Valerie Hess

Hello, friends,

Starting April 7th, I will teaching an 8-week on-line class for Spring Arbor University. It will be in the area of learning to practice the Spiritual Disciplines. The course number is SPF602 and I look forward to teaching this and interacting with all of the students who, as I understand, come from all over the world.
Contact Spring Arbor University if you would like to be a part of it.

I am listening to an unabridged audio version of Lawrence Wright’s book, “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.”  Every American needs to read this book! There is so much spin about Islam in the American press today. We desperately want to believe that Islamic fundamentalism is more of a fringe element than it really is. As Americans, we have a hard time understanding why people would come to our wonderful country with the sole goal to destroy it.

What is even sadder is to see people, especially former Christians, convert to Islam in this country because they are desperate for a belief system with structure. (This is why I think the Spiritual Disciplines are so important!) Keith Ellison, a former Christian, became the first Muslim Congressman in 2006. He used a Kor’an to take the oath of office that had once belonged to Thomas Jefferson. Mr. Ellison thought this showed that Jefferson gleaned wisdom from many sources.

What Mr. Ellison doesn’t realize is that Thomas Jefferson wanted to understand the enemy. Since the United States under Jefferson (and before) was being held hostage by Muslim slave traders out of north Africa, Jefferson wanted to end our country’s payment of tribute to those Barbary State pirates in exchange for safe passage  through the Mediterranean. (We paid millions of dollars to them over about a 15 year period.) In 1805, US marines captured Tripoli and freed its American slaves. By 1815, the last Muslim pirates were defeated. (Note: we ended slavery in North  Africa almost 50 years before ending it on our own soil.)

This means that the USA’s first military conflict after independence was against Islam and that fight needs to continue today or we will once again be held hostage to an ideology of death. The problem is that true Muslims believe that they must do all they can to impose sharia law (i.e. Islamic law) everywhere. And, what most of us don’t realize (or don’t want to believe) is the Kor’an allows them to use any means available to them, including the use of deadly force, to accomplish this task.

We as Americans and as Christians must wake up and realize that we are frogs in the water and the heat is up high. As Christians we are called to love our enemies and that includes understanding them fully. To say that Islam is a peace-loving religion is to be blind to its true nature. There are peace-loving Muslims to be sure but Islam as a belief system depends on the forced conversion of ALL non-Muslims (and as Mr. Wright’s book points out, many fundamentalist Muslims define who is Muslim and who is not for themselves).

Read “Looming Tower” for a very thorough, objective study of how Osama bin Laden came to believe that he was called by God to destroy America. It has certainly given me a lot to think and pray about!

(to quote Eugene Peterson’s book title). Yesterday, I found out from the doctor that my focusing on my health by taking vitamins and mineral supplements as well as doing a homeopathic regimin for a couple of months, has pulled me back from the brink of some health problems that would require medication. I’m all for medication if it is necessary but if the illness is due to my lack of exercise and eating well, and can be counter-balanced with those things as well as natural supplements and health “boosts,” then I would rather go that route. Romans 12:1 is taking on more and more of a physical element to me just as my need to be a good steward of creation (through recycling and being aware of my personal carbon imprint) is based on my belief that God created the heavens and the earth (see Genesis 1 and 2).

As we begin this new year, let me encourage each of us personally and each of us who are raising children to take stewardship of our bodies, the temples of the Holy Spirit, seriously and to focus on becoming healthy (which may include losing weight, realizing that all thin people aren’t necessarily healthy). Eat well (organically–to help the earth and to support humane animal husbandry, and locally and in season as much as possible–to help with our carbon imprint due to trucking food over long distances), exercise (walk as much as you can and as far as you can every day), rest (get 7 to 8 hours of sleep at night and/or take a quick nap in the afternoon), and do one fun thing everyday. You will be a better witness to what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ to others and especially to your children.

http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_7851561

The following came in on my daily prayer e-newsletter for China as we count down the days until that country hosts the 2008 Olympics. May we who celebrate Christ’s birth take this lesson to heart. Merry Christmas! 

Mrs. Yang is slim, young looking and elegantly dressed in silk trousers and a patterned blouse, but she is actually 73 years old, and the survivor of 10 years in a labor camp.  She explains, “We must sing to keep up the spirit …” Most Chinese Christians know at least a hundred songs by heart!  When Mrs. Yang sits down to a meal, she sings a hymn.  When she reads her Bible, she starts and finishes with a hymn.  When she was locked into a cell with no light, she sang hymns.  She encourages the church in the West to practice this “habit of holiness,” of singing to God by oneself.