimat-ed 70 regular practitioners, will host “Honoring Local Heroes of Humanity,” a celebration of the organization’s an-niversary as well as the community service work of local individuals and
groups, starting at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 1 in the Spring Valley Community Center, 12975 Rolling Ridge Drive in Victorville.
Those honored at the gathering include:
• Anjana Puri, daughter of local doctors Geetha and Rajiv Puri, who has spent two years raising money for and helping chil-dren in Venezuela, Peru and Mexico;
• Irene and Addison Smith, who have provided holiday meals and material support to needy seniors and children since 1991;
• St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Val-ley, which has offered an array of com-munity outreach programs that promote healthy families since it opened in 1956.
The event will present local cardiol-ogist Prem Reddy, founder of Desert
Valley Hospital, Desert Valley Medical Group and Desert Valley Charitable Foundation, with an Art of Living Foun-dation Patron Award.
Murthy says the teachings of Shankar — not to be confused with the acclaimed Indian sitar player of the same name — show people how to “live a better life” with a state of being that isn’t confined to any religious ideology or practice.
On the other hand, Dierdre Trujillo, 57, a nurse from Apple Valley, says that her six years with the foundation have given her a deeper appreciation for her Catholic belief.
“I realized the training enhanced my faith ... set me on a journey inward that gave me a deeper connection to my faith,” she says.
The Art of Living’s teachings, says Trujillo, “creates in you such a sense of belonging.”
Media saleswoman Martha Moore of Apple Valley puts it another way: “It’s like rebooting your computer.”
The Art of Living also teaches true global peace will be established when the people of the world finally recognize they are all interconnected and refocus their attention on improving those connections says Murthy.
“It’s more about giving instead of get-ting,” says Agnes Stubblefield, 8, who often joins her mom and the rest of the group in feeding the homeless. “Your heart is filled with love.”
The foundation is also giving the Daily Press a Samaritan Award for the publica-tion’s 70 years of local news coverage.
Erik Derr can be reached at 955-5358 or [email protected].
Philanthropic foundation promotes spiritual value of service, honors those who help local communityHeroes of
umanity
And the award goes to ...• The “Honoring Local Heroes of Humanity” celebration25 Years of Service by the Art of Living Foundation Cultural program and refreshments• When: 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb.1• Where: Spring Valley Lake Community Center, 12975 Rolling Ridge Drive, Victorville• For More Information: Call 242-4165 or 242-3000
Q: Are some little white lies OK and what is the limit if they are?
The Rev. holly mcKissick, pastor of St. andrew Christian Church:
A: The therapist actually encouraged her client to lie: The next time
you talk to your mother-in-law, give her all the credit, thank her for doing (such) a superb job raising a son who can cook and clean. From the wise chair of the therapist, the “white lie” served a purpose: strengthening a rela-tionship.
Aside from Proverbs and a few wisdom sayings, our Scriptures show little interest in “white lies” or other matters of decorum. When our friend asks how she looks in her new jeans, Jesus would probably be indifferent if we bent the truth. Regrettably, Christianity has often focused on such trivia, ignoring Jesus’ chal-lenging words and their implica-tions for the big issues of the day — from slavery to civil rights to military aggression.
Jesus’ teachings cut to the pro-found issues of his day, and ours: confronting exclusive systems that oppress and creating inclu-sive communities of peace. In seeking that community, our tra-dition speaks boldly against fab-rication by religious and political leaders, whether it is King David justifying the murder of Uriah or modern politicians bending intel-ligence to justify war.
And yet the question about white lies offers some illumina-tion. Questions of human com-munity are seldom clear-cut, yet all of our claims, true or false, made to a mother-in-law or to a nation, must be weighed: Do they serve life or destroy it?
Rabbi amy Wallk Katz, associate rabbi of Congregation Beth Shalom:
Jewish tradition teaches that peace is of the utmost impor-tance. As a result sometimes a white lie is exactly what is needed. Consider the famous story in Genesis 18. Three men visited Abraham’s tent and told him that he and Sarah were to have a child. Sarah reacted by laughing to herself and saying, “Now that I am withered, am I to have enjoyment with my hus-band so old?”
In the very next verse God says to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying ‘Shall I in truth bear a child, old as I am?’ Is anything too wondrous for the Lord?”
Notice that God rephrases Sarah’s comment to refer to her own advanced age rather than Abraham’s. Jewish tradition assumes that this was not a mis-take. God deliberately misquoted Sarah because God did not want Abraham to feel insulted. God understands that Sarah’s remarks could easily be inter-preted that way and changed what Sarah said for the purpose of what is known in Hebrew as shalom bayit, peace in the home.
Truthfulness is an important value. But brutal frankness can, and often is, used as a weapon.
Based on this story, the Tal-mud states that one is not obli-gated to tell the whole truth if it will hurt someone’s feelings. While telling a white lie is not good, sometimes it is the best alternative.
Telling little white
lies
t h o u g h t o f t h e w e e k“Guide us the straight way – the way of those upon whom Thou hast bestowed Thy blessings, not of those who have been condemned [by Thee], nor of those who go astray!” — The holy Quran, Surah 1:2
New group at Penn studies the science behind spirituality
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The new Center for Spirituality and the Mind at the Univer-sity of Pennsylvania is using brain imaging technology to examine such questions, and to investigate how spiritual and secular beliefs affect our health and behavior.
“Very few are looking at spiritual-ity from a neurological side, from the brain-mind side,” said Dr. Andrew Newberg, director of the center.
A doctor of nuclear medicine and an assistant professor at Penn, Newberg also has co-authored three books on the
science-spirituality relationship.The center is not a bricks-and-mortar
structure but a multidisciplinary team of Penn researchers exploring the relationship between the brain and spirituality from bio-logical, psychological, social and ideological viewpoints. Founded last April, it is bringing together some 20 experts from fields includ-ing medicine, pastoral care, religious studies, social work and bioethics.
“The brain is a believing machine because it has to be,” Newberg said. “Beliefs affect every part of our lives. They make us who we are. They are the essence of our being.”
“Atheists have belief systems, too,” Newberg said.
How does the center test the relationship
between the mind and spirituality?In one study, Newberg and colleagues used
imaging technology to look at the brains of Pentecostal Christians speaking in tongues — known scientifically as glossolalia — then looked at their brains when they were sing-ing gospel music. They found that those prac-ticing glossolalia showed decreased activ-ity in the brain’s language center, compared with the singing group.
The imaging results are suggestive of people’s description that they do not have control of their own speech when speaking in tongues. Newberg said scientists believe that speech is taken over by another part of the brain during glossolalia, but did not find it during the study.
Can science and religion gel?
AP Photo/Matt RourkeDr. Andrew Newberg, director of Center for Spirituality and the Mind at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, poses with images of brain scans at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Religious Perspectives
Photos by Michael Stenerson / Staff PhotographerMembers participate in a yoga breathing exercise at the Art of Living in Apple Valley.
PaGe B6 Daily Press, Victorville, Calif. ReliGion Saturday, January 27, 2007 Page edited by Justin D. Beckett
Mo s t A m e r i c a n s s ay they’re religious and their beliefs are impor-
tant to their lives, yet I’m as-tonished at how many of these people blatantly ignore the moral expectations intrinsic to their religion.
Religion is not only about worship and ritual; it tells be-lievers how they are supposed to live. Thus, the holy books of every major religion are filled with precepts and principles about honesty, justice, fidel-ity, compassion, and charity that leave no doubt about the role ethics and personal virtue should play in our daily lives at home and at work.
In a fine book entitled The Business Bible, Rabbi Wayne Dosick tells of a soapmaker who challenged a rabbi: “What good is religion? It teaches honesty, but most people are dishonest.”
The rabbi answered, “My dear soapmaker, religion -- like soap -- only works when you use it.”
The ancient truths and endur-ing values embodied in tradition-
al religions are much more than guidelines or suggestions about how to behave. To those who pro-fess religious belief, moral and ethical behavior is not an option. It’s a mandate.
To practice the rituals of a religion and to claim reverent identity without scrupulous concern for the moral teachings of the faith is like going to a fine restaurant and eating the menu rather than the food.
It’s also blatant hypocrisy. Integrity is about wholeness, the unity of beliefs, words, and actions. I’m not saying you have to be devout to be ethical. I’m saying if religion is important to you, so is ethics.
Religion in the business world
Character Countsby Michael Josephson
By Patrick WinnMcClatchy Newspapers
His face is soft. His shirt is pressed. As the 19-year-old mission-ary speaks, he sounds
rehearsed but sincere.“And if you don’t mind, I’d like
to tell you what Joseph Smith saw in his own words ...”
Patrick Loftus goes on to talk about pillars of light in a forest, a teenage boy unearthing an-cient tablets, testaments of Jesus Christ’s journeys through North America.
Nodding along is Stockton Perry, 21, a member of Chi Psi fra-ternity. He wears flip-flops, fleece and a dash of scruff. He’s sprawled under a tree on UNC-Chapel Hill’s picturesque south quad, eating Chick-fil-A as he listens.
“You know, I chilled with some Mormons on a trip out west. We went black widow hunting,” Per-ry says. “It was sick.” (He’s being friendly. “Sick” is dude-speak for “awesome.”)
Loftus and his companion mis-sionary, Jody Zimmer, kneel be-side Perry, getting comfortable but staying on script.
“Did they give you a Book of Mormon?” Zimmer asks.
Like the other students Zimmer and Loftus approach that day, Per-ry leaves with a crisp copy.
Zimmer and Loftus are Mor-mons — two of four young men sent to Chapel Hill by the Utah-
based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The missionar-ies are responsible for guiding the college town’s inhabitants toward one of the world’s fastest-growing faiths.
Like many college students, they’re bright-eyed. They’re broke. They sleep two to a room on bunk beds in a bare apartment.
But these young men aren’t stu-
dents, nor are they coming of age via hangovers and hook-ups.
Their adolescence-to-adulthood journey is marked by rigid disci-pline, a soldier’s selflessness and the steady drumbeat of rejection.
They will make it to college eventually. But for now, they’re on a mission from God.
Mostly college students live in Shadowood Apartments, a nonde-
script complex several miles north of UNC-CH’s campus.
The missionaries’ apartment is the one with a blue-eyed like-ness of Jesus laminated and tacked to the outside wall. They used to leave their bikes lean-ing against the railing nearby. That was before somebody stole one right under Christ’s nose. Now they keep the bikes inside
the apartment, a stripped-down barracks of a living space with patchy walls and no TV.
Three of the missionaries liv-ing here are from Mormon-ma-jority towns in Utah — Loftus is from Salt Lake City; Josh Feller, 21, is from Utah’s Dammeron Valley; and Calvin Lott, 19, is from Pleasant View. Zimmer, 21, is from a Mormon-minority city, Medford, Ore.
Before coming here, each spent roughly three weeks at the church’s central training center in Provo, Utah. A sort of boot camp for missionaries, it teaches the proselytizing basics.
The two-year missions are not about free-spirited self-discovery.
“This isn’t my time now,” Zim-mer says. “This is God’s time.”
They begin their day at 6:30 a.m. with exercise, grooming and prayer. They wear uniforms: dark slacks, white button-up shirts, ties and nametags.
They replace their first names with the title “Elder.” (John Smith becomes “Elder Smith.”) Mission-aries try not to repeat their given first name until the mission ends.
Almost every earthly pleasure — even talking to your mother — is a distraction from God’s mission. The adjustment, Loftus says, can be very difficult.
“I’m naturally a little shy,” he says. “I’ve grown up all my life ex-cited about this mission. But when I first got here, it was just plain hard on me.”
Mormon missionaries on soul patrol
Travis Long/Raleigh News & Observer/MCTChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints missionary elders Jody Zimmer, 20, left, and Patrick Loftus, 19, walk their bikes along Franklin Street after proselytizing on the campus at UNC-Chapel Hill.
UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, Ohio (AP) — The former seminary president who sparked a national debate on the impact of gays entering the Roman Catholic priest-hood is now tackling another sensitive issue, adding his voice to those advocating an end to mandatory celibacy.
“Celibacy used to go with priesthood as fish went with Fridays,” said the Rev. Don-ald Cozzens. “Over the past 40 to 50 years, I would argue that more and more Catholics are questioning the need to link celibacy with priesthood.”
In “Freeing Celibacy,” Cozzens suggests there may be a way through the problem by allowing celibacy as an option but dropping it as a requirement.
Although he is taking on an institution that measures change over centuries, Coz-zens — a celibate priest himself — thinks the time is right for a rethinking of celibacy.
He points to the brief stir Brazilian Car-dinal Claudio Hummes created last year by saying the Vatican should reconsider its
ban on allowing priests to marry, and the crusade to change the policy by excommuni-cated — and married — former Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo of Zambia.
“There are a number of factors that are coming together that really beg for this ques-tion to be discussed or urge us to review mandatory celibacy,” said Cozzens, inter-viewed in his office at John Carroll Univer-sity in this Cleveland suburb.
There were about 42,000 active priests nationwide in 2005, a 29 percent decline from 1965, according to Georgetown Uni-versity’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. About 3,200 parishes were without a resident priest in 2005, compared with 549 in 1965.
“Many, if not most, of the inactive priests would be serving in our parishes if it were not for the law of celibacy,” Cozzens writes.
The church discounts celibacy’s re-sponsibility for the shortage, saying the increasingly materialistic culture plays a far bigger role.
Pope John Paul II was adamant that the church would not change its celibacy re-quirement. As recently as November, a Vati-can summit led by Pope Benedict XVI reaf-firmed mandatory celibacy for priests as a nonnegotiable job requirement for showing devotion to God and the people they serve.
Cozzens has been down this road before, having written four other books on issues and problems of the priesthood. In his 2000 book, “The Changing Face of the Priest-hood,” later translated into six languages, he used interviews and studies to contend that the Roman Catholic Church had a dispro-portionately high percentage of gay priests, nearly half of all seminarians and priests.
His previous writings made a valuable contribution to the debate over homosexual-ity by raising the issue at a time when many priests and bishops were pretending it didn’t exist, said the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the conservative journal First Things, who upholds the Catholic teaching that same-sex attraction is disordered.
Gadfly priest challenges mandatory celibacy in new book
AP Photo/Tony DejakProf. Donald Cozzens poses on the campus of John Carrol University in Cleveland. The former seminary president who sparked church-wide debate about the number of gay Roman Catholic priests tackles mandatory celibacy in a new book, calling it a burden-some, unnecessary restriction.
By TeRRy maTTinGlyScripps Howard News Service
Donald Seitz had suffered through a long day dur-ing a bad week at his office
on Nashville’s famous Music Row.On his way home from a busi-
ness call, he drove past the Greater Pleasant View Baptist Church in Brentwood, Tenn. As usual, the no-tech sign out front offered a folksy thought for the week. This one caught his eye.
“He who kneels before God can stand before anyone,” it said, in black, movable letters inserted by hand into slots on a plain white background.
Seitz pulled over and got out of his car to study the sign.
“It’s all about timing,” he said. “I’ve driven past thousands of church signs in my life, but this was the right sign on the right day. It got me.
“That’s the thing about these signs. They grab you when you least expect it. They move you, somehow.”
Before long, the president of Redbird Music crossed the line between intrigued and somewhat obsessed.
Along with his wife and their young son, he packed their car full of camera equipment and “lots of sippy cups” and hit the road. His goal was to find as many of these old-fashioned signs as possible — the kind that say things like “Coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous,” “Exercise daily, walk with the Lord,” “God answers knee mail” and “Give God what is right, not what is left.”
They spread their trips over three years and Seitz stopped keeping track of the miles after they passed the 20,000 mark. The result was “The Great American Book of Church Signs,” which contains 100 photographs taken in nearly 40 states. The pilgrimage, he said, was like reading “one long American sermon.”
Seitz did have questions. He wondered whether these signs remain common at rural churches, and whether they are used by city megachurches. Also, do some de-nominations embrace them, while others they are too simplistic? Would he find a red-church vs. blue-church pattern? Many of his preconceptions were based on his experiences living and driving in the Bible Belt, especially two-lane roads in the Southeast.
“This book could have been done in Tennessee, alone. In fact, I think I could have done a whole book in Nashville,” said Seitz, laughing. “In this part of the world, you can throw a rock in just about any di-rection and hit four or five church-es that have these signs.
“Church signs are more com-mon in some places than others, but if you keep looking you’ll find them at all kinds of churches all over the country.”
Thus, the Harmony Hill Church of God in Fayetteville, Tenn., pro-claimed, “Faith is a journey, not a destination.” But Seitz also found a sign that said, “Love God with all of your heart, then do whatever you want” in front of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York.
The Tompkinsville (Ky.) Church of Christ’s sign warned rural driv-ers that, “A dam holds water back. It’s not my last name. God.” On the other side of the doctrinal aisle, the sign at the South Church Unitarian Universalist sanctuary in Ports-mouth, N.H., announced — with typically broad-minded sentiments — that, “True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess.”
Seitz said he was surprised that he saw very few signs that included political themes, although it was easy to read between the lines of one that said, “The Ten Command-ments are still posted here.” It was also easy to interpret another mar-quee that stressed, “God is not a Republican or a Democrat.”
This is not advanced theology. The message on a typical sign is only eight words long and is the product of a volunteer’s clever imagination, research in old church bulletins or, in the digital age, a quick search on the World Wide Web. Most combine a chuckle with a moral message that strives to appeal to strangers as well as members.
After all of his travels, Seitz decided that the archetypal church-sign message was this one: “Life is fragile. Handle with prayer.”
“It’s succinct, it has that little pun in there and it’s powerful, if you think about it for a minute,” he said. “That’s the essence of a good church sign message. That’s what you’re trying to do — get people to stop and think for a minute.”
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