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'Stand for truth,' reporter urges at healing retreat

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Love in the
  Midst of
  Tragedy
 By Dean Snyder*

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.
October 24, 2001
General Board of Global Ministries
United Methodist Church
475 Riverside Drive - New York, New York 10115
1-800-UMC-GBGM