Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Anuradha Koirala Indian-Nepalese Orphange to Stop Sex Trafficking


CNN Hero working harder than ever to stop sex trafficking
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/06/23/cnnheroes.koirala.qa/index.html?iref=allsearch

June 23, 2011 5:48 p.m. EDT


Maiti Nepal
83-Maiti Marg, Pingalsthan, Gaushala
P.O. Box 9599, Kathmandu, Nepal

Phone: 977-1-4492904
Fax: 977-1-4489978
E-Mail:
info@maitinepal.org










Anuradha Koirala was honored as the 2010 CNN Hero of the Year
at CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute.  Jun 23, 2011 | 03:21

CNN Hero fights to end sex trafficking

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Anuradha Koirala, the 2010 CNN Hero of the Year, is saving Nepalese from sex trafficking
  • Koirala and actress Demi Moore featured in "Nepal's Stolen Children," a CNN documentary
  • The documentary, part of the CNN Freedom Project, premieres Sunday at 8 p.m. ET

(CNN) -- More than 17,000 women and girls from Nepal become sex slaves every year. Many end up in India, China or other Southeast Asian countries, and roughly half of them are children.

Anuradha Koirala -- the 2010 CNN Hero of the Year -- has been fighting to end this sex trafficking for nearly two decades. Since 1993, she and her organization, Maiti Nepal, have helped rescue and rehabilitate more than 12,000 women and girls.

Recently, Koirala partnered with actress Demi Moore on "Nepal's Stolen Children: A CNN Freedom Project Documentary." For the film, which premieres Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, Moore traveled to Nepal to meet Koirala and some of the people rescued by her group.

CNN's Kathleen Toner recently spoke with Koirala, 62, about how her life has changed since being honored as Hero of the Year and what work remains to be done.

Kathleen Toner: How did you feel when you were named Hero of the Year in November?

Anuradha Koirala: There were so many other people doing very good things who were being honored, so I wasn't expecting it. I was shocked.

I first thought of all of my girls at Maiti Nepal. I wished I was in front of them. I wished I was in my country. But I knew it was a chance to draw attention to the problem of sex trafficking.

When I returned home, they had a big rally with thousands of youths. I realized that the whole country was eager to work hard to make Nepal trafficking-free. It was wonderful.

Toner: How have things changed for you?

Koirala: I now feel that there is extra responsibility on me. I feel I must be even more committed since people around the globe are depending on me. I need to work even harder to get to the end.

We are working so hard. Our work is the same as before ... but (we want) to monitor more of the border crossings. The border with Tibet is a very important area. ... It's very difficult. People easily take a one-day pass to go across to Nepal, and no one monitors. We've found many girls being taken across the border and being used in different entertainment sectors and brothels, so now (we're considering) working there.

At this point, the most important thing we have to do is surveillance and stop, stop, stop girls from being exploited.

Toner: What was it like to work with Demi Moore on "Nepal's Stolen Children"?

Koirala: She was superb. I have seen artists, film stars, musicians and all kinds of celebrities, but often they look very snobbish, very superior. She was very down-to-Earth. She knew the issue and was really committed.

When we were working on the documentary, we had to go to the home of a girl who'd been trafficked, but it was very difficult. Her village was in the mountains, and her home was on a very steep hill. It was a very hard walk for half an hour.

(Moore) is very determined (to help). When she came to Maiti and met the girls, she was so good with the children. She really is committed to this issue. If more people like her come into this field, then maybe we will succeed someday.

Toner: What do people need to know about this issue?

Koirala: This problem of trafficking children and women needs to be addressed, because HIV and trafficking are synonymous with each other. The fundamental human rights of the girl child are being seriously violated. It is a heinous crime, and it harms the girls physically and psychologically. It's also increasing the transmission of HIV to a larger population.

We have to make more awareness, and everyone should be involved: NGOs, government ministries, police, media, community activists and the entire community. (We) can't reach every affected individual; families and communities need to be assisted and encouraged to take responsibility. ... At the end, the whole theme is sensitizing and increasing awareness of the public on a large scale.

Toner: It's such a widespread problem. Do you think that you are making progress?

Koirala: Yes. If not, I would not have been chosen (as CNN Hero of the Year). But more sensitizing and awareness is needed.

Nothing is impossible if the whole world collaborates. If CNN supports us, if the U.S. government supports us, if all of the world supports us, why can't we (end sex trafficking)? But I think I have to live also for another 20 years.

See the full story on CNN Hero Anuradha Koirala:
Rescuing girls from sex slavery