Younger adults and callings of conscience
What a wonderful issue of The Witness this month (June 2001)!!! I have already gotten several hundred copies to share with NatGat attendees as well as our young adult and higher education ministries networks. I was especially moved by Julie Wortman’s editorial about being part of the event and being in a ministry relationship with young adults. It’s such a healthy image of mentorship having some quality of "learning the ropes together," as Sharon Parks Daloz has put it so well.

I am personally grateful to The Witness for being open to the invitation to be in community with us, but more importantly, those of us across the church who work with young people now have a fresh and current perspective of young adults in ministry, in action and in discernment for the voice of God.

Thomas K. Chu
Program Director
Ministries with Young People Cluster
Episcopal Church Center
New York, NY

Annual appeal thanks
Here is my special gift to help you with ongoing expenses over and above what is covered by subscriptions. I surely wish you well. Your publication gives urgent, fresh and well-written commentary on the current social scene while articulating the religious dimension. Thank you for your ministry.

Arthur H. Underwood
Cockeysville, MD

Choices, not merely ‘churchpersonship’
Cosmic coherence! Just as I was appreciating the genetic modification issue (TW 5/01) – loaning it to my 16-year-old daughter as she prepared for a debate on gene patenting, as a matter of fact! – and I was longing to express my thanksgiving for The Witness’ ongoing witness, lo, like an answer to prayer, there arrived your solicitation letter!

I don’t always agree with every assertion in The Witness. But issue after issue, it consistently provokes my thought. Moreover, it regularly swells my imagination and compassion until they burst the banks of their normal course and flood out into new areas of my consciousness, bearing rich nutrients to the soil of my commitments. I deeply appreciate The Witness’ insistence upon understanding the life of faith in terms of ethical choices in the world, and not merely in terms of "churchpersonship."

The Witness continually invites me to be "missionary" in my preferred sense of that word: unwilling to let my faith puddle comfortably around me, but always pouring it outward in an effort to bring palpable healing, reconciliation and justice to situations in which fellow inhabitants of God’s creation are broken, divided, oppressed. Add to that dedication a modicum of sheer beauty – photos, poetry, artwork and graphics, elegant prose – and voilá, the ingredients that inspire this gift of thanksgiving to you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Holly Lyman Antolini
Cushing, ME

Gifts and edge
I must write to tell you how much we appreciate your magazine, which was given to us by Sara Owen from Atlanta, one of your faithful readers. You certainly take the lead in the gifts of the spirit; how to appreciate them and use them. You’re also on the cutting edge of many concerns, even guiding us into a new and better future. God bless your good works.

Marilyn Clements and Lamar Clements
Clearwater, FL

Top priority
Many thanks for your excellent issue on climate (TW 4/01). Earth/Environment must be top priority!!

Barbara Potter
Falmouth, ME