Text Box: Interfaith Celebration Gathering Sunday, August 20, 2000 Interfaith Celebration Gathering Service Service agenda: Opening Prayer Readings Message OPENING PRAYER: Dear Mother, Father, Great Spirit, God, please hear my prayer. Please help me to see that You reside in all others just as You reside in me. Grant me the ability to see beyond their actions to their true selves. Help me to know that they are children of Yours just as I am, they make mistakes just as I do, and they feel pain just as I do. I ask this knowing that all I need do is ask and it is granted. AMEN READINGS: Hate and mistrust are the children of blindness. Hatred stirreth up strife; but love covereth all sins Proverbs 10:12 Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat. H. E. Fosdick MESSAGE: The Other Side of the Coin There has been a lot in the news media recently about a reporter named John Stossel. The uproar has surrounded Stossel’s use of erroneous facts in his report on organic foods that basically surmised that eating organic foods was no healthier, and perhaps even worse for people than eating non-organic foods. Stossel, after being criticized for the erroneous things in his report by national organizations, apologized for his errors. While I did not see his apology, there are many who described it as far from contrite. From what I heard of the apology and Stossel’s subsequent remarks, it is apparent that John Stossel feels maligned by the uproar over his work. Although it might be difficult for those of us who have been harmed by Stossel’s particular type of journalism (and I fit in that category), I feel it is important for us to look at what happened to John Stossel from another perspective. We need to look at things from Stossel’s perspective. There have been several words coined since John Stossel began his own particular brand of journalism. ‘Stosselize,’ a verb, means to publicly discredit and shame another person by offering only one biased viewpoint. A ’stossel’ is the noun form of this verb, and refers to the act of stosselizing. I now offer another verb to add to this array—to ‘stosselate’ means to see only one side of things. John Stossel’s type of journalism epitomizes the type of mistakes we ourselves can make when we go into any situation with our minds made up about either the situation or the outcome. Regardless of what is there to be discovered in situations and experiences, we miss vital information when we approach life with a set of pre-conceived answers. Of course, as humans, our tendency is to want to figure things and people out and pigeon-hole them. In the process of slotting people and events into nice, safe categories, however, many of us fail to allow for that other all-too-human characteristic—change. Situations and people can and do change. We must be careful not to stosselate John Stossel. John Stossel’s brand of journalism reminds me of an old story of seven blind men who come upon an elephant. The one feeling the elephant’s leg thinks it is a very sturdy tree, warmed by the sun. The man feeling the elephant’s belly swears he has found a huge, soft wall. The man being fanned by the elephant’s ears avows that he has somehow been magically transported to the treetops to feel the breezes. None of these men guess that they have come upon such a magestic creature as an elephant. They each relate to a part of the whole, and they each form separate and valid (for them) conclusions. For each man, in his limited perspective, his answer was ‘right.’ But, like the EST folks years ago used to say, “there is no right or wrong, there just is.” I might add to this that the IS to which this statement refers is infinite. For every situation, there are an infinite number of variables. ‘Right’ to one person may be ‘wrong’ to another, and neither to a third. Until we look at a situation or event from all sides, we cannot know the ‘truth’ of the matter. Truth is very subjective. The only way we can ever know the total truth is to ask God. God’s view of situations and people is infinite. To find the flip side of the coin, we must connect with God in prayer and ask for guidance. We must then be still enough to hear God’s answer, and have faith that it is the answer when it comes. I am sure, if asked, John Stossel would say that he feels his reports provide a valuable service to the public. I somehow doubt that he prepares each of his reports with the idea that he will deliberately harm thousands of people. Yet, I personally know that this has been the result of many of his reports. Were Stossel’s reports prepared with God’s guidance? I tend to think that if they had been, they would have been based in love rather than in stosselizing. But, in truth, only John Stossel and God can know the answer to this question. The other side of the coin when it comes to John Stossel is that he, too, is a brother of ours, and a child of God. Just as we do not cut off our hand when it displeases us, we must not cut off John Stossel when his behavior displeases us. We must strive to see him as God sees him, with infinite love. The only way we can work to see that his reports change to reflect God’s love is to love and accept him, even when we might feel he has erred. We can hold him in prayer in the hope that his heart will open to allow God to work through him. We cannot change anyone but ourselves. God, however, can work miracles. May God add a blessing to these humble words. AMEN © 2000 Rev. S. Suzanne Fisher