From her home, Samia Ramsis holds a key chain bearing the face of the Virgin Mary as visitors outside come to look upon the spot where Egypt’s Coptic Christians believe Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus found refuge after fleeing Bethlehem.

Once crowded with Christians, Cairo’s Coptic quarter where she lives with her husband, Mounir, and two children is now home to fewer than 50 Christian families.

“We know many Christians have left,” said Mounir Ramsis, speaking not only about this quarter but about all of Egypt. “But we love this country and will stay until death.”

The Arab Spring uprisings that toppled secular dictatorships have unleashed long-suppressed freedoms that have allowed Islamic parties to gain a share of political power they have been denied for decades. Their rise is creating near-panic among ancient Christian communities that dot the Muslim world and predate Islam by centuries.

Christians in the Middle East, such as those who practice Coptic Christianity like the person pictured, are wary of the revolutions taking place in the region because of increased intolerance to their beliefs.

In Libya, Christians are uneasy as the powerful head of the Tripoli Military Council, Abdul Hakim Belhaj, who once led an Islamic militia with links to al-Qaida, has said he plans to run for office in elections scheduled for April.

In Afghanistan, no new building permits have been issued for churches, and the last church open to the public was demolished over the summer. In Iraq, the Christian community has decreased by two-thirds since 2003 amid bombings of churches and assassinations of priests.

And Christians in Syria, where Muslims have risen up against President Bashar Assad, have been subjected to murder, rape and kidnappings in Damascus and rebellious towns, according to Christian rights groups, including Open Doors, which helps Christians facing persecution.

Many had hoped for better in an Arab movement that proponents said was about replacing tyrannies with democracies.

“The outlook is grim,” said John Eibner, CEO of the California-based human rights group Christian Solidarity International.

“If the current trajectory continues, it’s reasonable to think that within a generation these (Christian) communities will not look like functioning communities,” Eibner said. “They’ll look more like the once-flourishing Jewish communities” across the Arab world that are all but gone.

Nowhere is the irony more profound than in Egypt, where an estimated 8 million Christians live with more than 70 million Muslims.

Christians demonstrated alongside Muslims early last year to oust Hosni Mubarak. Before Mubarak’s overthrow, Christians had suffered from years of church burnings and murders at the hands of radical Muslims who want an Islamic state free of religious minorities. After the ouster, the military regime that has been running the country has refused to make any arrests in attacks on Christians.

Mina Bouls, 25, a Copt who fled to Philadelphia, recalls cowering with his mother in 1997 as a mob stoned the family home and chanted anti-Christian slogans. But the difference then was that Mubarak ordered the military to protect Christian communities and jailed extremists, Bouls said.

In October, Copts organized a protest in downtown Cairo over the authorities’ failure to investigate attacks, including the bombing of a church in Alexandria on New Year’s Day 2011 that killed 20 people. The military attacked the demonstrators and 17 Christians were run down and killed by military vehicles, according to Human Rights Watch.

Bouls wants to bring his family to the U.S. because he says he is petrified by the new society forming in Egypt. The first free elections in decades held in the past two months handed power not to moderates but to members of the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Salafi candidates, who combined took nearly 70 percent of seats.

“If people try to rule the country with the Quran, with Shariah law, that means they look to us as second-class people,” Bouls said.

Christianity has existed in Egypt since the second century. The Muslim Brotherhood, a political movement that seeks a nation run according to Quranic law, has said Egypt would respect the rights of religious minorities.

The Salafis, Muslim fundamentalists who want a complete application of Shariah law that generally denies equal rights to women and religious minorities, also say Copts are safe in Egypt.

“Even if there are Salafi leaders who proclaim Copts to be heretics, this does not mean that (the Copts) must be subjected to any religious or (legal) sanctions,” said Emad Abdel-Ghafour, head of the al-Nour party that won 25 percent so far in parliamentary elections.

Abanob Magdi lives near Egypt’s largest pyramid and says he is not optimistic about what lies ahead.

“I saw on TV the other day a Salafi saying that if they get in power, beaches will be divided for men and women and women will have to be veiled,” Magdi said as he walked through Coptic Cairo with friends.

Christians account for 4 percent of the people of the Middle East and North Africa. Despite being the birthplace of Christianity, the region now has the fewest number of Christians (13 million) and the smallest share of its population that is Christian of any other major geographic region, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The future of minorities in the emerging democracies of the Middle East “is a huge issue most vividly seen in Egypt and the Copts,” said California Rep. Howard Berman, ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “It’s on our agenda as we figure out how to help these countries,” and their treatment of Christians and other minorities is a “red line” that will affect future aid.

(Oren Dorell and Sarah Lynch write for USA Today.)

The New Year seems like a good time to go back to the beginning. It is a time to take stock, think about what has passed and name your hopes and plans for the future.

This is all very well but like me you may find yourself in a situation where the future, or even the coming few months, looks very uncertain indeed.

As I write a storm has picked up outside my window putting many people’s plans for their first day back to work after Christmas into jeopardy. Events of nature are a good reminder that we aren’t always the ones in control, as much as we would like to be!

So turning to a story about nature and to the first book of the Bible, Genesis – which translates ‘beginning,’ seems like a good place to start a new year.

It is thought that these stories were written in the sixth century BC by Jewish exiles trying to make sense of their place in the world in a land far from home, Babylon.

The Jewish people lived in slavery for yet another period of their history which led to a massive and understandable identity crisis.

Much as we only seem to realise who we really are and what we stand for when faced with something different the Jewish people were questioning themselves, their God and their place in history when living in a foreign land.

It would also have been a time of great personal uncertainty for people. It was unclear when or even if the exiles would ever get home.

It is in this setting that the creation story of Genesis 1 was thought to have been written down to help the exiles remember where they had come from and have hope for the future.

The creation story in Genesis differs from other creation stories of the time in the relationship that the God described in the story has with what he creates.

It is a theological story and throughout the created orders are pronounced as ‘very good.’ Human beings are not created as pawns in some cosmic battle between Gods but to tend the garden, to be blessed, to be the likeness of God himself.

One of my favourite lines in this story and also perhaps in the whole Bible is nestled in this passage – ‘He also made the stars’ (Gen 1:16). To me, and perhaps to the people who told it to one another in a land far from home, this throw away statement of unimaginable power can be a lifeline.

We are creatures subject to illness, whims of nature and limitations of many kinds. You may not have confidence in yourself to make any resolution stick past January 5th or any real confidence in your ability to face the challenges that 2012 may hold but you have with you one who ‘also made the stars’ as if it were an afterthought.

With that in mind perhaps anything is possible in 2012.

Did you watch the December 8 elimination episode of the X Factor on Fox? I didn’t. I haven’t seen the show since it debuted thinking that it just isn’t for me. After watching the clip below, I’m sure of it.

Like the rest of America, I too am hooked on “reality TV,” but I’m sometimes I wonder why. So many shows are like seeing a terrible car accident where you’re hoping that nobody got hurt but are fascinated by the wreckage at the same time.

Reality competition shows, whether it be American Idol, The Bachelor or The Apprentice, all promise to provide the lucky winner a lifetime of bliss. You hear story after story of contestants who “gave up everything” to be on the show. Some quit their jobs and others spend their last penny on airfare to get to the auditions “knowing” that they will be one that receives the rose, the contract, the fame. Over and over again, countless poor souls delude themselves with misconceptions of their own talents and are shocked to find that they’ve been voted off the island. But what happened the other night on the X Factor is just plain puzzling.

At the end of the show, there were two contestants with the threat of going home. In one corner, there was Rachel Crow, a powerhouse of a singer and just 13 years old. In the other corner was the 20-year-old Marcus Canty. Unlike American Idol where “America” decides who wins, the four judges vote on who should be eliminated and “America” decides only if there is a tie. LA Reid chose Canty. Simon Cowell chose Crow. Paula Abdul chose Crow. Then all eyes were on Nicole.

While Nicole was totally distraught, Crow said from the stage, “Please don’t cry. It’s okay. I’m good with anything.” Nicole couldn’t make a choice, so left the vote to the public and Crow nodded in approval. In fact, just before the host gave the final decision, Crow looked totally smug knowing that her adoring fans would not let her down. Then the verdict was read, Canty would not be going home. The competition was now over for Crow who looked wild eyed and then fell to the stage in a tantrum. One writer for the Huffington Post described her actions as a “death cry.” Apparently she wasn’t “good with anything.”

Crow’s mother rushed to the stage to comfort the girl, taking a hold of her face saying, “Look at me. It’s going to be all right” to which Crow asked, “You promise?” It looks like Mrs. Crow has had to do this before.

While then the show showed footage of Crow’s “journey” on the show, the cameras panned back and forth from the crying girl to the crying Nicole being comforted by Paula.

Then the host asked Crow, “What’s been your highlight on the X Factor so far Rachel? You know we love you. Have you enjoyed yourself?” What kind of questions are those? The poor girl was bawling her head off and you ask her if she enjoyed herself?

What surprised me the most were Crow’s final comments: “I just…I love you so much everybody…for voting for me even though you didn’t. And thank you for giving me this because without you I am nothing. And I hope that this is not my ending. You know what? I know it’s not. And I will go so far. I promise you. And I love you.”

This is where I think there needs to be more of a reality check in reality programming. First of all, at least at that moment, Crow truly believed that she loved everybody in that room and everyone watching the show, which is impossible. Second, someone needs to pull her aside and tell that poor girl that she is something with or without adoring fans. The fans, the fame, the fortune do not make you into “something.” There can only be one winner, but if that isn’t you, then it doesn’t mean you are a loser.

Nicole never did recover nor was she able to give any words of encouragement to Crow, at least, not on the air. She probably felt that she “ruined” Crow’s life, which is also a lie. Yes, it would have been fantastic for Rachel to win the competition, but in the end, it is just a TV show. She is very talented. As long as she doesn’t wallow in her “defeat,” she will survive. Still, I wonder if the damage has already been done.

Originally posted at Examiner.com.

Perched on Tel Kinrot, a hill above the Sea of Galilee, Winston Mah turned his face toward the warm sun and took in the tranquil view before him.

To his right, the Christian pilgrim from San Diego saw banana groves at the edge of the calm fresh-water lake; to his left, on the opposite hill, rose the majestic Mount of Beatitudes at Tabga, where, according to Christian tradition, Jesus delivered his Sermon on the Mount.

“This is a unique experience,” Mah said, gazing at a lone fisherman on the water’s edge. “This is the view Jesus must have seen, the path he might have walked, the water he walked on. It’s a privilege to walk in his footsteps.”

It’s one thing to read about biblical sites while seated in a church pew back home, Mah said. But “it’s another thing entirely to be in the actual place, just as it’s described in the Bible,” he said, his voice full of wonder.

Mah and his church group were among the first hikers on the newly inaugurated Gospel Trail, 39 miles of integrated paths leading from Mount Precipice on the southern outskirts of Nazareth to the site of ancient Capernaum on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

Developed by the Israeli Ministry of Tourism and the Jewish National Fund, the project has the enthusiastic support of local Christian leaders, whose flocks depend on the tourist trade.

“It is our hope that this trail will bring many more Christian pilgrims to the Galilee, where Jesus lived and had his ministry,” said Bishop Boutros Muallem, the Melkite archbishop emeritus of Galilee, who attended the trail’s festive opening aboard a boat on the Sea of Galilee.

Roughly 150,000 Christian Arabs live in Israel, the vast majority of them in the Galilee region, in the north of the country. As elsewhere in the Middle East, many Holy Land Christians have emigrated in search of economic stability and peace.

Now that the political situation is relatively quiet, and a record number of tourists are flooding into Israel and the Palestinian-ruled territories, local Christians are benefiting and emigration is slowing, according to government statistics.

Two out of three tourists who visit Israel are Christian, according to the tourism ministry. Leading a group of journalists down a section of the trail on horseback, Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov said the Gospel Trail “represents a major means for maximizing the tourist potential” of the Sea of Galilee region.

“It will encourage economic growth in the north through the creation of new jobs,” he said, “and an increase in income from the visitors.”

The Gospel Trail isn’t the first Christian-oriented hiking/cycling trail in the region. The 40-mile Jesus Trail begins in the city of Nazareth, the home of Mary and Joseph, and ends at the Sea of Galilee. Though the trails overlap in many areas, the Jesus Trail winds its way through more Christian, Muslim and Jewish population centers and already has an infrastructure.

In the coming months, the government hopes tour operators will provide itineraries and transportation to and from various sites along the Gospel Trail, and that local business owners will provide everything from accommodations to bathrooms.

In the meantime, visitors need to make their own arrangements or request special arrangements from a tour operator.

Both trails capitalize on the beauty of the Galilee region. One of the only truly green places in Israel, the hills are dotted with towns and villages, cows, sheep and olive trees.

Proficient hikers can make the entire journey in about four days.

The Gospel Trail includes the Arbel Cliffs, which served as the backdrop of many ancient battles; the ancient ruins of Beit Saida (Bethsaida), a biblical-era fishing village and the birthplace of the disciples Peter, Andrew and Philip; Capernaum, the starting point of Jesus’ ministry in the Galilee; and Kfar Kana (Cana), where Jesus healed the nobleman’s son.

Also along the route: Migdal/Magdala, identified in the Gospels as the home of Mary Magdalene; and the Mount of Beatitudes, where a picturesque church, surrounded by greenery and special areas for prayer, overlooks the sites related to Jesus’ ministry. The late Pope John Paul II held a large Mass on a nearby knoll in 2000.

Whenever possible, the trail leads through unspoiled vistas full of indigenous plants and small wildlife. Israel, and especially the Galilee region, is a top bird-watching destination.

At Tel Kinrot, which was part of the major trade route between ancient Egypt and Syria on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, an Italian pilgrim named Stefano gazed at the archaeological ruins.

“I’m very happy to be on this trail, to see the sites where Jesus lived and the archaeological sites,” the 26-year-old said. “It helps me to thank God for what he does in my life.”

The Rev. Billy Graham was released from hospital Tuesday after spending six days recovering from pneumonia, his second bout with the lung infection in the past seven months.

Doctors decided to let the 93-year-old evangelist go home after he responded well to antibiotics and physical therapy to increase his strength, said Nancy Lindell, a spokeswoman for Mission Hospital in Asheville, N.C.

Graham said he was grateful for the thoughts and prayers from around the world, according to a statement released by the hospital.

“I also appreciated the wonderful treatment I received here from such caring doctors and nurses, and feel I have made some new friends,” Graham said. “But I am especially looking forward to seeing my home decorated for Christmas and spending the holidays with members of my family.”

Graham was admitted Nov. 30 after suffering from congestion, a cough and slight fever. He was diagnosed with pneumonia.

He spent five days at the hospital with the same ailment in May. In October 2008, Graham was hospitalized after he tripped and fell over one of his dogs. Earlier that same year, he had elective surgery on a shunt that controls excess fluid on his brain. The shunt was first installed in 2000 and drains fluid through a small tube, relieving excess pressure that can cause symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease.

Graham has also suffered from prostate cancer and was hospitalized in 2007 for nearly two weeks after experiencing intestinal bleeding. His wife, Ruth Bell Graham, died in June 2007.

The evangelist has led a worldwide ministry that packed stadiums with believers and has counseled every U.S. president since Harry Truman. He published his most recent book, “Nearing Home,” last month and plans to continue writing his next book, which he said will summarize his six decades of work.

Graham rarely appears in public now. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is run by Graham’s son, Franklin.

Doctors used the six-day hospital stay for routine tests on Graham that he had already scheduled. They sent him home with orders to continue his therapy to increase his strength and mobility.

“We are gratified that he has had a good response to treatment and we’re committed to good home care to continue his improvement,” said Dr. Lucian Rice, Graham’s personal physician.

A Christian couple is facing false charges of theft after police in Abbottabad severely beat the pregnant woman and her husband for three days when they refused to confess, they told Compass.

Salma Emmanuel was taken to a hospital in critical condition on Nov. 7, the life of her unborn child also threatened, she said.

In Abbottabad, 50 kilometers (31 miles) northeast of Islamabad in the Hazara region of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, the 30-year-old Emmanuel and her husband, Emmanuel Rasheed, a 39-year-old TV repairman, said that they were inexplicably arrested after the Muslim woman who employed Emmanuel as a maid had allowed the Christian woman to temporarily store some of her jewelry at her employer’s house.

Emmanuel told Compass by phone that police arrested them on Nov. 5, keeping her at the Women’s Police Station for interrogation and her husband at the City Police Station – where they told Rasheed he would be released, he said, if he renounced Christ and became a Muslim.

Emmanuel said that upon reaching the police station, an inspector identified only as Nazia and two other policewomen started punching and kicking her and striking her with batons, demanding that she “confess her crime.”

“I begged them for mercy, pleading that I am five months pregnant, but they continued their merciless onslaught for over three hours,” she said. ‘They continued to try to force me to admit to the crime, even threatening that they would kill my baby, but I refused to confess a false allegation.”

She said that after three days, when she was “on the verge of dying,” police called her brother-in-law to the station and told him to take her to a hospital.

“I had complete faith in Jesus and trusted that He would rescue me and Emmanuel from this great problem,” she said. “It was our faith that kept us going …this was the first time either of us had ever encountered the police, let aside being charged in any case, so you can imagine what we underwent.”

Emmanuel was treated at Benazir Shaheed Hospital, where doctors began efforts to save her and the fetus.

Although the doctor on duty confirmed that her body bore marks of severe violence, Deputy Superintendent of Police Aziz Afridi denied that police had tortured her. After reports of the violence reached local media, however, the deputy inspector general of Haraza Division, Dr. Naeem Khan, ordered an investigation.

As Emmanuel was fighting for her life at the hospital, Rasheed was undergoing a similar treatment at the City Police Station.

“The police beat me up mercilessly,” he said. “They kept on asking me to confess to the burglary, but I did not submit to their pressure. It was Eid al-Adha [Muslim Festival of Sacrifice, a three-day public holiday in Pakistan] on Nov. 7, and their torture continued during those days.”

Rasheed said police tried to convert him to Islam while he was in custody.

“A policeman offered to remove the theft charges against me if I was willing to renounce Christianity and convert to Islam,” he said. “I told him that no matter what happens, I will not renounce my faith, nor would I confess the false charges made against us.”

Emmanuel said she started working as a maid at the home of Ghazala Riaz around a year ago. She was one of four servants who returned to their homes each day after finishing their tasks. On Oct. 30, she said, she had gone to a jeweler to get her gold ornaments (about 100 grams) polished in preparation for her brother’s wedding when Riaz phoned her in need of some work at the house.

“I went straight to madam’s home, and before starting my work, I asked her to keep my jewelry in her cupboard for safety, and that I would take it home the next day,” Emmanuel said. “Madam put the jewelry in her locker, and I returned home after ending my chores, without even the slightest idea of what was going to happen next.”

Emmanuel said that at about midnight, Riaz called her and told her that there had been a burglary at the house, with 900,000 rupees (US$10,095), 300 grams of gold ornaments, including Emmanuel’s jewelry, and a laptop missing.

The Christian couple rushed to Riaz’s house, where police had already arrived.

“Madam told the police that my ornaments were also among those taken by the burglars. The police recorded my statement and also asked questions of my husband,” she said.

The couple has three children – the oldest 12, the youngest 5 – so one of the parents stays home with them when the other goes to work, Rasheed said.

“The police allowed us to go home after three or four hours, but in the afternoon they raided our house and took both of us into custody on an informal report,” Rasheed said, adding that police told them that the Muslim family suspected that they were involved in the burglary.

“My wife and I protested at this false allegation and asked the police to consider the fact that we had also suffered a great loss, but they wouldn’t listen to us,” he said.

Police released them on the evening of Nov. 1 after trying various tactics to get a favorable statement, Rasheed said.

“In the meantime, the police obtained a search warrant of our house and combed through our belongings, but they could not find anything from our home,” he said.

On Nov. 5, under pressure from an army colonel related to the Muslim family, police again picked up the couple from their home, they said. The three days of beatings followed.

“We may be poor, but our poverty has never shaken our faith in God,” Rasheed said. “He has always provided for our needs, and I knew He would release us from this misery because we are innocent.”

He happily told how police were unable to find any evidence against the couple, leading to his release from jail on bail on Nov. 17. His wife’s bail hearing has been set for Dec. 8.

The burglary charges are not the only test of the couple’s faith. Emmanuel, who was also working as a child-minder in a local school besides working as domestic help, has lost both her jobs. When Rasheed was jailed, his employer immediately found a replacement.

“I used to earn about 7,000 rupees (US$80) per month, while Salma used to earn around 5,000 rupees (US$56) per month,” he said. “At the moment both of us are jobless and are being looked after by our relatives … They are the ones who pooled money to hire us a lawyer, otherwise it would have been difficult for us to fight this case.”

As Emmanuel heals, she said her heart goes out to those wrongly accused of crimes.

“Madam and her family did not name any of their Muslim servants in the investigation, but we stand vindicated after the police could not find any evidence against us,” she said. “Even though I’ve lost my gold ornaments, which I had saved for my daughter, I have faith that God will compensate for our loss.”

Christian rights advocate Napoleon Qayyum told Compass this was not the first incident in which a Christian maid has been illegally detained and tortured in Pakistan, which is more than 95 percent Muslim. Last year in April, a 14-year-old Christian maid, Sumera Pervaiz, was illegally detained and tortured by an air force officer in Islamabad, he said. No action was taken against the family, he added, because of their influential status.

“I wrote a letter to the chief justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, which was also published in the press, requesting him to take notice of the sad incident, but there has been no response from the country’s apex court,” Qayyum said. “It seems that, like other government institutions, the judiciary is also ignoring the rights of minorities.”

A small but growing number of religious communities across the country are removing their money from Wall Street banks to protest what they see as unfair mortgage foreclosures and unwillingness to lend to small businesses.

The New Bottom Line (NBL) coalition of congregations, community organizations, labor unions and individuals is promoting a “Move Our Money” campaign with the goal of shifting $1 billion from big banks to community banks and credit unions.

“In a way, the banks have divested from our communities, especially communities of color,” said the Rev. Ryan Bell, a Seventh-day Adventist pastor in Los Angeles. “So we’re basically telling Bank of America that we want them to invest in our communities, and until they do that we’re not going to give our money to them.”

Bell’s church was one of six Los Angeles Christian congregations that announced they would divest a collective $2 million from Bank of America and Wells Fargo as part of the Move Our Money campaign.

The campaign has been slow to get off the ground; but after a recent national convocation of clergy in New Orleans, about 100 more leaders from a broad cross section of Christian, Jewish and Muslim congregations pledged to move an additional $100 million.

The New Orleans gathering was sponsored by PICO National Network, a coalition of more than 1,000 faith-based social justice groups.

The Move Our Money website reports that $55 million had been moved as part of the campaign as of Monday (Nov. 21), but that figure pales in comparison to the big banks’ trillions in total assets.

The campaign singles out Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase for not doing enough to provide home loan modifications to help guard against foreclosure; cramping down on small business lending; and escaping federal taxes by parking assets overseas, even after each bank received billions of taxpayer dollars in federal bailouts.

According to Move Our Money organizers, by the end of 2009 Wells Fargo modified loans for only 22 percent of those eligible for modifications under a federal program, and has not changed its foreclosure procedure “despite many confirmed reports of ‘robo-signing’ and other illegal practices.”

Richele Messick, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo, countered that the bank has participated in more than 600 “home preservation workshops” and provided more than 700,000 mortgage modifications since 2009, as well as giving more than $219 million to 19,000 nonprofits last year.

“It’s definitely our priority to keep people in their homes and to avoid foreclosure. We’re also actively lending to small businesses,” Messick said.

Bank of America could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for JPMorgan Chase declined to comment, but pointed to the bank’s third-quarter earnings report for 2011, which shows that it had increased lending to small businesses by 71 percent from the previous year and had offered 1.2 million trial modifications to home loans since the beginning of 2009.

The Move Our Money campaign is separate from the “Move Your Money” project started two years ago by Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington and economist Rob Johnson.

It is also separate from a recent Facebook group that called for a national “Bank Transfer Day” on Nov. 5 to move funds from for-profit banks to credit unions.

The Credit Union National Association reported that 700,000 people joined credit unions nationwide in the month before Bank Transfer Day — more than the 600,000 who joined in all of 2010. The Bank Transfer Day movement claims credit for this uptick.

In addition to encouraging private divestments through the Move Our Money campaign, NBL plans to introduce legislation in 50 or more cities around the country that would move taxpayer money out of big banks.

One NBL partner group was already successful in San Jose, Calif., which enacted a social responsibility policy a year ago that diverted $1 billion from Bank of America. The policy was the first of its kind in the nation, and similar moves are under discussion in Seattle and Portland, Ore.

Rabbi Michael Latz, head of a Reform Jewish congregation in Minneapolis, has participated in meetings with Jewish activist groups and county commissioners discussing a responsible banking policy.

“I’m involved because I think it is one of the great moral issues of our generation, about how we build our communities,” Latz said. “As a religious leader, as a person who studies texts, I understand that our first commitment must always be to the most vulnerable among us.”

Although a tale about friends getting together for Thanksgiving, the Peanuts special, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, is really a metaphor about family relationships during the holiday. See if this sounds familiar:

Charlie Brown and his sister, Sally, are preparing to go to their grandmother’s home for dinner when Charlie gets a call from Peppermint Patty who has invited herself and two other friends, (Marcie and Franklin), to Charlie’s place for the holiday. Without getting a word in edgewise, Charlie finds himself hosting a Thanksgiving meal knowing nothing about cooking except how to fill a bowl with cold cereal and making toast. Which begs the question…where are the parents?

As one does in such occasions, Charlie is aided in the kitchen with the help of his friend, Linus, his dog Snoopy and the yellow bird, Woodstock, making for a questionably sanitary condition. Together, the quartet produces plates of buttered toast, pretzel sticks, popcorn and jellybeans. The feast is set up in the backyard on a ping-pong table surrounded by lawn chairs. Peppermint Patty arrives in flip-flops (in NOVEMBER!) with her friends in tow and everyone sits down to eat.

After a brief prayer from Linus the theologian and believer of Great Pumpkins, the meal is unveiled. But Peppermint Patty is shocked and then outraged by the display of food. “What’s this?” she bellows. “What blockhead cooked all this? What kind of a Thanksgiving dinner is this? Where’s the turkey, Chuck? Don’t you know anything about Thanksgiving dinners? Where’s the mashed potatoes? Where’s the cranberry sauce? Where’s the pumpkin pie?!” Oh, the humanity.

Disgraced by the public outburst, Charlie Brown excuses himself from the table without a word. After a brief moment of awkward silence, Marcie reminds Patty that Charlie Brown didn’t invite her, but she invited herself and her friends to event and that she hasn’t been a very good model of thankfulness.

Too bad Patty didn’t keep these verses in mind:

“Better to a small serving of vegetables with love than a fattened calf with hatred.” Proverbs 15:17

“Better to be lowly in spirit along with the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud.” Proverbs 16:19

“Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting with strife.” Proverbs 17:1

While a very funny cartoon, the ending always bothered me. (Not the part where Woodstock is eating a portion of turkey, but that is disturbing too.) No, it’s the fact that Patty never really apologizes for her behavior. She feels bad, but she begs Marcie to ask forgiveness for her. Poor Charlie, apparently never got around to reading his copy of “Boundaries” by Henry Cloud and John Townsend because he quickly forgives her.

What is it about holidays that bring out the best and worst in people? How many festivities have been ruined because of rude behavior and hurt feelings? How many meals had to be altered due to a power outage or a dropped turkey? How many painful memories have been made because of a family member’s pre-partying? For every practically perfect person who must have everything “just so” there is another one who could care less. Many a home will be decked out with multiple tables pushed together with tablecloths covering unfinished jigsaw puzzles, (at least in my family), not to mention the family picture of everyone sitting around the table just to prove to others that they were actually there. Questionable dishes containing little marshmallows will accompany the “beautiful bird” and half-compliments will abound like “The turkey is nice and moist – Not dry like last year” from clueless relatives. Everyone will overeat while complaining about his or her diets. Half of the crew will watch the football games while the other half will make plans for Black Friday. Many will spend multiple meals in multiple locations due to broken homes trying to keep the day special. Some will spend the day helping in a shelter. Some will spend the day alone with a TV dinner.

Charlie Brown is a hero. Not because he’s incredibly smart or brave, but because he has a good heart. Even with the inconvenience that Patty caused him, he still chose to honor his friendship. He did the difficult thing. We can learn a lot from this story. Will we be the Charlie Brown or will we be the Peppermint Patty?

Although one of the most popular of the Peanuts specials, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving was actually the 10th special produced and aired for the first time in 1973 – eight years after A Charlie Brown Christmas. Originally sponsored by Dolly Madison Snack Cakes, the special aired on CBS and won an Emmy Award the following year. Since 2007, the special has been airing on the ABC network with this year’s showing on November 24 at 8:00 p.m. followed by This is America Charlie Brown: The Mayflower Voyagers. Ironically, FOX has announced that they will be airing the new Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown special that same night from 8:30-9:30 p.m. making a 30 minute overlap of Peanuts mayhem for the first time ever!

Originally posted on Examiner.com

A man went to his rabbi and complained, “There are ten of us living in one room. Life is unbearable! What can I do?” The rabbi answered, “Go home and take your goat into the room with you.”  The man was incredulous; but the rabbi was insistent. “Do as I say. Come back in a week.”

A week later the man returned looking even more distraught than before. ”Rabbi, please, we cannot stand it. The goat is so filthy!” The rabbi then told him, “Very well, go home and let the goat out. Come back in a week.”

A radiant man returned to the rabbi a week later. His perspective had been astonishingly altered. “Life is beautiful,” he cried. “We enjoy every minute of living together without the goat – and there’s only the ten of us!”

Jesus once encountered a group of ten, living together, with little for which to be thankful. These ten had more than a stinking goat in the room. They had leprosy. From a distance they shout to the rabbi Jesus to have mercy on them – life was unbearable.

This group was following standard social protocol. Leprosy was highly contagious and had to be controlled. Those who had the disease were quarantined into colonies. Those unfortunate enough to contract the disease were thus cut off from family and friends, typically, for the rest of their lives.

It’s hard for us to imagine the stigma attached to this malady when we have never seen anyone with the disease. It is a crippling, disfiguring condition. Today it can be treated and cured with drugs costing a couple hundred dollars, but in Jesus’ day, it was a death sentence. Devastating the skin, eyes, and lungs, it ate away at the nerve endings and flesh until it completely dismantled the sufferer.

Jesus did more than change their perspective. Mercifully, he healed them. Maybe fingers began to grow back. Maybe the difficult breathing was replaced by fully inflatable lungs. Maybe their splotchy skin became pink and healthy again. For the first time in years they are physically well, and this group turns together from death’s door. But they do not turn together toward their healer.

Only one of the ten came back to Jesus. This one fell at the feet of Christ and worshiped him. Outside of others in his leper colony, this was the first person he had drawn close to in years. He didn’t run home to a wife he had not held in years. He didn’t scoop up the children he had only seen play at a distance. He didn’t seek out his old friends who had long given him up for dead.

No, he went first and foremost to Jesus. He threw himself down on the ground in devotion. This was a thankful man. This was a grateful man. This was a man with perspective. The tragedy is that this was the only one who returned to say, “Thank you.” Even Jesus was surprised by this. “Were not all ten cleansed?” Jesus asked rhetorically. “Then, where are the other nine?”

Why didn’t the others come back? Maybe one waited to see if the cure was for real. Maybe another intended to go back later, as soon as possible. Maybe one ran to the family from which he had long been separated or got so entranced with having his life back, he simply forgot to return to the one who had performed the healing. I don’t know for sure.

But I do know that we can become so absorbed in our happiness – in our blessings or good fortune – that we fail to consider the Source of those blessings. We do not maintain perspective, and can sometimes say “Thank you,” because we know that it is the proper thing to do, but saying it and feeling it are two different things.

During this holiday week, may the Source of every good and perfect gift give us the greatest gift of all: A grateful heart. In return, may we fall at his feet with thanksgiving.

Some wounds of war are all too visible — a missing leg, a shattered arm. The invisible wounds of mind and soul are often more difficult to spot, and equally hard to treat.

But those who know where to look can help them heal, and it’s a message that is hitting home for U.S. congregations as more than 1.35 million veterans adjust to civilian life after deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affecting an estimated one-in-six returning service members, congregations are coming face-to-face with the tolls of war.

Experts say faith groups have much to offer, even when the wounds include PTSD and traumatic brain injury.

“Churches are kind of in the dark about how to help, unfortunately,” said Peter Bauer, an ordained minister and clinical social worker with the Veterans Administration in San Antonio.

“But they don’t have to stay there. There are some very easy things that churches can do to be proactive and help with this population.”

Bauer, a former Navy chaplain, recently convened workshops on PTSD and traumatic brain injury for pastors and seminarians at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton, Mass. His educational outreach builds on other small-scale initiatives that have gained momentum in recent years.

Since forming in 2009, the non-profit group Care for the Troops has equipped 37 Georgia congregations to convene peer groups, identify local clinicians with military experience and otherwise support soldiers’ families.

The project is now adding congregations in Tennessee, California and other states.

Illinois-based Wheat Ridge Ministries has been circulating Lutheran liturgies and other resources to help churches build bonds with military families.Point Man Ministries in New York has partnered with about 250 U.S. congregations to host veteran-led, peer support groups for those dealing with PTSD.

Last year, Army Chaplain Jeremy Pickens launched the Massachusetts Military Spiritual Strength Network, where clergy and laypeople receive training in how to make religious programs more military-friendly. The network now includes 60 local churches.

“Sometimes we hear people say, ‘We don’t have the training to deal with PTSD,’” Pickens said. “But (to minister effectively), I don’t need to know what it means to have PTSD. I just need to know how to listen. It’s a matter of providing open space where people can talk.”

In his presentation, Bauer shared sobering facts about struggles faced by those returning from war. Example: in 2010, the military had more suicides (468) than deaths in combat (462).

The roots of trauma often go back to childhood, Bauer said, where 60 percent of veterans experienced physical abuse and 40 percent experienced sexual abuse. Such psychological wounds can get re-opened in combat, and by the time a soldier comes home, mental and emotional patterns can be habitual and difficult to overcome.

Hidden wounds can be tricky to manage, Bauer said, in part because they’re not easy to diagnose. Depression is common in the 3.2 million Americans who’ve suffered traumatic brain injury, he said. He urged members of faith communities to take note when someone seems overwhelmed by normal levels of light or sound, and make referrals for medical evaluations.

Congregations, however, can do much more than refer. Bauer suggested helping veterans find contemplative or more traditional worship services as an alternative to contemporary services where loud bands and bright lights can trigger anxious reactions.

Churches can show ongoing care in simple ways, Bauer said, such as hosting a monthly support dinner for military family members.

They should also appoint a volunteer sponsor to check in monthly with a deployed serviceman or woman, and a second sponsor for his or her loved ones at home, during deployments.

“It’s unforgiveable in 2011 that someone (who belongs to a church) would be deployed to Afghanistan, and no one from that church would be willing to step up to the plate, be a sponsor and make sure they’re OK,” Bauer said. “That is a crime.”

Veterans say churches are finding their way in a new ministry landscape, though not always with success. James Knudsen, a Vietnam War veteran and PTSD sufferer in Marion, Iowa, says churches in his area have resisted requests for them to host support groups for veterans.

“I have not heard of any churches in my area that are helping veterans,” Knudsen said.

“They have other interests.”But in western Massachusetts, 29-year-old Robert Henry Hyde, an Air Force veteran who served from 2000 to 2004 and deployed to Iraq, helped raise awareness in local churches before he left the area to attend seminary.

“Ministers, though they might not have served in the military and might not understand it, have the tools to help people handle PTSD or brain trauma, or at least refer people to the right professionals to get help,” Hyde said.

“So in that sense, churches need to be a part of this” healing effort.Even churches with a history of ministry to veterans see new opportunities now to branch out. The Rev. Jeremi Colvin, assistant rector for mission in homeless ministry at the (Episcopal) Church of the Holy Spirit in Fall River, Mass., hopes her church will soon begin hosting peer support groups for veterans.

“There could be more outreach,” Colvin said at Bauer’s workshop. “We have a ministry of outreach to veterans and military families, but we need to spread out, talk to people, talk to hospitals, and make it more known that we’re there.”