Good-bye

I've had to say good-bye to too many people recently. Not as in the death sense, just the see you later sense. But still, the see you A LOT later sense. One person, will I ever see her again? Another, when will be the next time? I feel lucky to have seen you four times in the last ten years. That's sad. I think we will never live near each other. I wish we would. Instead, we live $600 away from each other.

Today was not one of the best days of my life

Today was not one of the best days of my life. And neither will tomorrow be. I hate good-byes.

The church and the trial OR privacy and the media

Last night, I felt sort of down. So my church has been affected by a recent criminal trial. Two people who were recently tried and convicted of approximately 30 counts each. These two people are members of my church. I think the fact that several of the charges had to do with abuse of people affects the church more than if they were only charges of things like tax evasion or insurance fraud. Our church had a processing meeting last night. People could talk about their feelings, and we tried to come up with the answers to, "What do we do now?" All of that is not what got me down last night. Oddly, perhaps, what did make me feel sort of hopeless about humanity is an announcement our pastor gave at the beginning of the meeting. He said that an area tv station had received an anonymous tip from someone letting them know about the meeting. The camera crew and an anchor were outside the door right then. Obviously, I cannot know that it was a congregation person who called the tv station...but it's not like the meeting was advertised in the newspaper or something. It definitely could have a case where such-and-such church member told such-and-such non-church member and that's how it ended up getting to the media. If it came from a church member, that would make me sad.

This was an interesting situation to come up for me at this time. A couple of Sundays ago, I was on a panel of professionals from our church to talk to a Mennonite History class about how being Mennonite affects the work we do. [Side note: I was the communications professional from the church—whoa, weird...am I old enough to be that?] One thing I mentioned was that at the time I was looking for a job, it came down to a decision between my current job and a job as a newspaper reporter. The reason I was aware of at the time for not taking the reporter job was that it didn't fit my personality as well as what I do do. Ok, yes, I was somewhat afraid to step out and do those things that I'm not all that comfortable doing, but I love my job now, so that's worth quite a bit too. Anyway, I mentioned at the panel presentation that I didn't know exactly why being a newspaper reporter didn't fit in all that well for me with being Mennonite, but that I thought it related somehow. And I don't know that it doesn't fit in with the theology of Mennonitism—it's probably more of a cultural thing...not being intrusive or something. So it was interesting to me that my experience last night at my church reinforced my occupational decision.

Now for an admission: Just because I don't want to be the one being intrusive and finding out about those things that perhaps should be allowed to be private doesn't mean that I'm not one of the people reading those "juicy" stories. I'm just as curious as the next guy. Ah, hypocrisy.

In addition to the somber feelings, I also felt very proud of our church for having the meeting. I'm not a fan of things being swept under the rug or conveniently ignored. I'm proud that the response wasn't just "pray for them that God will show them their evil ways." I'm proud that some people want to confront them, want to talk to them about what is seen as guilt. I'm proud that people are struggling with this—what to feel, what to do. I'm proud that people admit they don't have the answers.

Poverty

So I've been attending our church's Wednesday night study of poverty. The text we've used is What Every Church Member Should Know About Poverty by Bill Ehlig and Ruby K. Payne. My thoughts about the text are lukewarm, but the discussion has been interesting. Things that have caught my attention the most from the study:

• Nearly 50% of students in the Newton schools receive free or reduced school lunches (I think the actual figure is 48%, with one school coming in at 60%). I know some of those instances might reflect situational poverty rather than generational poverty, but half of the students. Wow. I'm not sure what the stipulations are for receiving free/reduced lunches. I know I received reduced for a while in 5th grade after my dad was laid off.


• There are currently 50 kids in Newton? Harvey County? waiting for a match with Big Brothers/Big Sisters.


• Publicity hasn't even gone out yet that Habitat for Humanity in Harvey County will soon be accepting applications again. However, Habitat has recently received 20 inquiries for applications.

What to do? Where to start? How to get involved? Last night at the study, I got to thinking about how I'm so immersed in my little Bethel world—work, lectures, leisure time with other Bethel/former Bethel folk. Yeah, I do the little things from the list of suggested actions of how to get involved with people in poverty. And I mean, the little things. Things like talking with my cashiers at discount stores or talking with/trying to always be pleasant with waitstaff at restaurants. Like I said, little things. Our church (as well as a dozen other area churches, I believe) has been approached by the local homeless shelter to commit to staffing the shelter for one week every quarter. Part of me thinks, how can we not agree to this? Part of me knows that every time a notice in the newspaper appears about training for staffing the shelter, I seriously consider it and then always chicken out out of fear. Do I really want to stay at the shelter overnight?

Today was one of the best days of my life

Today was one of the best days of my life. I feel great about life right now. I finally did something that's been two and a half years overdue. I feel strangely liberated.

Relations2

So last Thursday over lunch, I observed Dr. Nibbert lying next to, holding, and licking Button. And then Button promptly bit her head. Progress, progress.

US black sites

Hello?! How/why do we do things like this? Is anyone else concerned??

Some key lines from Report: CIA holds terror suspects in secret prisons:

"Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long."

"Those concerns [from lawmakers, foreign governments and human rights groups about the opaque CIA system] escalated last month, when Vice President Cheney and CIA Director Porter J. Goss asked Congress to exempt CIA employees from legislation already endorsed by 90 senators that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of any prisoner in U.S. custody."