In The News This Week Dec. 21, 2007
 
 
Christ Is In Us
By FATHER JOHN P. ROSSON - St. Mary's "Our Lady of The Lake" Roman Catholic Church

Today Christmas is at the heart of culture wars.  “Season’s Greetings” eclipse “Merry Christmas.”  “Holiday trees” are in;  Christmas trees out!
Today Christmas is a return to the pagan festival of the Sun; it is a  binge – a culturally sanctioned binge on consumerism,  holiday making,  settling end-of-the-year accounts with bonuses, etc.
Today Christmas is a time for concerts in cathedrals, chants in swank bars.
Today Christmas can be a time of oppression – financially,  emotionally, psychologically, politically.   This article is not intended to be polemical nor provocative, but prophetic.
A  Prophet bears witness.   A Prophet  is a  “nabi,’ a seer,  a servant of the Truth,  a companion of  Justice, and  a  proclaimer of  Love.
What is  Christmas?   Yes, it can be an ideology in cultural conflict;  yes, it can  be a pawn in the lives of some who manipulate the  season that accompanies Christmas.
Christmas is a Truth.
There are hundreds of symbols and signs of this Season: the Tree, the Wreath, the Star, the Trumpet, the Barn, the Hay, the Angels,  the “Gloria in excelsis Deo,”  the Night,  the Cave, the Cold, the Inn, the Gold, the frankincense, the myrrh, The Herods,  the InnKeepers,  the Shepherds, the Persians, the Camel, the Cow, the Donkey, the Sheep,  the Lamb.
The symbol is the Manger.  At St. Mary’s  we constructed a new manger for the entrance of the Church so that everyone who enters and leaves for Christmas worship on  Christmas Eve or Christmas Day will know the truth of Christmas. We did  not adorn the church doors this year with lights and wreath.   We invite all who come, all who pass by to ponder the Truth of the Christmas Mystery.    
What is the truth?
God has chosen to dwell with His people.
He has chosen to be Emmanuel, which means “ God is with us.”  As a sign a virgin has conceived and borne a Son.
And in this one event, in time 2,000 years ago, in Bethlehem, the first great era of human history was brought to a close, and the course was set for the future of all creation.  God had chosen to dwell with His people because  earlier, much earlier,  His people had chosen not to dwell with God.
In the imagery of the Book of Genesis,  we are told that we were one with God, we were His people indeed.  But then, as now , the choice was free, and humankind chose to change all that.  The Fall brought Promise.  God would dwell with His people again, but in an entirely new way. Christmas is the Mystery of the Incarnation: God became human flesh.
The Incarnation, once begun, has never ceased, and never will. God’s choice to take on human nature, human flesh and blood and mind and feeling is as real and immediate as it was in Bethlehem.
God’s people must not only celebrate the Incarnation, God’s people must be the Incarnation. 
We must, each of us, be Christ Incarnate,  Christ in the flesh, for every other human being.
There are many sights in Cooperstown at  Holiday time…. fine appointments…. stop by St. Mary’s “Our Lady of the Lake,” 31 Elm, and catch a glimpse of what inspired all that we do and aspire to during these holy days.





God Entered The World
By DR. JUDY BARRETT - Cooperstown Assembly of God Church

As Christians we set aside the 25th of December as a day to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Why is the birth of Jesus so important to us? 
In the Bible Matthew 1:23 states: “’Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’ which translated means, ‘God with us.’”
“God with us,” what a powerful concept, that our Creator would want to walk among us! But why would God choose to do this? Wouldn’t it be enough that He made us? Not for our God. Our God desires a relationship with the people He created.
To help us understand that He loves us, He came as a babe, born in a lowly manger destined to die a horrific death on a cross. For this reason, John 3:16 states: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever would believe in Him shall not die, but have everlasting life.”
Our God came to earth to show us that He wants us to live with Him forever, but it is our choice. Thankfully it is an easy choice; we just have to choose to have a relationship with Him! This response includes prayer (communication: very important in a relationship), honesty (admitting that we are not perfect, and have too sinned) and that we wish to do what is pleasing to God, which can be easily summed up as: love God, and love each other! (Yes, I too know Christians that still seem to struggle with the ‘love each other’ part, but that should not effect your decision about having a relationship with God! Why let the hypocrites win? …but that is another sermon.)
The real question of this season is then:  Do you believe that Jesus is actually God? Prophecies seem to confirm it, but what really touches my heart is seeing how much the people around Jesus, the ones who knew Him best, believed He was God.
From scripture we know that Joseph found Mary to be pregnant and wished to set her aside by divorcing her quietly. An angel then came to Joseph and told him that the child she carried was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and that he was to take her as a wife.
He agrees, but then does a very odd thing. He puts off the marriage and he and Mary remain engaged until after Jesus was born.
This tells the world around them that Mary’s child is not his. This places Joseph, as well as Mary and Jesus, in a very uncomfortable position. People do notice, as we see later when Jesus is called the son of Mary (not of Joseph), which is an insult.
Why would a man, who is willing to marry a woman, delay the wedding feast, knowing he will suffer this type of embarrassment? Could it be Joseph knows that it is more important for Jesus to be acknowledged as God’s Son, and is willing to surrender his pride and be humiliated so that there can be no question of this?
John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin, suffered beheading for preaching in the wilderness, which prepared the way for Jesus’ ministry. If He did not believe that Jesus was God, it would have been easier to recant his position and potentially live.
Jesus’ disciples, and other believers in the early church, also chose to face death rather than deny that Jesus was God. These men lived with Jesus, saw him regularly and claim to have seen him alive after his death. Why would they be this faithful, unless they too were convinced that God had walked among us, and that others needed to be told? The only answer is that they truly believed Jesus is God! It is because we too, over 2,000 years later, also believe that God once entered the world as a baby, born in a manger, that we celebrate this day.
Let us then, remember that Christmas is about celebrating the fact that we have a God who is with us, and who once walked among us, and resolve not to let the “business” of life, ruin the awesomeness of the season!




Seek Solutions Together
By THE REV. SAM ABBOTT • Christ Episcopal Church

Editor’s Note:  Here is the “Summary and Recommendations” section on The Mitchell Report on Major League Baseball’s “Steroids Era.”

For more than a decade there has been widespread illegal use of anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing substances by players in Major League Baseball, in violation of federal law and baseball policy. Club officials routinely have discussed the possibility of such substance use when evaluating players.
Those who have illegally used these substances range from players whose Major League careers were brief to potential members of the (National) Baseball Hall of Fame (& Museum in Cooperstown). They include both pitchers and position players, and their backgrounds are as diverse as those of all Major League players.
The response by baseball was slow to develop and was initially ineffective, but it gained momentum after the adoption of a mandatory random drug testing program in 2002. That program has been effective in that detectable steroid use appears to have declined. But the use of human growth hormone has risen because, unlike steroids, it is not detectable through urine testing.
This report, the product of an intensive investigation, describes how and why this problem emerged. We identify some of the players who were caught up in the drive to gain a competitive advantage through the illegal use of these substances. Other investigations will no doubt turn up more names and fill in more details, but that is unlikely to significantly alter the description of baseball’s “steroids era,” as set forth in this report.
From hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents we learned enough to accurately describe that era. While this investigation was prompted by revelations about the involvement of players with the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, the evidence we uncovered indicates that this has not been an isolated problem involving just a few players or a few clubs. It has involved many players on many clubs. In fact, each of the 30 clubs has had players who have been involved with performance enhancing substances at some time in their careers.
The illegal use of these substances was not limited to the players who are identified in this report. There have been many estimates of use. In 2002, former National League Most Valuable Player Ken Caminiti estimated that “at least half” of Major League players were using anabolic steroids. Dave McKay, a longtime coach for the St. Louis Cardinals and the Oakland Athletics, estimated that at one time 30 percent of players were using them. Within the past week, the former Cincinnati Reds pitcher Jack Armstrong estimated that between 20 percent and 30 percent of players in his era, 1988 to 1994, were using large doses of steroids while an even higher percentage of players were using lower, maintenance doses of steroids. There have been other estimates, a few higher, many lower, all impossible to verify.
However, it is a fact that between 5 and 7 percent of the major league players who participated in anonymous survey testing in 2003 tested positive for performance enhancing substances. Those figures almost certainly understated the actual level of use since players knew they would be tested at some time during the year, the use of human growth hormone was not detectable in the tests that were conducted, and, as many have observed, a negative test does not necessarily mean that a player has not been using performance enhancing substances.
Mandatory random testing, formally started in 2004 after the survey testing results, appears to have reduced the use of detectable steroids, but players switched to human growth hormone precisely because it is not detectable. Players who use human growth hormone apparently believe that it assists their ability to recover from injuries and fatigue during the long baseball season; this also is a major reason why players used steroids. Human growth hormone was the substance most frequently sold to players by Kirk Radomski, a former New York Mets clubhouse employee who was a significant source of illegal performance enhancing substances until late 2005. Separately, a number of players reportedly purchased human growth hormone through “anti-aging” centers using dubious prescriptions written by physicians who never examined, or even met, the customers for whom they were writing prescriptions.
At the beginning of this investigation, I said that I would conduct a “deliberate and unbiased examination of the facts that will comport with basic American values of fairness. To honor that commitment, I invited each current or former player about whom allegations were received of the illegal possession or use of performance enhancing substances to meet with me so that I could inform him of the evidence supporting the allegations and give him a chance to respond. The explanations provided by those players who we did interview were taken into account and are reflected in this report.
Among current players I asked to interview were five who have spoken publicly about the issue. When I did so, I made clear that there was no suggestion that any of the five had used performance enhancing substances, and I repeat here that clarifying statement. Four of the five declined. One of them, Frank Thomas of the Toronto Blue Jays, agreed. His comments were informative and helpful.
Since 1986, drug testing has been subject to collective bargaining in Major League Baseball. For many years, citing concerns for the privacy rights of players, the Players Association opposed mandatory random drug testing of its members for steroids or other substances. On the other side of the bargaining table, the owners and several Commissioners proposed drug testing programs but gave the issue a much lower priority in bargaining than economic issues. But when the opportunity was presented in 2002 to achieve agreement on a system of mandatory random drug testing, the Commissioner pressed hard on the issue and the Players Association agreed to the basic elements of the program that is in place today.
No drug testing program is perfect. The current drug testing program in Major League Baseball is the product of the give and take inherent in collective bargaining. It appears to have reduced the use of detectable steroids but by itself has not removed the cloud of suspicion over the game. Even as this investigation was underway, developments in several government investigations exposed the depth and breadth of the continuing illegal use of these substances in baseball (and in other sports) and made clear that this problem continues, years after mandatory random testing began and stringent penalties for failing those tests were adopted.
Plainly, baseball needs to do more to effectively address this problem. I have never met or talked with Jeff Kent of the Los Angeles Dodgers, but he appears to have understood this when he said in September, as reported in several newspapers: “Major League Baseball is trying to investigate the past so they can fix the future.”
That is the purpose of the recommendations that are set forth in detail in this report. In summary, they fall into three categories:
(1) Major League Baseball must significantly increase its ability to investigate allegations of use outside of the testing program and improve its procedures for keeping performance enhancing substances out of the clubhouse;
(2) there must be a more comprehensive and effective program of education for players and others about the serious health risks incurred by users of performance enhancing substances; and
(3) when the club owners and the Players Association next engage in collective bargaining on the joint drug program, I urge them to incorporate into the program the principles that characterize a state-of-the-art program, as described in this report.
Although I sought and received a wide range of views, including the opinions of many experts in the field, the conclusions and recommendations in this report are mine alone, following close consultation and extensive discussions with the very talented members of the staff I assembled to assist me in this effort.



Be A Star Follower
By THE REV. DOUGLAS DEER • First Baptist Church

Crisp, clear, starlit skies at this time of year invite us to imitate the Wise Men and gaze into the starry, starry night as we ponder the infinite and try to peer into eternity.
Yet at the same time, we watch our step lest we fall as we trudge along through the slush and salty mud on the icy ground beneath our feet.
And the question arises:  Are we mud wallowers or star followers?
Jerrie Shepard Matney, who grew up here in Cooperstown, wrote a sermon in which she used a quote from Frederick Langbridge:
“Two men looked out from iron bars,
 “One saw mud; the other, stars.”
In a sense, all of us are behind bars in one way or another. We are prisoners of the times in which we live. We are limited by our bodies, constrained by our abilities, and conditioned by our experiences. To some degree, we are all prisoners of circumstance. There are things in our lives that we cannot change.
But there are also things we can change, and one of them is how we look at things – or what we see when we look.
Ask yourself: When you look out from your situation, what do you see – mud or stars? Are you a mud wallower or a star follower?
Mud people are not very happy, hopeful, or fun to be with. Star followers are!
Mud people not only mess up their own lives, they ruin life for everyone around them.  The pull down the shades to limit the view. Star people zing the shades open!
Mud people see life as one problem after another. Star people see opportunities. Mud people see the difficulties in each situation.  Star people see the challenges.
Mud people grump, grouch, gripe, and growl; they’re mired in self-pity; they muck in grievances; they wallow in criticism. I know when I do that, I’m miserable to be around!
Star people see the mud, but don’t get mired in it. They realize that God can and does work for good in all things. They work to turn seeming defeats into victories, trusting the goodness and guidance of God in all things.
Mud people curse God for their circumstances; star people praise God in all circumstances.
“Two men looked out from iron bars,
“One saw mud; the other, stars.”
If you’ve been a mud wallower, how can you change? Look to the baby in the manger. And look beyond the manger to the cross. Jesus was a star person. He lived above the clouds, though his feet were firmly planted in the earth.
He was followed and harassed by mud people. He was ignored and cursed by other mud.people. He was crucified and killed by mud people. But he never became one. “Be of good cheer,” he said, “I have overcome the world.” And he did! Jesus waded through all sorts of mud that we might see the stars.
“Two men looked out from iron bars,
One saw mud; the other, stars.”
Which do you see this Christmas?



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