I genuinely appreciate The Witness and find it extremely refreshing and useful for working on peace and justice issues. Keep up the fine work, and be assured that the contribution you are making to help us make connections between our faith and the difficult issues of our time is crucial.

Jane C. Strippel
Oxford, OH

Julie Wortman is precisely correct [TW 11/02]. Failure to approve rites of blessing for all committed relationships calls into question our church's claim that we collectively are defined by our Baptismal Covenant: To work for justice and peace for all persons.

For, of course, this is a justice issue. Those who would argue otherwise know that we cannot be "mostly just"; that a "little justice" is tantamount to no justice. Those who would deny or delay the full inclusion of all our brothers and sisters into our shared blessings also know that the Episcopal Church historically moves on justice issues, and that if "Claiming the Blessing" is named as a justice issue, our church will be much more likely to move to include. Hence, the disingenuous, "Let's not dignify this as a ‘justice' issue" simply seeks to define this justice issue out of existence.

Those convening and attending the Claiming the Blessing conference know that until our church gets this right, then every other act of compassion and justice supported and carried out by the Episcopal Church will be contaminated with hypocrisy.

Now IS the time.

The Rev. Dr. Alan C. Miller
St. Barnabas Episcopal Church
Williston, FL

Thank you for sending me an examination copy of The Witness. I intend to subscribe based on your interview with Bill McKibben [TW 7/8-02]. I am in an Episcopal Community called Grace Church in Riverhead, N.Y., and have read several of McKibben's books.

As part of the "Turn the tide" program sponsored by the Center for the New American Dream, based in Washington, D.C., I decided to not drive my car two days a week. This meant abrubt changes in my life-style patterns about a year ago. Since then, I have come to look forward to those days without driving. I walk or bike and have reaped many benefits from this decision. This Thanksgiving, I've decided to do a seven-day walk on a path in my county called the Paumanok Path to bring attention to the path which is under-used and to use my feet as witness to say thanks for all the open space that has been preserved in a county that has a population in excess of 1.2 million people! My mission is to inspire people, even SUV drivers, to become embodied and think about the larger consequences of operating a vehicle that guzzles fossel fuel and spews out plenty of carbon dioxide. This is the kind of witnessing that is necessary not only by clergy, but by people of faith.

Tom Stock
Manorville, NY

I returned from Palestine in August as one of 13 United Methodists who went over on a Peace with Justice mission. I just came across your issue on the Palestinian struggle [TW 9/01] in The Witness (I used to subscribe and have since renewed).

Congratulations.

You have provided a great service by providing a highly readable, thoughtful, and comprehensive (within the constraints of your space, etc.) overview of the situation. I intend to draw upon this rather frequently in my conversations with Christians and Jews.

Les Solomon
Alexandria, VA

The Israeli-Islam problem might be solved if all religious authorities would teach the difference between "objective reality" and "subjective reality." "Objective reality" has to do with what is repeatedly demonstrable and so scientifically provable. "Subjective reality" has to do with religious or ideological or hypothetical beliefs that are not scientifically provable and are therefore subject to question, challenge or doubt, but are fervently believed by many people.

Extremes of belief in "subjective realities" and resultant inability to distinguish it from "objective reality" amounts to "ideological insanity" and inability to find pragmatic solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is the religious basis of terrorism.

Will religious leaders promote this potential Great Enlightenment to enable the benighted masses to see and respond to the significance of the difference between "objective reality" and "subjective reality"? Leaders might be impeded by fear that such enlightenment would weaken their authority for teaching religion and reduce their finances. Surely not! Such a service of enlightenment, curing ideological extremism and terrorism and opening the way for pragmatic solutions to ethnic and political conflicts, would elevate their public esteem and serviceability to humanity. It would facilitate President Bush's proposed solution.

Or could we "brain storm" for other solutions? Could President Bush set aside an Israel-size area in Texas and invite Israelis to emigrate there to build a Promised Land? Might other nations do the same?

Or could President Bush persuade the entire conflicted Israeli-Palestinian area that it is by natural geographical design a single geopolitical hegemonic entity and must therefore be democratically unified politically and economically according to pragmatic requirements without reference to or interference by ideological or religious prejudices?

The Rev. John Julian Hancock
Los Angeles, CA