Its an idea I cant get out of my mind: If people had the courage and freedom to say what they truly believe AND it could be expressed without fierce peer and family rebuke, a lot of crazy positions and ideas could not survive in the marketplace. But herd pressure from the strong keeps some cockeyed ideas alive because too many refrain from speaking.

Silence and a restraint lend tacit support to ideas that should be rejected. In the same manner, silence is a tool to leave other ideas dead on the vine for lack of interest.

There are a great many issues that dont really have visceral support. But to raise objection leads to deadly questioning of ones patriotism, religious beliefs and sanity. So doubts remain locked in their hearts. Patriotism is just about the easiest weapon for conformity. No one dares to do or say or dream too radically lest they be labeled unpatriotic. It never worked better than in the 2003 vote to go into Iraq or to pass the Patriot Act that weakened Americans historic constitutional rights.

The old story about the king wearing no clothes is a perfect example. No one was brave enough to make the statement so everyone pretended as if he was clothed. In tyranny, especially, it works that way.

So it was that I took in a talk Feb. 21 at my church by theologian David Ray Griffin, professor emeritus of Claremont of Theology in Claremont, Calif., a United Methodist institution where he taught more than 30 years. But Griffin wasnt talking about process theology. He was talking about the official government report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on America and a litany of inconsistencies between it and what numerous independent people have found credible people in aviation, engineering, intelligence and military.

His talk was titled 9/11 Contradictions: An Open Message to Congress and the Press. A huge crowd turned out for about two hours of talk and a question-and-answer session.

We in the press were among those singled out for virtually ignoring the chorus of doubts and the evidence discrediting the official findings.Griffin has been prolific in his research and writings, with such books as The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions and The New Pearl Harbor.He believes Congress should look at the numerous questions raised and reopen the investigation.

Why didnt the CIA immediately rush President Bush out the school in Florida and smother him in protection, instead of letting him stay with the children in the reading of My Pet Goat? Where was the wreckage of the crash scene of Flight 93 at Shanksville, Pa.? How could the Twin Towers and the nearby Building 7 (which wasnt struck by a plane) all come crashing straight down with precision as if they were controlled demolitions? (Debunkers of conspiracy theories say Building 7 fell because of the collateral damage from the towers collapse.) Questions were raised about how a hijacker and amateur pilot could take Flight 77 into the amazing turn to strike the Pentagon from the side?

In his talk, Griffin covered about half of 25 major questions and doubts he has about 9/11.

I had previously viewed the Loose Change documentary, with the images that suggest a pattern of explosions going top to bottom of one of the Towers, ensuring a straight fall, rather than toppling over. But the non-conspirators refute that and say the squibs of air were created by the downward pressure on the floors from the collapse in motion. The literature and the Internet are awash in findings that clash. Its pretty befuddling and takes enormous discipline to sort out.

Much has been made about physicist Steve Jones, famous for cold fusion technology, being suspended from teaching at Brigham Young University in 2006 after he questioned 9/11 report. Jones gave credibility to the 9/11 Truth Movement for arguing that the speed and precision of the Towers collapse and the structural integrity of the towers were not consistent with airliners and fire bringing them down. That alone is a fascinating controversy.

Implied in it all is that government leaders right up to the Oval Office, at a minimum, allowed the terrorist attacks to happen, with their full knowledge, to gain instant national unity and emergency powers at a time when the administration itself in 2001 was flagging. A common notion supporting the argument that there was no government complicity is that our federal leaders are too inept to pull off something so complicated without getting caught red-handed.

Yes, there are boatloads of conspiracy theories connected with 9/11, but we still do a disservice to our duty as preservers of freedom if these people are dismissed as whacky. And those who commonly say, I dontentertain conspiracy theories are acting a bit like those who benignlyallow tyranny to take root and flourish out of apathy ortacit acceptance each time we getthe “official” story. “Question authority” is a wiser strategy when things don’t seem to add up.

No getting around it: Our religious identity cannot be separated from who we are. A student in a classroom does not suddenly suspend his or her religious being and detach from a set of spiritual training and values.

The Tribunes front page story on Thursday, Bill gives religious rights to school children, (http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/110093) showed how knotty an issue living out ones religion freely in public schools can be. For the most part, accommodation and common sense have prevailed in classrooms and halls. When teachers and principals convey a sense that all on campuses should recognize social, cultural and religious diversity and cut everyone slack, it has largely worked. That has included allowing school Bible clubs the same freedoms as other school clubs and students to do an essay on religious theme.

It seems fair to allow students to wear religious identity jewelry like crosses, stars of David or other faith symbols. And if a student wore a pentagram, that should be OK, too. Purists would say ban them all, then the offending pentagram would disappear by default.

Rep. Doug Clark, R-Anthem, is well meaning in his bill HB2713 calling for schools to adopt content neutral standards, according to the story by Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services. Clark asserts that religious expressions and even religious items would have to be given the same treatment as similar secular expressions and items, the story said.

At the heart of the debate is an education centers role of ensuring maximum learning, which almost always is an idea-changing and expanding exercise, while allowing the individual to be authentic and free to think. If a student from a very conservative home walks into science class and insists the world cannot be millions of years old because the Holy Bible says otherwise, he or she should be able to make the case to the class or in an essay. But that student ought to be able and willing to listen to the standard science account and evidence and submit to the critical thinking exercises that lead to truth and best theories prevailing in worldviews.

Much of Fischers story included legislators valid concerns that too much expressive freedom, such as T-shirts for or against gays or lesbians, would follow and distract from learning. Lawmakers took turns pointing out free expression would give license to students to go after the groups they support, namely expressive Christians or gays. This is how Fischer reported one legislators position:

Rep. Eddie Farnsworth, R.-Gilbert, said both are entitled to the same treatment. Both of them have an opinion on what is right and what is wrong, he said. But, he said, school officials decide that the ones who are being disruptive and the ones whose views can be stifled are the ones wearing the religious shirts, not the ones wearing the other side and attacking the religious perspective.

Yet Rep. David Schapira, D-Tempe, sees a distinction between attacking an individual for their choices and for their lifestyle. He calls it an affront on a person. I see it differently than disagreeing on an idea.

The undercurrent of the bill seems to an effort to ensure protection of minority thinking and academic freedom. If a student goes all the way through a biology course and still insists humans and animals co-existed on the earth 5,500 years ago, can or should that student get a failing grade? Or should that student just swallow and regurgitate what the teacher taught about dinosaurs in the Jurassic eon and man waiting to show up in the Cenozoic time period? Obviously, we can choose to reject what we learn. Belief and knowing are different entities.

But the article shows that when sparks fly in the academic arena and when parents have ultimate say in their childrens welfare, they turn to legal remedies. Theyll sue schools if they believe, for example, their childrens religion was violated or their beliefs cost them good grades. Such threats drive schools to tread lightly.

Many, of course, get around all this by sending their children to religious,charteror private schools where other rules apply andcreationism beliefs canprevail.

Ultimately, it seems, students, parents, teachers and administrators in public schoolsshould recognize they all hold beliefs somewhere on the spiritual spectrum, from rock-hard faith to no belief in a higher being. They each want to be able to believe freely. All should understand that unfettered learning calls for open, critical thinking that may fortify or challenge what one believes. And in the maelstrom and laboratory of learning — the school all should accept ways that people express their beliefs in civil and respectful ways so that learning always wins out.

The mind has a way of changing, even to our own alarm.

A new study of the American spiritual landscape shows more people are changing their faith allegiance or taking leave from those they grew up with. On Monday, Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released its findings from a survey of 35,000 Americans about where they align themselves. (http://religions.pewforum.org/reports).More than 25 percent of people have abandoned the faith of their childhood either to another belief or to no organized religion. That increases to 44 percent if we are talking also about movement among Protestant faiths. Thus loyalty to ones parents faith has waned.

Protestants, who have long combined to form the largest religious block, are becoming a minority. And while Catholics seem to be holding their own with nearly a quarter of all people, they continue to lose American-born Catholics. Offsetting for much of the loss is immigration, especially Catholics coming from Latin America. At one time, one in three Americans was raised Catholic. Now, it is about one in four, the study found. The report suggests the Catholic Church must increase its ministry and mission work to Spanish-speaking people.

Among foreign-born adults, Catholics outnumber Protestants 46 percent to 24 percent. For native-born Americans, Protestants outnumber Catholics 55 percent to 21 percent. The study further found that immigration directly has hiked the American population of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists.

Roughly 10 percent of all Americans are former Catholics, the study found. And while six in 10 Americans who are 70 or older wear the Protestant label, it falls to 43 percent among those ages 18 to 29.

We have nearly half the American public telling us theyre something different today than they were as a child, and thats a staggering number, said Luis E. Lugo, director of Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. He said it shows how competitive the religious marketplace has become.

Christian is a label that 78 percent of the population accepts, but 16 percent of people are affiliated with no faith and 5 percent belong to non-Christian faiths.

When looking at income distribution, Jews earned the highest, with 46 percent with $100,000 or more, followed by Hindus (43 percent), and Orthodox (28 percent). Mormons led in the $50,000 to $74,999 category with 22 percent of their memberships. Historically black Protestant churches were lowest in income of the 12 groups examined (47 percent), with Jehovahs Witnesses next at 42 percent.

Educational levels of followers by faith groups were examined. The most with post-graduate degrees were Hindus, 48 percent; Jews, 35 percent; and Buddhists, 26 percent. Orthodox Christians led among college graduates with 28 percent of their membership, down to 6 percent for Jehovahs Witnesses. The highest percentage of members with a less than high school graduation was Muslim, 21 percent; historic Black Protestants, 19 percent; and Jehovahs Witnesses, 19 percent.

The biggest gainer of Americans was the unaffiliated group. Four percent of those surveyed acknowledged they were that same status in the families they grew up with.

Other facts: Far more men than women claim no religious affiliation; 37 percent of people married embrace a faith different from a spouse; Muslims and Mormons lead with large families and offspring living at home; the American South is most populated with evangelical Christians; the Northeast has the most Catholics and the West has the most people unaffiliated people; and Jehovahs Witnesses have the lowest retention rate (just 37 percent of all those saying they were raised as Witnesses still say they are followers). Jews and Mainline Protestants tend to have the oldest people on their rolls.

Those are fascinating findings that should give denominational leaders some pause and some opportunities for bringing people into their fold.

The stark video of sick Holstein cows being prodded at a packing plant to get up and go to slaughter was not so much unsettling for me as a flashback to my days in the 1950s and 1960s on an Iowa dairy farm. This cow boy wasnt always a nice kid. More than a few times, I impatiently and angrily goaded stubborn, deadweight blobs of reclining cow to get up tired, sick or whatever.

The widely seen video, which was covertly shot at the Hallmark Meat Packing Co. in China, Calif., showed non-ambulatory or downed dairy cows that had to be dragged to slaughter. It was repeatedly shown on TV across several days. In the final analysis, its hard to find humane treatment in a slaughterhouse, even if death comes nearly instantly to Betsy the Cow through high voltage or a sharp blow to the head.

When I was just a farm kid with work to get done and few choices, I know I wasnt always kind to the 25 cows in my daily care. In time, some got too aged to produce milk. In the scheme of things, old cows, with their dairying days over, gave their last full measure of devotion at the packing plant in Marshalltown or Waterloo.

If they died on the farm, we called the rendering works that sent out a truck with a powerful cable that towed and dragged the carcass out of the barn or pasture and up onto the trucks flatbed. Then the driver took the cadaver to a plant to be ground into tankage for animal feed. Since those days, such reuse of dead animals is a major health no-no. The mad-cow disease crisis made that rule law.

We, like other farmers, sent old cows literally on their last legs to the packing house, and sometimes they collapsed or sat down passing through the labyrinth to the killing floor. It was bleak, but it was the reality. I remember how we hauled Margie the cow to the Marshalltown plant, but she somehow leaped out the back end on the highway. We had to round up a lot of people to literally roll and push her back onto the truck because she would not or could not get up.

And it was another time and certainly an era when farming was economically grim. You lost cattle to lightning strikes, wild dog attacks, bloating from getting into alfalfa fields and any of a number of diseases. It was just part of farming to try to recoup something from an old cow by selling her to a packing plant.

Milking the cows was my assignment for most of my formative years until I went off to college in 1964 and then some in the summer. I knew barnyard filth and manure up to my kneecaps in cattle lots, especially with the spring rains or melting snow. Sanitation rules were certainly more lax. In those years, my hands had a tell-tale scent of barnyard that no amount of soap could remove. I still remember a classmate who put his hands over my eyes once, and they, too, smelled of his dairy farm, where they milked cows by hand. Not with stainless steel milking machines like we used.

The Hallmark packing plant incident has prompted new calls for better care of animals. As expected the Humane Society of the United States and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) bitterly spoke out. California clergy came out in support of a November 2008 ballot measure, the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, which would require more living space for veal calves, pregnant sows and egg-laying hens. God entrusts animals to our care, said the Right Rev. Marc Handley Andrus, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California. Denying them the ability even to turn around is surely not an example of faithful stewardship.

Over the years, I have looked back at my farm days and wondered how I could have been a part of perfunctory and systemic cruelty to animals: cutting of the top beaks of chicks so they could not peck other chickens to bloody pulp; pinning down bull calves and putting rubber rings around their testicles so theyd fall off and the critters would grow up to be steers; castrating pigs; dehorning and branding cattle; and more. Of course, all of that goes on to this day, probably in less harsh ways.

So much is just relative here. Depending on who you talk to, fishing, hunting and livestock farming are all forms of animal cruelty and exploitation. For the sake of the creatures large and small, we could move toward other forms of food though it surely would take major change to shake up the food chain. Humans have no proud history on how they have lived among living things.

There is absolutely no pattern as to how Americas religious denominations formally make information available to the media. Some faiths their leaders and their PR people are hidden under the proverbial bushel basket, certainly uninterested in public perception or positioned to tell their stories when asked.

Much of it stems from pure distrust of media. Much of it is systemic: There is a low priority for publicity or public perception. Some of it is simply having too much else to do to take time to get the word out to the world of what they are doing. Some denominations have regional media relations personnel, but they tend to be folks who are reactive (ready in crisis) but do little, on a regular basis, to tout what is going on among their congregations.

Of course, weak national and regional media operations filter down to their congregations where a media presence is virtually nonexistent. Few congregations are intentional about designating someone to prepare news releases (paper or electronic) to showcase what is going on and what the greater community might want to know. If they have Web sites, many of the sites grow stale with information and lack freshness or updating.

Getting news out about a congregation is a seemingly chore for many. At best, someone volunteers or the pastors administrative assistants pass on to media what it also running in the monthly newsletter. Some churches and synagogues contract with marketing and public relations firms to promote their ministries and programs and provide their press relations. I have had good and bad experiences with those arrangements.

Stakes and wards of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are surely weak at developing information for public releases. It is spotty and sketchy typically just information produced by volunteers on their own about upcoming events. (Try to call an LDS church building during the week and find someone there. If there is, he or she doesnt answer the phone.)

Catholic parishes and Mormon wards are bleak places to call for information in general. In both instances, staff (if you find someone) is trained to refer all calls to the diocese or the regional spokesman, respectively. It doesnt matter how innocuous and non-controversial the matter may be. People at parish offices typically arent about to talk or find someone in the office who can.

Nope they send you downtown, to the voice that speaks for all. Too often denominational spokesmen have to backtrack to the parish or ward or church office to become the reporter and gather the information that we in the media could have gotten from there in the first place if they werent muzzled.

Of course, it comes down to training and trust: Have staff that can confidently talk about what they already know about and trust from hierarchy that they will tell the story accurately. It may also come down to control ensuring that only the company line be told.

This week, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent me its thick 2008 Church Almanac 672 pages of details on the church, with massive space telling about the church operations in the 50 states and more than 160 countries. It is published by the Deseret Morning News in Salt Lake City, the church-owned daily newspaper. The almanac underscores how assiduous the church is at compiling its information with data on membership in each state and country along with narratives. Lots of leadership history and milestones in the churchs development.

For
Arizona, the Almanac says there are 361,817 members, 658 wards, 83 stakes, 82 branches, four missions and two temples. It notes that before the first temple was built in Mesa in 1927, Mormons had to go to St. George, Utah, for temple ceremonies. The route had been known as The Honeymoon Trail. The almanac also notes that the
Mesa temple was the first of the Mormon temple to undergo a rededication, because it had to be remodeled and expanded in 1975. It notes that the states second temple, one in Snowflake, was dedicated in 2002.

Data shows that in 1930, Arizona had 18,732 Mormons. Fifty years later, in 1980, there were 171,880 members. The population has more than doubled in the past 28 years. One in 17 Arizonans is Mormon, it reports. Only Utah (one in 1.4), Idaho (one in four), Wyoming (one in nine) and Nevada (one in 14) have stronger Mormon ratios.

The almanac was presumably published before the death on Jan. 27 of church President/Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley. Its cover features a photo of him and his two counselors at the time, Thomas S. Monson and Henry B. Eyring.

Our daughter, the kindergarten teacher, worked her full day Thursday at Dreaming
Summit Elementary School in Avondale, though her labor pains started around 11 a.m. Concentrating on more than 25 kindergartners while hurting has to be an ordeal.

Just before 6 p.m. she and husband Nate were headed to Banner Estrella Medical
Center three miles down the road, just into Phoenix. Their son, Ezra, was born at 7:30 p.m. It was a relatively easy birth of their second child, without an epidural. My wife and I arrived from Tempe just as his head was emerging. Ezra was born within two minutes after our arrival and tipped the scales at 7 pounds, 5 ounces.

I observed the birth of my two children and two of my three grandchildren, and its always awesome and amazing how a gray, wriggling, slimy body turns to a pink, little human in just a few minutes.

Ezras father predicted a Valentines Day baby, though he was due Feb. 23. Interestingly, his sister, Ella, was born on the 4^th of July 2006. Their mom was born on a Halloween, and this year their father has his birthday on Thanksgiving. So the four of them have to share the birthdays with holidays that are mostly known for gluttony and sweets. One friend noted this: One is a little pumpkin, one is a little firecracker and one is a little cupid. What does that make the father?

My wife says she might be responsible for the gravitation to holidays: She was born on a Good Friday.

We are glad they werent multiple births, something that runs in the family: I am a twin, my maternal grandmother (a twin) was in a family of 11 children that had three sets of twins. And my father-in-law was a triplet.

Our son and wife expect their second child next month, also a boy.

Our new grandson has a stalwart Bible name Ezra. Its different, as baby names go. Ezra was the priest and scholar of the Jewish people revered as the restorer and the last author of the Torah after the return of the Jewish exiles from Babylonia. The Encyclopedia Americana says there is no consensus as to when he lived and that some scholars believe Ezra was a fictional creation. Ezra is the 15^th book of the standard Bible, between 2^nd Chronicles and Nehemiah. It contains history of the Jews from 538 B.C.E to 432 B.C.E. My thick reference, The New Encyclopedia of Judaism says rabbinical tradition holds Ezra in great respect. He is considered to have been on a level with Moses in his knowledge of the Torah. Another source called him like a minister for Jewish affairs to teach the Jewish law and ensure that the Jews kept the Persian law.

Our prayer is that Ezra has a rich life, a life of purpose and meaning, one filled with love and learning. He enters a world of peril and in a nation finding itself through troubled dark times. Yet, we are full of anticipation of the adventure for his family getting to know him, enveloping him into their lives and to heaping love onto him. New life is an unfathomable blessing. May God make Ezra an instrument of good and that he will know freedom and justice and can grow up and excel in a day when this world is finally capable of recognizing how precious life is and what true peace can bring.

I recently sat in a committee meeting discussing the challenge of getting church leaders to a training conference on stewardship and fund-raising. The plan is to get a pastor for all the regions churches, along with at least two others from the congregation, for two two-day sessions about a month apart.

Many congregations are less than sophisticated in raising the money needed to meet the costs of operations, staff salaries, mission work and supporting their ministries and those programs they embrace in the world. It falls to a committee each fall to plan and launch a stewardship campaign with a dollar goal that reflects what the next years budget needs, including a dream wish list. If the stewardship campaign is successful, the budget can reflect the anticipated funds come in through pledges and offering plate guesstimates.

Its a thankless task, but many congregations rely heavily on the same volunteers each year to make the stewardship campaign happen. Now, in the new year, church treasurers and finance committees are watching how the giving pattern is unfolding.

Writing for the Religion News Service, Daniel Burke tells how pastors often blanch at the need to talk about money with congregations. The Rev. Stephen Gray, who considered himself a tough S.O.B. or son of a banker, said, I wanted nothing to do with money. The leader of the United Church of Christ Conference for Indiana and
Kentucky admitted, Lets just say that for a lot of clergy, when thy do their one sermon a year on giving and stewardship, they do so with fear and trepidation. For some clergy, it is easier to preach on sex.

But Gray has had a change of heart, according to the RNS article. He is working to get United Church of Christ leaders to become comfortable about solicitations, what is called one of the last modern taboos in the church. The denomination has put together three- and four-day courses to show UCC members skills and to make them think differently about church giving. They are being helped by the 20-year-old Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, which is presenting the courses. Participants are shown where scripture gives them sanction to seek money from others and how to use sociological and demographic data to effectively raise money.

The schools director, Tim Seiler, said pastors intuitively know how to do the work, but theres just a pretty high level of reluctance.

One thing driving it is that American giving to their houses of worship and faith-based work has fallen from half of all philanthropy to less than a third. The United Church of Christ has seen donations to its national office fall from $33.5 million to $28.4 million since 2000.

Center of Philanthropy director said the pattern is the same in other denominations. Reasons include churches often keeping more of what they raise to pay higher utility, operations and staffing costs. There is also an attitude about supporting distant denominational bureaucracies.

As a result, denominations are turning to non-members to help fund projects. But it dont mean a thing if preachers wont talk about the green; surveys say they often wont, writer Burke said. He cites a 2001 study by St. Meinrad School of Theology study that 54 percent of pastors said their flocks were uncomfortable talking or hearing about money in a spiritual context and feared some might walk out the door as a result.

Seiler said stewardship is a pastors least favorite thing to do. They dont like to talk about money at all, and they especially dont want to talk about it from the pulpit.

The courses for pastors and church members seek to break down such hang-ups and help everyone see the important ministries that can happen when there is ample funding. And that it is more than the pastor, in essence, pitching for his own annual raise.

On Thursday in
Rome, Catholics gathered for three days to determine how women are doing in the church. Specifically, the international congress was to examine the progress made in promoting the dignity and vocation of women over the past two decades, according to the Catholic News Agency.

On Aug, 15, 1988, Pope John Paul II issued an apostolic letter titled Mulieris dignitatem with the intent of making full use of womens gifts and faculties. The new congress was due to attract more than 260 people from 49 countries, including delegations from 40 bishops conferences, representatives from 28 movements and new communities, 16 Catholic womens associations and others.

One Catholic reform movement, the International Movement We Are Church (www.we-are-church.org) issued a stern call to the Congress to get really serious about womens place in the worlds largest Christian body. They called for three initiatives: 1) granting women to speak for themselves with their charismas; 2) focusing the reality of life of women in the various continents; 3) placing new accents for gender justice in the Roman Catholic Church.

We Are Church, asking for the blessing and wisdom of Gods Holy Spirit on the proceedings, calls for equal access of women to all church functions, the equal mentioning of women and men in church publications, a female image of God and female liturgy. In their statement, with joint Rome and Munich, Germany, origins, the movement said, Women are still oppressed and abused in the Roman Catholic Church.

If it could set the agenda, We Are Church would focus on five areas: 1) Reflections about the changes in the question of womens rights since 1988; 2) Mary and the position of women in the Bible; 3) Meaning of man and woman being images of God; 4) Responsibility of women in church and society; and 5) Social situation of women in diverse cultures and countries.

They said a factual dialogue is overdue in the areas of gender justice and feminist theology. Said Angelica Fromm, a spokesman for We Are Church, the Roman Catholic Church keeps on addressing appeals to politics and society, but inside her own structures, the church refuses establishing gender justice and instead disguises the real degradation of women by idealizing womens image. This behavior is not credible.

She said the mere talking of womans dignity is no longer sufficient while treating women in the same church as (if) they were incapable of ordination and refusing them equal rights of participating in church development and using antiquated argumentation.

That contrasts sharply to how the Catholic News Agency frames this congress purpose: Conference planners also hope to use the congress to initiate a reflection on the new cultural paradigms and difficulties faced by Catholic women in living according to their identity and in collaborating in fruitful reciprocity with men in building up the Church and society.

The agency said the conference strives to remind women of the beauty of the vocation to holiness and to encourage them to respond to it with increasing awareness an to place all the richness of the feminine genius at the service of the apostolate, family, workplace and culture

The funeral of a beloved pastor is a special event. I suspect Tuesdays services for Pastor Charles Eldon McHatton at City of Grace Church (formerly Word of Grace) in
Mesa had plenty of tributes for its founder.

McHatton, 83, was the founding pastor of the church whose name in 1980 was Gospel Echoes. Actually Gospel Echoes was what he had first called his radio ministry, and the full-gospel church followed. It later would be renamed Word of Grace and in January became City of Grace Church, with the merger with CitiChurch, a Scottsdale congregationand thus a two-campus megachurch.

McHatton later served as pastor in other Arizona churches, including one in west
Phoenix.

He was involved in the development of Christian television and was author of Christian expository books. Hundreds of thousands of believers in Phoenix and around the world were impacted by Dr. McHattons lifelong service, reads his obituary. He is survived by his wife of 61 years, Glenda, and four sons, a brother, 11 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

On the Web Site Guestbook for McHatton, Lisa Ulrich of Buckeye shared that her one-time pastor is now out of pain and walking on the streets of gold. She said he was an beloved pastor. He has impacted my life so greatly, and I will never forget how much I loved church as a child attending Gospel Echoes.

Rebecca Barbee of Glendale recalled living in Orange County, Calif., and seeing McHatton speak on the Trinity Broadcast Network I had no intention of ever living in Phoenix, yet one day my husband came home and said, We are being transferred to
Phoenix. She said her first response was, Well, then, I know where I will go to church. The day that she and her 15-year-old daughter walked with her into McHattons church for the first time, she noted, Oh, I can feel the Spirit here.

That began our years of leaning with Pastor McHatton, she said, noting that friends she made in that church are close friends today.

All too often wonderful clergy move far away after retirement, grow old, get sick and die and the thousands of scattered former members dont learn of their deaths and dont have the chance to attend their funeral. At least for some of Charles Eldon McHattons flock in the Valley, there was the chance to be on hand and feel the joy of one servants earthy work.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has died. The world-known guru of transcendental meditation, or TM, died Tuesday at his home in the Netherlands at the age of 91.

The medias immediate reference for him was that he was the Beatles guru and the man who introduced TM to the West. He was a pioneer in insisting that meditation relieves stress, lowers blood pressure, improves concentration and can even bring peace to the world.

Those old enough to remember the Beatles fuss may recall the infatuation that Paul, John, George and Ringo had for the yogi at the same time their singing and recording career was soaring. With the Summer of Love of 1967, the Beatles attended Maharishis workshop that August in Wales and it profoundly resonated with them as they looked for ways of capturing the euphoria of that summer in their prolific music writing.

The foursome took up an invitation to stay at the Maharishis compound in India in February 1968 and learn more about TM. TV cameras caught the scene at the retreat a the foot of the Himalayas the Beatles in white gowns and leis. The yogi immediately won world fame. Then came reports that there was a rift between the Beatles and the Maharashi over some reputed advances the holy man had made toward actress Mia Farrow, who had come along. But years later, people who who had been there said the fallout was due to the holy mans objections to the singers using drugs.

As a native Iowan, I recall how small Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa, affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, became badly mismanaged in a rapid-growth program in the 1960s, leading to its accreditation being revoked in 1972 and it closing its doors in its 99th year in 1973. The next year, Maharishi came along and bought the campus, then turned it into Maharishi International University.

Now it is known as Maharishi University of International Management. In 1990, the old campus was bulldozed and out of it rose Maharishi Vedic City, a place in harmony with creation, where some 200 live.

TM teaching would spread across the world, and the Maharishi repeatedly organized massive group meditations so that group energy would intervene in crises. At a satellite press conference a few years ago, Maharishi Yogi answered a question I posed to him from the TM center in Phoenix.

Reportedly born Jan. 12, 1917, in India (he would never confirm it), the yogi studied physics at a university and became secretary to a Hindu holy man. With good timing, he came forth to the U.S. in 1959. He was poised to make an impact in the 1960s when college campuses were tuned in for new forms of enlightenment and the American counterculture touted truth from Eastern sources.

The eye-catching man, with a long white beard, bushy and flowing gray hair and white robes, came across as a new thinker and emissary of peace. In his lifetime he formulated the Master Plan to Create Heaven on Earth, intended for the reconstruction of the whole world, inner and outer, according to the TM Web site (www.tm.org). He established his Vedic universities around the world to offer mastery over natural law on every level of level of education perfection in every profession.

And who can forget the famous yogic flyers? They first gathered in Fairfield in 1984 and determined for themselves that people wouldlevitate above theground in validation of Maharishis prediction that when the square root of 1 percent of the worlds population practices the TM-Sidhi program, including yogic flying, together in one place, positive trends increase and negative tendencies decrease throughout the whole world.

Among his prolific statements for humankind: We are not satisfied with peace alone. There has to be prosperity, there has to be affluence, there has to be fulfillment in life; not just peace.”

“Adopt the standard of perfection, because it is a perfect universe.

“Attend to your own inner health and happiness. Happiness radiates like the fragrance of a flower and draws all good things towards you. Allow your love to nourish yourself as well as others.

“The experience of happiness is a direct means of replenishing life energy and revitalizing the mind.