wfn.org | 'Stand for truth,' reporter urges at healing retreat

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Oct. 24, 2001     News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville,
Tenn.     10-21-71BP{489}

NOTE: Photographs are available. 

By Dean Snyder*

WASHINGTON (UMNS) -- A network TV journalist told grieving Washingtonians
that the longing for national unity should not cause Americans to blind
themselves to the realities of war.

"We need to take a stand for the truth no matter where that truth leads us,"
Michel Martin, an ABC news correspondent who is also a student at Wesley
Theological Seminary in Washington, told participants in "A Time to Heal," a
retreat sponsored Oct. 19-21 by the Baltimore-Washington Annual (regional)
Conference of the United Methodist Church. A former Washington Post
reporter, Martin serves as guest anchor for "ABC Nightline" and hosts her
own public TV show "Life 360."

Speaking at a Saturday, Oct. 20, luncheon to 270 United Methodists and
friends, Martin said she understood the desire of Americans for a sense of
unity but fears the result may be an "attitude of cheery compliance with the
indignity of war."

"War is a sin, and death is a scandal," she said. "We know that people who
don't deserve it are dying. To pretend we don't notice it seems to say we
don't mind there is evil in the world, and I do mind."

Martin, who was filming in Manhattan on Sept. 11, also worried that the
media's desire to continually move on to fresh news might hinder the process
of personal and national recovery. 

"One of the things that concerns me as a journalist is that we live in a
short-attention-span world," she said. "The healing, the suffering, it all
takes time. I fear, if we don't have the patience for it, we will lose the
opportunity to truly heal."

Martin has received an Emmy for her news reporting. Her "Nightline" series
"America in Black and White" was cited by Columbia University for excellence
in covering racial and ethnic issues. 

She said there's an affinity between her work as a journalist and her
theological studies, in spite of the fact that church people often think
reporters are cynics and reporters think church people are innocents. 

"Journalism is about telling stories with a purpose," she said. "We
(believers) are a people of the story."

Before Martin's speech, Kevin West, a civilian Pentagon employee and a
member of St. Paul's United Methodist Church in Oxon Hill, Md., testified to
his experience of God's presence at the Pentagon on Sept. 11. 

"I saw an old woman petrified with fear. She literally couldn't move," he
said. "Two young men stopped and picked her up. 

"I saw three asthma victims sharing one inhaler," he said. People shared
cell phones and transportation, and one woman walked two miles back to the
Pentagon, after escaping the scene, to help others, West said.

"God did exactly on that day what he said he would do," West concluded. "I
believe more strongly than ever that God will do what he said he would."

The general manager of the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, where the event
was held, expressed appreciation for the conference's concern for the
hotel's employees. As a result of conventions cancelled in the 10 days
following Sept. 11, the hotel lost 15 to 18 percent of its prospective
annual business, hotel manager Brad Edwards said. The hotel immediately
began wrestling with how to minimize the need to lay off employees. 

Edwards described his surprise encounters in the midst of this business
crisis with Bishop Felton Edwin May, leader of the Baltimore-Washington
Conference. May proposed that the hotel and conference cooperate to provide
a low-cost weekend to help hotel employees as well as provide an opportunity
for United Methodists to enjoy the city during a spiritual retreat.

"I've never before in my life had a customer think about this the way he
(Bishop May) thought about it," Edwards said. The Baltimore-Washington
Conference holds its annual June session at the hotel.

"A Time to Heal" was co-sponsored by the hotel and the United Methodist
Committee on Relief (UMCOR). 

The weekend also included workshops, an ice-cream social, music by the
contemporary Christian music group Glad and by Jeff Jeffrey, a Chicago
singer who is donating proceeds from the sale of his song "God Bless Our
Country" to UMCOR. Event participants were encouraged to take time for
recreation and touring the city. 

During free time, Dan and Christy Cronin of Harpers Ferry, W. Va., took
their children Ben, 7, Eamonn, 4, and Anna, 1, to the zoo. "I've been very
depressed and distracted," Christy Cronin said. "This was a time to get away
and spend with the kids. It was affordable."

Retreat sponsors subsidized the hotel's reduced rates to make the experience
affordable for families and less-affluent individuals.

In addition to attending the luncheon and workshops, four teen-agers from
Mt. Zion United Methodist Church in Pasadena went shopping in a nearby mall,
visited the White House and Lincoln Memorial, and went swimming in the hotel
pool. "We had fun," said Anashley Watts, 14. "We like the hotel." 

During a workshop on art and grieving, Dr. Rose Gauhar, a physician from
Linden Heights United Methodist Church in Baltimore, drew a picture showing
her hatred flowing into the cross of Christ so she could emerge as a
blossoming flower. Gauhar, who grew up in the town of Quetta on the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border, said she had surrendered her hatred of Muslims
to Christ. 

"At first I didn't realize the anger and hatred that was in me," she said.
"But I am rooted and grounded in Christ, who is everything to me. He filled
me with cleansing love and removed the hatred. 

"I've come to terms," Gauhar said. "I've come to peace."

# # #
 
*Snyder is director of communications for the Baltimore-Washington Annual
Conference of the United Methodist Church. 

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
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