This young man wrote this song for his mother - I don't think I could have said it better myself! When I was his age, this is what I thought too!!

enjoy the song (someone forgot to tell him to smile)

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there

ron

Christians Fleeing Violence in Iraq
Sunday, May 06, 2007

BAGHDAD — Despite the chaos and sectarian violence raging across Baghdad, Farouq Mansour felt relatively safe as a Christian living in a multiethnic neighborhood in the capital.

Then, two months ago, Al Qaeda gunmen kidnapped him and demanded that his family convert to Islam or pay a $30,000 ransom. Two weeks later, he paid up, was released and immediately fled to Syria, joining a mass exodus of Iraq's increasingly threatened Christian minority.

"There is no future for us in Iraq," Mansour said.

Although Islamic extremists have targeted Iraqi Christians before, bombing churches and threatening religious leaders, the latest attacks have taken on a far more personal tone. Many Christians are being expelled from their homes and forced to leave their possessions behind, police, human rights groups and residents said.

The Christian community here, about 3 percent of the country's 26 million people, has little political or military clout to defend itself, and some Islamic insurgents call Christians "crusaders" whose real loyalty lies with U.S. troops.

Many churches are now nearly empty, with many of their faithful either gone or too scared to attend. Only about 30 people attended this Sunday's mass at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in the relatively safe Baghdad neighborhood of Karradah, and only two dozen took communion in the barren St. Mary's Church in the northern city of Kirkuk on Sunday.

As many as 50 percent of Iraq's Christians may already have left the country, according to a report issued Wednesday by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a federal monitoring and advisory group in Washington D.C.

"These groups face widespread violence from Sunni insurgents and foreign jihadis, and they also suffer pervasive discrimination and marginalization at the hands of the national government, regional governments, and para-state militias," said the report.

Islamic extremists have also targeted liquor stores, hair salons and other Christian-owned businesses, saying they violate Islam, the report said.

"This is not the culture of Iraqis or the nature of Iraqis. We have lived during centuries together in a respectful attitude and friendship," said Luwis Zarco, the Catholic archbishop of Kirkuk.

In much of the Middle East, Christians are a largely tolerated minority that have achieved a measure of business and professional success, but they are sometimes viewed with suspicion by their Muslim neighbors.

In Saddam-era Iraq, the country's 800,000 Christians — many of them Chaldean-Assyrians and Armenians, with small numbers of Roman Catholics — were generally left alone. Many, such as Saddam Hussein's foreign minister and deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz, reached the highest levels of power.

But after U.S. forces toppled Saddam, insurgents launched a coordinated bombing campaign in the summer of 2004 against Baghdad churches, sending some Christians fleeing in fear.

A second wave of anti-Christian attacks hit last September after Pope Benedict XVI made comments perceived to be anti-Islam. Church bombings spiked and a priest in the northern city of Mosul was kidnapped and later found beheaded.

In the recent violence, residents of the Baghdad neighborhood of Dora said gunmen knocked on the doors of Christian families, demanding they either pay jizya — a special tax traditionally levied on non-Muslims — or leave. The jizya has not been imposed in Muslim nations in about 100 years.

One man, Arakan Admon, was wounded in a drive-by shooting last week when his family ignored the threats, relatives said.

In response to the threats, about 70 percent of Dora's Christians have fled, police said.

"The terrorists want to turn Dora into a base to attack other Baghdad neighborhoods," said Christian lawmaker Younadam Kana. "Criminal gangs made use of the situation and they started to kidnap Christians and demand ransom. It is a coalition between terrorists and criminals."

The southern neighborhood is a Sunni insurgent stronghold that has seen frequent U.S. shelling under a security crackdown against the sectarian violence.

In the northern city of Mosul, men began knocking on doors last month, demanding that Christian families pay a $3,000 tax that would be used to fight the U.S.-led forces, local residents said. Some paid; others fled.

Mansour, a 63-year-old retiree, said that while many other Christians left, he chose to stay in his Amariyah neighborhood in western Baghdad. He was hoping that the Baghdad security plan, which U.S.-led forces launched on Feb. 14, would improve the situation.

"But the opposite happened," he said.

Mansour was kidnapped March 11 by gunmen who identified themselves as Al Qaeda. After 15 days in captivity, his family paid the ransom and fled the country, leaving their home and electric appliance store behind, Mansour said in a telephone interview from Syria.

"What is your name?' queried the new chaplain in the state mental hospital.

"Jesus Christ," shouted the patient as he continued to look out the window.

"No, I really want to know who you are," pressed the chaplain.

"I told you, I am Jesus Christ!"

The chaplain stood quiet. This was a new experience. No one had prepared him to meet somone who said he was Jesus Christ.

For three weeks, the chaplain returned to Ward D. Each day he approached the man who stood by the window and told the world he was Jesus Christ.

One day as he stood by the window with the patient, the chaplain shared something from his life - a short story about his own disappointment in life. In the sharing of the story, a light appeared in the patient's face. He turned to the chaplain and shared some of his pain. That day the patient revealed that his name was John. From that day, John and chaplain continued to share their stories.

One day the psychiatrist came in and shouted at the patients to come for their medications. The patient stood fixed in his place. The psychiatrist continued to cajole the patient by calling his name, "John" and finally in frustration yelled, "Jesus Christ!" Shuffling along, the patient retrieved his mandatory pills.

When the patient returned to his customary spot by the window, the chaplain asked him, "Why don't you respond to your name, John? You respond when I use your name." The patient replied, "You listen to my heart. You took time to really know me. The psychiatrist thinks I am a body who takes meds, you know I am a soul who loves."

(c) 2007 Ronald Friesen

We were standing around in the town square minding our business.

The dirt flew up from our feet as we shuffled from one foot to the other as we waited for marching orders from our boss. Little kids ran between our legs trying to get away from each other's tag.

Our boss came back from checkin' with the folks down the street.

One of the town's leaders came up and starting to challenge him, "Hey, mister, you're so smart. I bet you can't tell me how to get to heaven."

The boss loved these kinds of challenges, especially, when they came from peple who thought they were smart alecks.

So the boss said, "well what does your religious book tell you? how do you undertand it?"

The guy replied: "Love God with all your heart, and with all your soul and will all your strength, and with all your mind. and "Love your neighbor as yourself."

The boss slapped him on the back: "Hey, you got that down! Go and to those things and you will find heaven."

You would have thought the smart guy would have been satisfied with that. But, oh, no, he had to try again so he said, "who is my neighbor?'

Now we all thought the boss would have just told him off right there and said, "look around you, fella, can't you see who your neighbor is?' but no, the boss started to tell a story - and we had some before - so we sat down on the town square and listened up.

"There was a merchant who was traveling from Phoenix to Tucson when he fell into the hands of some banditos. They beat him up real bad and left him for half dead beside the road. A priest came by and saw him and decided he had an important committee meeting to go to so he walked by. A deacon came upon him and he crossed the road so he wouldn't need to see the man's condition. Then a Mexican came by and saw his pitiful state. He stopped, checked the poor merchant's pulse and found some life. He went back to his backpack and pulled a small flask of wine and poured it on the wounds of his new friend. He got some water and gave him a sip. His transportation was a beat up 67 Chevy. He bundled up the beat up man and put him into the truck and drove him to Tucson. He stopped at the first urgent care center he could find. He only had a few dollars in his pocket and he gave it to the receptionist. "Take care of him. When I come back this way I will pay anything left to pay.

We were all listening intently the story - and then the boss asked the questioner -

"Which of these three men acted neighborly to the beat up merchant?"

No one cares how many neighbors you have- but you should care how often you have acted neighborly.

One day two friends were walking along when they were joined by a stranger.

"May I join you? the stranger asked.

"Certainly, we are just walking here and talking about how sad we are."

"Oh, may I ask why you are sad?"

"Our best friend died. He died on a cross. Some of our friends buried him in a tomb borrowed from another friend. Well, borrowed sounds kind of strange, doesn't it? I mean how do you 'borrow a grave'? he said with a smirk on his face. "After all, you plan to use it the rest of your days. I mean dead is dead, isn't it?"

"Yeah," the stranger replied, "I always thought dead was dead."

"Well, they buried in him in this tomb and then some women folk went there a couple of days later and his body was gone! We think someone stole his body - at least that is what the Romans have told us!"

"Wow, why would anyone steal a body from a grave? I see what you mean by 'borrowed tomb' - he wasn't there long!"

"There's more to this crazy story. The women told us that our best friend stood in front of them and talked to them!"

"Well, you know women - nobody believes them, do they? After all we don't even accept their witness in court!"

"But he keeps showing up in the strangest places. We heard he showed up at our friend, Mark's. I know that Mark is a bit strange - after all he was seen running in his skivies on the Passover evening last week through the town. But I don't think that all those other guys like Peter or John or Matthew would make up stories like this. Man, its getting late. Why don't you come to our house tonight.

"Well, I thought I would just keep going here for awhile."

"No, no, its no trouble. You can have my bed tonight."

"Sure, if you insist."

So we sat down and shared some food This stranger broke the bread in the strangest way. He said a prayer over it. As soon as he began to break it and give it to us, we knew who He was.

We had been walking with Jesus of Nazareth and we didn't know it!