PRELUDE, September 2003



FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR:

SOY UN GRINGO

When I lived in Hawaii as a young pastor in the 1970s, I found several things striking about race relations in the Aloha State:

"Haole" originally meant something like "stranger" or "immigrant" or "those weird people from someplace else." Like the epithet thrown at my denomination, "Methodists," the word might have been pejorative in the past but no longer had any such connotation. It was as if all of us "Anglos" in the Southwest (a term that never seemed to me to encompass very well all the non-native, non-Hispanic descendants of Europeans) called ourselves gringos. In fact this transformation has occurred: in recent years more and more folks in the Southwest are willing to call themselves this. To be "The Old Gringo" is no longer a bad thing.

In an email posting, I recently used the g word, without thinking and without explanation and thus unwisely, to describe non-native, non-Hispanic European-Americans. I meant no offense, but several people let me know they were offended. Where they come from, the term is still an insult.

I plan to be more cautious about my use of this term in the future, but I also wonder if the world might not be a better place if all of us who belong to a now-dominant group in any community reminded ourselves that we or our ancestors came from someplace else and that we must have seemed mighty peculiar to those who were already here. Maybe we should all take on the Montauket name for sojourners. The Rev. Holly Haile Davis, a Presbyterian clergywoman who is Shinnecock, gracefully greeted us at a recent LICC Fall Convocation in Riverhead "Welcome to my neighborhood," and I need to remember that my Goodhue ancestors would have been in deep trouble if Squanto and his friends had groused, "There goes the neighborhood!"

On a deeper level, though, we Christians are called to act as if "our citizenship is in Heaven" (Philippians 3:20) and to recall that we are all part of the human race. The geneticists tell us that we are quite literally one race. (For more on this, you might want to borrow from the LICC lending library videotapes of the public television series "Race: The Power of an Illusion." As Steve Olson explains in his recent book "Mapping Human History: Discovering the Past Through Our Genes," the evidence is now clear that all early modern humans lived in Africa and that there is far less difference between the genes of Sudanese and Swedes than there is between Northern and Southern Africans. In terms of history, soy un gringo. Biologically, we are all Africans.

Shalom/Salaam/Shanti/Pax,
Tom



A WORD OR TWO OF THANKS

From the Development Department

Special thanks go to Wantagh Memorial Congregational Church for its $5,000 gift to our Emergency Food Center, and Garden City Community Church's gift of $2,000 for the same. We also thank the following for their gifts of $500 or more:

We also thank the numerous faith-based institutions, agencies, businesses, and others who gave less but whose gifts are just as important. And we thank the individuals who gave but asked that we do not publish their names. Thank you all for being a blessing to the hundreds of people we help each month. We are able to do this because you cared enough to give.

Sara Weiss, Director of Development



DONATING STOCK TO YOUR FAVORITE CHARITY

by Richard Deam, President, Deamoak's Planning Services, Ltd.
and member, LICC Development Committee

Many individuals want to give their appreciated stock to a charitable organization. Their question is, "How do you do it?"

It is a simple procedure to transfer stock. Just ask your financial planner to send you transfer authorization instructions and the necessary forms to transfer your stock to your favorite charity. Upon receiving the forms, complete and return them to your financial planner along with your stock certificate. Remember, in order for the charity to sell the stock, the charity must establish a brokerage account.

You may be tempted just to sell the stock and give the proceeds to charity. DON'T DO IT! Why not? Because you have to pay a capital gains tax whenever you sell appreciated stock. By contrast, when charitable organizations sell your donated stock, they do not have to pay taxes because they are tax-exempt.

For example, let us say you just sold some stock for $100,000 and the cost basis of the stock was $50,000. This means you have a $50,000 gain and you have to pay taxes on 20% of the gain. Your tax is therefore $10,000 ($50,000 x 20% = $10,000). The charity will receive only $90,000 instead of the $100,000 for which you sold the stock.

Not only will you avoid paying taxes on the capital gains by giving the stock to a charitable organization, but you can also claim a tax deduction for your contribution.

If you have any comments or questions concerning your stock to a charitable organization, please send an e-mail to: rdeam@deamoaks.com



HELP US FIND A NEW HOME!

Years ago Nassau County asked the LICC to establish a five-day-a-week emergency food pantry so that they could send social service clients to us any morning or afternoon, Monday through Friday. We now feed about a thousand people a month at our 404 Peninsula Blvd. location in Hempstead, but the County never has reimbursed us for the full cost of feeding its clients--not paying, for example, for any of the food we buy--and the gap has gotten steadily worse. We are serving twice as many people as they sent us a few years ago--and receiving less money from the County to do so. The County is now selling the building they have rented to us, and the only way we can continue to serve large numbers of poor people is to find a building we can buy or lease cheaply.

Our Sweezy Avenue building in Riverhead is being sold, too, and we have been looking high and low for a suitable building we can afford to lease or buy. We once fed a fraction of the people in Riverhead that we served in Hempstead, but in some recent months the numbers have been nearly equal: the Town and County send us a steadily growing number of people they want us to help, but they do not reimburse us one dime.

If we were a for-profit business, we would have long ago sent these unreimbursable clients away empty-handed--and would have sent them back to the government officials who referred them to us. Being in the God business, though, we do the best we can to help as many people as we can and depend on the generosity of people such as you to make this possible. Do you have a building in the Hempstead or Riverhead areas you might lease or sell cheaply to the LICC? Would you be willing to pledge or donate money to help us buy new facilities for our food pantries so they can keep operating? If so, Tom Goodhue or Sara Weiss would like to hear from you at 516-565-0290!



MEET OUR NEWEST BOARD MEMBER: MARY DEWAR

Mary Dewar, the new chairperson of our Public Issues Committee, was born and raised in New Jersey, but her first job after nursing school was as a missionary in China from 1949 to 1951, serving in Taigu in Shanxi Province with the American Board for Foreign Missions. She served as a missionary in Angola (1952-58), Zimbabwe (1960-65, when it was called Rhodesia), and Ghana before going to work for the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches. She has continued to be active in nurse education and union activities. An active member of Garden City Community Church (UCC), she has coordinated their forums on public issues, and has represented the LICC in the Labor and Religion Coalition, as well as representing the LICC at county legislatures as our point person on health issues.



WORTH QUOTING

"Six million Jews died in the Holocaust, and nearly every synagogue I know commemorates their death in some way, but the Nazis also singled out 7 million Christians because of their beliefs or ethnicity. Why is there no Yom Hashoah for the Christians who died? Why don't we all join together to commemorate Holocaust Day?"
--LICC Board member Werner Reich


"We welcome and celebrate children here! God put the "wiggle" in children--don't feel you have to suppress it in God's house. Use a gentle touch: a hand in his/hers, an arm around a shoulder gives reassurance and appropriate attention. Explain quietly the parts of the service. Help your children to find the hymns in the hymnal, encourage them to participate in song and prayer--children learn by copying your behavior. Let them know this is their home, too."
--from the Bell Tower
Bethany Congregational Church (UCC) in East Rockaway


"The church has a responsibility to point the world as it is to the world as it should be. . . . Despite the ongoing rejection of its moral vision, the church must continue to see the world through the eyes of faith. If the church is seduced by the world as it is into abandoning its vision of the world as it should be, then it has abandoned its calling, its mission, and its Lord."
Doing Justice (Fortress Press)
by Dennis Jacobson, Gamaliel National Clergy Caucus


GOOD NEWS FROM ABROAD:



From the Multi-Faith Forum: Jain Advice for a Healthy Lifestyle

The mission of the Long Island Council of Churches is to promote Christian unity and to increase understanding between Christians and non-Christians in our region. Ten years ago, the LICC and Auburn Theological Seminary started the Long Island Multi-Faith Forum, a group which has brought together members of eleven different faith communities to promote multi-faith education and interfaith respect. With this issue of "The Prelude" we begin a series of articles in which members of the Forum will share a little about their traditions so that we can know our neighbors better. Arvind Vora, a Jain who has chaired the LIMFF since its inception, tells us what Jainism teaches about health:

There are about six million Jains (from the Sanskrit word "Jina," for "conquering one's inner passions") whose roots trace back 2600 years. Most live in India but there now are about 10,000 Jains in the United States, with 75 Jain centers in North America and 15 permanent houses of worship. Here are some principles we follow:



IDEAS YOU CAN USE

Please Stand

How do you give worship cues while recognizing that not everyone has the same physical abilities? St. Andrew's United Methodist Church in Cullman, Alabama, has a particularly graceful phrase in their worship bulletin:
"*Those who are comfortable standing, please stand"



Films and Discussion

Many congregations invite their communities to watch films and then discuss them - the Hamptons Synagogue in Westhampton Beach even bought a local theatre for their film series. The Rev. Mark Greiner of 1st Presbyterian Church in Baldwin recommends Michael Moore's critically-acclaimed documentary "Bowling for Columbine," which is now available on video. You can download a teacher's and a student's discussion guide at bowlingforcolumbine.com. In one scene, two of the boys shot at Columbine High School return to the K-Mart where the bullets were purchased and literally show their wounds, a way that Pastor Greiner said "reminds me of Jesus showing his wounds after the resurrection." K-Mart took the bold (and surprising!) move of deciding to stop selling ammunition. For further information about the issues raised in this film, you can visit Bowlingforcolumbine.com.



Ecumenism within Your Own Denomination

The ecumenical movement seeks not only to unite different denominations, but it has also to bring together diverse Christians within the same theological traditions, and there is probably no greater challenge in reuniting the fractured Body of Christ than that of overcoming barriers of race and economic class. Community Presbyterian Church in Massapequa, for example, an English-speaking congregation, has worshipped regularly with Arumdaun Presbyterian Church in Bethpage, where Korean is the primary language. Beach United Methodist Church in Westhampton Beach, East Quogue UMC and St. Paul's African Methodist Episcopal Zion in Quoque, come together for worship and fellowship three times each summer. Centennial UMC in East Moriches and Bell AMEZ in Center Moriches have forged similar links. Westbury UMC with Bethel AME and Westbury AMEZ to celebrate Aldersgate Day (May 24) and the founding of the Wesleyan movement. Due to patterns of entrenched residential segregation on Long Island, you have to travel to the next town to find a partner for this sort of work, but isn't it worth a little effort to heal divisions in the Body of Christ? Has your congregation formed relationships like this with other congregations that you would like the LICC to celebrate?



The Parson's Picks: "JOAN OF ARCADIA"

What would you do if you started hearing mysterious voices? Fearing she is going crazy, Joan Girardi drowns them out with her Walkman. When God appears in her garden while she is trying on clothes, she assumes he is a pervert.

Joan of Arc ignored her visions and voices for four years, but this teenager faces modern manifestations of the Almighty, including a cute guy to whom she is instantly attracted. He also happens to be a little snippy, "because you understand snippy." She next meets the creator of heaven and earth in the form of a middle aged African American woman who dishes out lunch in her school cafeteria.

"Joan of Arcadia" is a new CBS drama about a typical family in atypical circumstances--not the least of which is their teenage daughter's chats with God. Joan's grades have been slipping since the Girardis moved to Arcadia six months ago. Her father Will is the new police chief who dreams of providing a safe haven for his family but soon finds the town terrorized by a murder wave. Her older brother Kevin is a former football star paralyzed in a car accident who cannot imagine any future for himself. Their mother Helen struggles to love Kevin without babying him, while geeky younger brother Luke hopes to not be completely ignored.

When Joan objects that her family is not even terribly religious and her father is "a little angry with the Church," God replies that, "It's not about being religious--it's about fulfilling your destiny." Afraid to tell her parents about her visions, Joan turns to her brother Luke, the scientist in training, for a second opinion on the possibility of epiphany--and her own sanity. Luke, the complete rationalist, quotes the physicist Michael Faraday: "Nothing is too wonderful to be true."

The pilot episode is well-written and well-acted, with Amber Tamblyn, Tony-winner Joe Mantegna, Oscar-winner Mary Steenburgen, Jason Ritter, and Michael Welch. Executive producer Barbara Hall created "Judging Amy" and worked on two other quirky favorites of mine, "Northern Exposure" and "I'll Fly Away," earning a Humanitas Award, a Viewers of Quality Television Award, and the TV Critics Award, "Joan of Arcadia" airs on CBS on Fridays at 8 p.m., premiering Sept. 26. This is a series with real potential to both entertain and encourage us to pay heed to the leadings of the Spirit.



"How Do You Spell Murder?": Reading, Writing & Rehabilitation

Our Pastoral Care Committee recently met with the Deputy Undersheriff at the Nassau County Correctional Center and her program staff. The greatest barrier preventing inmates from benefiting from the classes offered at the jail, we learned, is that many enter the jail reading too poorly to take any course.

With more than two million Americans incarcerated today, we may need to be reminded that our efforts are still needed to promote literacy and reclaim the lives of criminals. "How Do You Spell Murder?" by Oscar-winners Alan and Susan Raymond (Wed., Sept. 24, 7 pm on Cinemax) may inspire us anew.

Education has been proven effective in reducing recidivism, but only 1% of state and federal corrections budgets are spent on education. Three-quarters of those incarcerated in America have not graduated from high school, and a staggering 70 % of them are functionally illiterate. At the nation's oldest prison, New Jersey State in Trenton, 75% are illiterate. Many, though, are finding hope, freedom, and spiritual renewal as they learn to read through L. I. F. E. (Learning Is For Everyone) in which convicts tutor one another.

They are extraordinarily patient and sympathetic teachers, breaking through racial divisions and barriers of shame: one con goes from inability to read simple words to comparing an essay on Nelson Rockefeller's dyslexia with his own experience as someone who inherited the handicap but not the wealth.

Equally impressive is the poetry workshop, Prose and Cons. One inmate writes eloquently about finding God's forgiveness. Some poems are hard to hear, such as one by an inmate who learned during the penalty phase of his trial that he had been conceived through rape, yet even this painful truth leads to compassion for his nearly insane mother.

The growing number of people awaiting execution who have been exonerated by DNA testing forces us to wonder why we convict the innocent so often-and thus let the guilty escape. Nathaniel, an impoverished African American who repeated the second grade five times due to an undiagnosed learning disability and then dropped out of school in frustration, shows how easy it is for illiterates to be railroaded: he signed a "confession" he could not read. Asked what he would like to be able to read, Nathaniel replies "the Bible, so I can get closer to the Lord, and my trial transcripts..." When he does learn to read, his confession is thrown out by an appellate judge and his conviction is overturned.



PUT YOUR FAITH IN ACTION!

"Faith Into Action: Congregation-based Organizing for Advocacy," the Long Island Council of Churches' 2003 Fall Convocation, will take place on Saturday, September 27, 2003, at the First Baptist Church of Riverhead, located at 1018 Northville Turnpike in Riverhead. It begins at 9:00 AM and ends at 3:00 PM. Registration is at 8:30 AM. Lunch will be served. The Convocation will train attendees to organize their communities for affordable housing, economic development, and other critical social issues. Do you ever get frustrated with the way your church talks about problems in your community but never figures out what to do about them? This training will provide participants with the knowledge and organizing skills they need to "get out of the pews" and go into the public arena with the power to improve the well being of the powerless and impoverished in their own communities and throughout the region. LICC President Jerome Taylor is the featured preacher. The keynote speaker will be the Rev. Tony Aguilar, Assistant to the Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Metro New York Synod, with trainers in faith-based organizing from the Gamaliel Foundation. The registration fee of $12 includes lunch.

Please mail registration fees to: The Long Island Council of Churches, 1644 Denton Green, Hempstead, NY 11550. For further information, call: 631-727-2210 or 516-565-0290.



SAVE THESE DATES!

Sunday, Oct. 19, 1:00
Western Nassau CROP Walk at Baldwin Park (at the south end of Grand Avenue), which benefits Church World Service and the LICC's Emergency Food Pantry.
Tuesday, October 28
Church World Service's free training at Memorial Presbyterian Church (189 Babylon Turnpike in Roosevelt) on "Preparing to Work at a Critical Incident Site."


GOOD TV ON WLIW/21:



DID YOU KNOW?



NEEDED/OFFERED

Offered:

Bulk Orders of "The Prelude"
Would you like a stack of LICC newsletters each month to distribute at your church? Just call Carolyn Gumbs or Olga Torres at 631-727-2210 and tell them how many copies you would like!
Presbyterian Hymnals
First Presbyterian Church in Port Jefferson has 27 copies of "The Hymnbook" (Copyright MCMLV) by John Ribble to donate. Call Dorothy Bloom at 631-473-0147 or e-mail www.pjpres.org.
Laughter
The Fellowship of Merry Christians, headed by Cal and Rose Samra,authors of the "Holy Humor" and "Holy Hilarity" books and the driving force behind the revival of "Bright Sunday," would be glad to send a free copy of their monthly publication "The Joyful Noiseletter" to anyone who might enjoy subscribing. Besides being a regular dose of jokes and laughter, JN is the source of the cartoons reprinted in "The Prelude." Just send names and addresses to FMC, P. O. Box 895, Portage, MI 49081-0895 or email joyfulnz@aol.com. For more info, visit www.joyfulnoiseletter.com.
Help Save Your Congregation Money
Since 1980, the Interfaith Coalition on Energy has been helping congregations save money and natural resources. They now have a Website: www.interfaithenergy.com.
Clinical Pastoral Education
The Department of Pastoral Care and Education at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset will be offering Clinical Pastoral Education beginning in October 2003. An extended unit (20 hours per week) will run from October 7th through April 27, 2004. A full time unit will be offered in the summer of 2004. Maureen Mitchell, RSM, D.Min. is the CPE Supervisor and is certified by both The Association of Clinical Pastoral Education and The National Association of Catholic Chaplains. More information is available by calling the department at (516) 562-4043.
A working Lowry MX1 organ with bench and music, for the taking. Must be picked up in Bayport. Call 631-874-5042.
Central Islip United Methodist Church also has an organ in good condition to donate. Call the Rev. Enrique Lebron at 631-234-6539.
New videos in the LICC lending library from the American Bible Society:

Needed:

Literacy tutors
Literacy volunteers are needed at the Nassau County jail to help inmates who have reading and math deficits, so that they will be able to take the GED course and other classes. Volunteers should call Gerald Scheher at 516-572-4396.
Help Shelter the Homeless
Maureen's Haven, the Peconic Housing Initiative's collaboration in which congregations house the homeless for a night's respite during the winter months, needs funds, volunteers (particularly for the overnight shift), and churches with passenger vans that would be willing to help transport guests. Call 631-727-7973 or email phi@pccouncil.org.
Home Repair Volunteers
Wyandanch Homes and Property Development needs volunteers willing to help with light repairs, every Thursday, from 9:30AM to about 2PM. Contact Peter Barnett at 631-491-7285 or whpdc@aol.com.
Volunteer Office Workers
Office volunteers are needed, any day of the week, at Star of the Sea in Queens, for the project headed by Sr. Winnie McCarthy that rehabs homes for the poor. For further information, call Adrienne Flipse Hausch at 516-741-2000 or email ahausch@optonline.net.
A Home
A pastor and her husband are seeking a home. They would prefer to be near East Moriches but will consider other options. They are nonsmokers, nondrinkers, without pets or children. They can afford $1800/month if utilities are included ($1400 if not included), and the church may be able to work out a tax-deductible donation if the fair market value exceeds what they can afford. Call the Rev. Tammi-Rae Keeler at East Moriches United Methodist Church (631-878-0887).


JOB OPENINGS: