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THE WEEKEND OUTLOOK Friday April Religion April can be a very depressing month By JIM RYAN Fifth Sunday of Easter John 15 18 April Jim Ryan April has been a difficult month Read depressed I t call April cruel ficultwUldo Why difficult Because it s a month of transitions and we all know how difficult transitions can be But even more than tran sitions April is a month especially this year of unfulfilled promises or at best ambiguous promises To fond the roots of this unhap- piness lets break down reality into three spheres Nature State and Church NATURE The first one is easy April is the month of natural transition winter is tranformed into spring new life comes out of death with the help of fertilizers But we surprised by the tenacity of nature We give her a token earth day one In three nun and sixty five meanwhile toxic levels escalate Is there any guarantee that spr ing has to return next year Or can spring like the jobs of most people during a recession be eliminated What if spring didn return next year What if the earth and the natural cycle just seized up and stopped turning Ironically THE STATE Let s move on The State Now there a hard one Especially this year t we all promts ed a new world order The tion was from war to peace the promise was of an as yet unrealized future of peace and- justice Weve had promises of new world orders before but in other years the war outlasted our memories of the promise Not so this year This is what really depresses me Having heard about the triumph of American war technology during the winter months I now see American helicopters clumsily killing Kur dish citizens of the new world order on the hillsides of northern Iraq with friendly bombs car tons of food tents and blankets There s an irony for you I sit in my warm somewhat waterproof house in Halton Hills and watch my son grow up in comfort while Kurdish babies are buried in shallow graves American and British TV can celebrate victory and the return of the troops but who can swallow it The blossoms yellow ribbons that appeared on trees and car aerials are now bedraggl and colorless reminders of Hope is in our giving By Rev MaryB Campbell B A M Minister at Nora and Union Presbyterian Churches Blessed are you who are the poor for yours is the kingdom of God Luke 20 From generation to generation the church has clung to this precept that our struggle will all be worth it one day and God will bless us for our grappling with economic concerns We have seen religious enthusiasts with aspirations toward acetic living and the denunciation of worldly possessions in order to achieve a state of poverty believing that it is a spiritual state to be poor which carries with it God s bless The concern with this kind of thinking is that it endorses and reinforces the concept that those who already have will continue in their already secure future while those who have not will continue to be blessed in poverty What we have failed tos ee is that although we do struggle with mortgages and interest rates and G S s we you and I not the poor we are the rich Did you realize that if you own your own home you stand where per cent of the world s population will never stand Think of it millions of people who share our earth will never own their own home Three quarters of our world will never know what it means to have enough to eat We are obsessed with diets and overeating while most of the rest of the world grapple with how to feed their children Somehow the church let God s grace be transformed into a we bestow upon ourselves We are perhaps sym pathetic toward the real poor but we are not prepared to enter into their suffering because we know United Church congregations urged to give for Africa United Church congregations across Canada have been urged to collect a special offering on Sunday May for the people of Sudan and northern Ethiopia This offering was suggested in response to an appeal for food aid made last December by the United Nations That appeal warned of the impending threat of a massive famine in Sudan and northern Ethiopia due to the con tinumg civil war and drought in the region The need in the Horn of Africa is critical as desperate as it ever was says the Reverend Vince Alfano director of the Depart ment of Stewardship Services That department along with the General Council Division of World Outreach is coordinating the special offering Unfortunately what s happen ed is that the Horn of Africa ongoing cnsis is being over shadowed in the news by the desperate situation of Kurdish refugees in Iraq explains Mr Thats the terrible dilemma we always face when trying to deliver aid The need always ex ceeds our capacity to do it all adds the Division of World Outreach s General Secretary the Reverend Fred Bayliss In The- United Church of Canada received approximately through a year long fort to respond to needs in the Horn of Africa But given the grave situation in Sudan and northern Ethiopia it was apparent that we had to do even more says Mr While the publicity ding the special offering on May may make it seem like we re targeting one area and not another that s not how it works explains Mr Bayliss This offering is a special response planned in advance to focus the energies of United Church congregations on a very serious need he explains Ongoing aid and emergency situations are responded to by the United Church as they emerge Comments Mr Alfano I guess for instance you might call the immediate response of 20 which we sent last week to help finance humanitarian aid to the Kurdish people the silent work of the United Church Mission and Service Fund The special appeal for the Horn of Africa will go ahead as planned he adds but the United Church will also be responding as we always do to other requests for assistance in eluding the Kurdish refugees through the World Council of Churches says Mr The HE Newf ie Store missus 189m FRESH SEA 29 ib MOORE PARK PLAZA 74ChWnSt Georgetown STEVEN CFOSTER BA LLB BARRISTER SOLICITOR MAIN ST SOUTH GEORGETOWN ONT L7G 3G2 empty promises But if I can visualize a time when spring won return I can visualize a time when politicians wont call elections and make promises of new life and new growth THE CHURCH Finally the Church Perhaps the hardest of all because while it offers the Easter promise to us in April we still see our own failures We see our own inability to rise a boVe petty if Every year we celebrate Easter every year we make the transition from Lenten fast to Easter resurrection joy and yet who of us overwhelmed by the failure of the resurrection in our own hearts This could be the time to talk about the Kingdom of God pre sent and yet not realized But today I II settle for a Ileal and partial answer a solu to depression First as Walker Percy writes you have to be insane not to be depressed in a world like ours This realization is the first step toward a cure for depression Second as T H White has Merlin advise his pupil in A Once and Future King The best thing for being sad is to learn something That is the only thing that never fails You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins you may miss your only love you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds There is only one thing for it then to learn Learn why the world wags and what wags it That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust never alienate never be tortured by never fear or distrust and never dream of regretting Learning is the thing for you Let hope that the rains of April bring out new honest sus taining blooms of hope for our Mother Earth and for us her children Endnote The Once and Future King 1976 181 there is nothing blessed about poverty As we watch the current plight of the Kurdish people we see the reality of the absence of God s wdl for human dignity justice and righteousness The church of Jesus Chnst must take sides It must side for the like love that cuts across the meaning of having Our hope is not in our having but in our giving This is the spiritual truth that came with Easter morning with the messge of resurrection and is primary In our hope of reconciliation for all people and creation If we believe it I mean not in our heads but in our lives it will shatter our com not only hi our but in a social structure that has no room no hope no love for those who are the least of these God grant His Church the courage to be HIS church WERE SERIOUS ABOUT SERVICE To better serve you our customer we like you to take a lew minutes to rate your HERALD service Italy My at the correct My to the proper place and it When caffing the Heratd my can is antwered promptly and I treated with courtsiyand concern My Herald carter It and courteous My Wednesday Herald is by a an Wednesdays My Weekend Herald Is delivered by Noon on Saturday Have you had any problems with the following during the last month 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