By Rev. DR. DonalD P. RichmonD

Biblical prophecy, a God- centered understanding and com-munication of future events, has been a “hot topic” in the Church for almost two thousand years. People want to know what the fu-ture will bring. In fact, with the nu-merous books, movies and work-shops available, the issue of bibli-cal prophecy has become a “cot-tage industry” over the past thirty years. Parallel interest can also be seen in the secular marketplace.

Very oddly, the Christmas Sea-

son (Dec. 3 – Jan. 6) is a time when we are called to attend to issues related to prophecy. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, entered this world to “save” humanity two thousand years ago. He said that he would return at some undisclosed time in the future “to judge the living and the dead.” The time and details of his return are matters of pro-phetic interest.

Many people throughout histo-ry have tried to discover the exact

time of Christ’s return. Our Lord himself urged his followers to be attentive to the times and the sea-sons that might predict his return. But, as important as spiritual at-tentiveness is in this regard, spend-ing too much time and energy on prophetic speculation may entirely miss the point.

Prophecy itself is not just about the “there and then,” but the “here and now.”

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, the last book in our Bible, makes

this point quite clear. Chapters 2 – 3 of Revelation focus upon God’s words to “the seven church-es,” It is interesting to note that in this book about future events, the author focuses upon current problems and responsibilities. It outlines what each church must do in the “here and now.”

Over the years numerous indi-viduals have asked me about is-sues related to biblical prophecy. “What is going to happen, and when?” they ask. My answer has

always been brief and to the point, “If we focus upon loving God and our neighbor now, the future will attend to itself.” “Be prepared.” Instead of struggling with certain difficult passages, which according to the book of Daniel are sealed until the end times, I focus upon present responsibilities.

It is not always easy to live within this frame of reference. The world is becoming a darker place. Evils and atrocities do exist. Suffering is all too real. And, of course, this is

the point. Because of these things, and because of Christ’s incarnation (first coming) and the consumma-tion of all things (second coming), those who are properly related to Christ (who live between prophecy and fulfillment) have a responsibil-ity to bring peace into the world.

Living as peacemakers with goodwill towards all humanity may be the best Christmas gift we can give to our neighbor. May our holiday truly become a holy day extending throughout the year.

PAGE B3SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2006

ReligionPage edited by Justin D. Beckett

w e w a n t y o u r o p i n i o nTo write a letter to the religion editor —Write: Religion editor, P.O. Box 1389, Victorville CA 92393Fax: 241-1860 E-mail: jbeckett@vvdailypress.com

Ask the clergyBy Steve Sobol

Religious Perspectives Prophecy, here and now

FrontLinesFaith

OF

Story by PaUl aSaYillustraion by BRYan olleR

Freedom News Service

would jump out of a plane for his guys. And he does. Frequently. For McBride, a major with Fort Carson’s 10th Special Forces Group, parachuting is just part of his job. He meets soldiers where they are — even if that means a patchwork of earth is rushing toward them from thousands of feet below.

“That’s ministry for us,” McBride said.

There are 2,900 active-duty chaplains in the U.S. military, serving the emo-tional and spiritual needs of 1.4 million troops. They don’t carry weapons, but go wherever their units go: to the streets of Baghdad, the mountains of Afghanistan or a plane four miles high. They’re part counselor, part spiritual adviser, part guardian angel, performing one of the military’s most complex jobs.

“For some ..., (soldiers) feel that if we are there, then God is there,” said Chap-lain Clint Black, a captain in the 10th Special Forces based in Colorado.

All three chaplains in that group, in-cluding Capt. Darren Chester, are para-chuting veterans, but no one more so than McBride, a Baptist pastor with a booming voice and an X-games attitude. He comes across like a full-bore adren-aline junkie, greeting soldiers with a hearty “Hey, man!” and a thick slap on the shoulder. He stopped counting his jumps last year after he passed 130.

McBride says he’s never had a sol-dier turn down a prayer before a jump. There’s nothing like a little danger to set someone’s faith in motion.

“Questions about life and death often — quite often — lead people to think about their eternal soul,” said Chaplain Jim Hartz, a major with the 3rd Heavy

B r i g a d e C o m b a t Team now in Iraq. “Some (soldiers) worry about death more than others. Many soldiers have accepted the fact that death may come to them or someone they care about.

“It doesn’t make it easier to deal with when it happens, but it does free up their mind and other senses to effectively sol-dier.”

Stress is a fact of life for the mili-tary, particularly in wartime. Troops in Iraq or Afghanistan deal with life-and-death issues daily. Even if the troops themselves come to no harm, hurt is all around them. Hartz has given spiritual aid to Iraqi children injured in bomb blasts or, in one case, to a child shot during a soccer game.

“I will never forget the feelings I had — anger and grief at the unfairness and the apparent senselessness of it all.”

He says the soldiers he works with feel that same anger and grief.

Hartz said the stress of being away can be a soldiers’ hardest burden — and that stress accumulates with every birth-day or anniversary missed.

“Many of the soldiers in this brigade are on their second or third deploy-ment,” Hartz said.

A chaplain steps into that emotional turmoil. Many try to keep soldiers men-tally and emotionally healthy by offering programs and spiritual guidance.

Often, military personnel just want to talk. Discussions with chaplains are confidential, which allows troops to talk freely about everything from a

hard-to-please com-mander to the qual-ity of the food.

“The chaplain is seen as the vent for a lot of frustrations, fears and stresses of military life,” said the Rev. David Knight, interim pas-tor for All Souls Uni-tarian-Universalist

Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., and a part-time chaplain at Buckley Air Force Base near Denver.

A chaplain’s ministry takes a number of forms. But nothing is more impor-tant, chaplains say, than getting to know the troops they’re helping.

Take McBride and his small special ops team. Chaplains are required to be physically fit, but jumping out of planes is as much about respect and credibil-ity as anything else. Green Berets won’t spill their guts to just anybody with a cross on their collar.

Green Berets don’t always knock on the chaplain’s door when some-thing’s bothering them, either. So McBride, Black and Chester go to them. Small-talk can lead to deeper conversa-tions, the chaplains say. If nothing else, the soldiers know there’s someone in their corner: God, perhaps; the chaplain, certainly.

That go-to-the-soldiers strategy, which Chaplain Jeffrey Zust of Fort Carson’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team called a “min-istry of presence,” is standard operating procedure in most military units.

Availability is an effective ministry, the chaplains said. “We’re there to help soldiers talk through things, in those re-ally quiet moments,” Zust said.

McBride and Chester have been to Iraq twice (Black’s a recent addition to the unit), and chances are they’ll return.

For now, the unit’s stateside, which presents its own issues. Troops separat-ed from their families for months must re-integrate with their spouses and kids. Young children sometimes don’t recog-nize their returning parents. Divorce in the aftermath of deployment is common, chaplains say.

The 10th Group holds occasional Breckenridge, Colo., retreat for soldiers and their families, a program McBride hopes will save some marriages.

“I tell them that your family is much more important than the Army,” Mc-Bride said.

Such programs are important, accord-ing to Hartz. “We have already begun the process at both ends of the ocean with reunion briefings and various other risk assessments in order to prepare the sol-diers, families, chaplains and command for success,” he said.

“The bad news — and what is hard for chaplains — is that time, distance and decisions that have been made will have set some marriages and families in too deep a hole for us to truly make a difference.”

The hardest part of being a chaplain, say many, is keeping up their own spir-itual strength. “It’s hard to fill some-one else’s bucket if you are empty,” said Hartz.

The key to avoiding burnout, they say, is three-fold. One, many set strong per-sonal boundaries to keep from becom-ing obsessed with the work. Two, they stay current with their own faith as best they can, through prayer and study. And third, they find people who can buoy them spiritually.

haplain Terry McBrideC Chaplains fight daily battles

while ministering to troops

Retired naval officer looks to do ‘good things’ through religion and charity work in High Desert

By eRiK DeRRStaff Writer

VICTORVILLE — Joe Whipple comes across as that wind-worn uncle you love talking to around the dinner table or on the couch watching football.

A retired Navy man, Whipple sports his favorite college cap, proudly wears his Na-val Air Corps windbreaker and gleefully shares his anecdotal observations about traveling the world or driving down Bear Valley Road during rush hour.

He easily throws around a battery of pointed opinions on what and why things are wrong in the High Desert region he’s called home for the last four years.

Beneath the entertaining observations, however, is a man committed to the com-munity he serves and totally devoted to a life of Christian charity.

Whipple, 61, is chapter head for the oth-er leg of the Salvation Army, the one that seeks to fill people’s spiritual needs, not just fill their cupboards with food or Christmas stockings with toys.

Of course, the community charity work that’s made the Salvation Army one of the most respected and recognized groups in

America makes up an important part of Whipple’s mission, who oversees the local “kettle” donations every holiday season and food drives throughout the year.

“I drive over 40 miles a day, except on Sundays, of course,” Whipple said.

His main focus includes his weekly Sunday-morning church services, Bi-ble studies, counseling sessions and

one-on-one chats with parishioners. Whipple enjoys ministering to the esti-

mated 25, mostly senior parishioners who regularly attend his services. He lives for the occasional call he gets from a person seeking spiritual guidance, but with no-where else to turn.

“I love this story,” Whipple said. “There was this guy who called late one night,

seeking spiritual answers.“I asked him why he called us, and he an-

swered, ‘I know you guys do good things.’ ”Whipple added, “They know we’re the

Salvation Army.”The organization was initially founded

as The Christian Mission in 1865 by Wil-liam Booth, a London, England Methodist minister who sought to reach the city’s “unchurched” people living in destitution and poverty in London’s East End.

The group changed its name to The Sal-vation Army two years later, and adopted a quasi-military organization structure that Whipple, who’s Army rank is captain, as-sures is limited to terminology only.

Aside from ministering to the poor, The Salvation Army also provided food and comfort to soldiers during both world wars.

The organization’s wide reputation as a charity firmly took root after it started re-ceiving funding from the U.S. government, and therefore agreed to focus 70 percent of its efforts on community work.

Whipple, who shares his duties with fel-low Captain and wife, Cathy, is the father

of four who grew up in Denver, joined the Navy right out of high school and devoted himself to the Christian faith after his first year in the military showed him he needed more meaning in his life.

Already searching for spiritual an-swers, Whipple says he turned com-pletely to Jesus after reading through Bible verses with one of his Navy mates one night. He came across Romans 6:23, which reads, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

True Christianity, asserted Whipple, is a relationship, not a religion. And it requires life-long dedication, not just feel-good church visits when the personal energy level is low.

“Instead of Christ-ianity, we have a lot of Church-ianity in today’s world,” lamented Whipple.

To that end, no matter how little public acknowledgment he ever gets, or how bad the local traffic grows, or how many times people steal items from his church, which has happened quite frequently, spreading the word to the people of Victor Valley will always be “a joy for me,” he said.

“Remember the ‘Salvation’ in ‘Salvation Army’ means salvation from our sins.”

Erik Derr can be reached at 955-5358 or ederr@vvdailypress.com.

Salvation Army leader looks to ‘salvation’ part of job

Q: “Among the Jewish holidays, where does Hanukkah rank? What

gives the holiday significance and have the traditions changed at all over the generations?”

A : First answer: Hanuk- kah is considered a minor holiday.

There are only five major holidays in Judaism: Passover, the harvest festivals Shavout and Sukkot, Rosh Hashanah (the Jew-ish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement, the holi-est day in our religion).

These five holidays are specifi-cally mentioned in the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testa-ment — Genesis, Exodus, Num-bers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy); none of the minor holidays are.

Second answer: Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, celebrates the victory of the Maccabees, a small band of Jews, over a Syrian army led by Antiochus IV, and the subsequent rededica-tion of the Temple in Jerusa-lem, which Antiochus and his men had destroyed.

The Maccabees only had enough oil for the Temple’s “Ner Tamid” (Eternal Flame) to burn for one night, but miracu-lously, the flame stayed lit for eight nights, which is why the holiday lasts eight days.

Third answer: Much as Christ-mas has become commercialized and we sometimes lose sight of its real purpose (to celebrate the birth of Jesus), Hanukkah has also become commercialized, though not to the same extent.

Hanukkah is about persever-ing and maintaining faith in the face of adversity, and we need to work to make sure our children know that it’s not just about receiving gifts.

Steve Sobol is co-president of Con-gregation Bamidbar Shel Ma'alah, a Reform Jewish congregation in Victorville. He is also one of Bamid-bar's lay service leaders. Bamidbar's Web site can be reached at www.bamidbar.net.

Do you have a question for the cler-gy? If so, please write to Gretchen Losi at gretchen_losi@link.freedom.com. Questions also may be sent via fax to 241-1860 or via mail to Gretchen Losi, Daily Press, P.O. Box 1389, Victorville, CA 92393.

Hanukkah puts perseverance in perspective

Salvation aRmY SPiRitUal SeRviceSSunday Church Worship, 11 a.m.14585 La Paz DriveVictorville, Calif. 92392(760) 245-2545

Aaron J. Walker / Staff PhotographerSalvation Army Captain Joe Whipple talks about the help he has received with refur-bishing the chapel in Victorville.

In tribute to all the men and women in uniform who will be away during the holidays,

I wrote this:NOTE TO HOMEI wear the uniform of my

country and serve you with pride.

I serve without illusions, aware of the flaws in some of our leaders and systems. But I believe in the ideals of Ameri-ca, our form of democracy, and the ultimate wisdom of our free-enterprise system.

I know we have our share of fools, bigots, and crooks. But I believe far more that our countrymen and women are decent, honest people who care deeply about their families and the well-being of strangers. It is this side of America I will always love and fight for.

I serve where I’m asked to serve and do what I’m asked to do, knowing I’m just a bit player in the overall defense of our nation. But that doesn’t make me feel insignificant because I’m doing my part and that’s enough.

I know I’m not likely to be-come a hero, but I’m prepared to play a heroic role should fate impose on me that opportunity.

Although the idea of living in foreign places sounds exotic, my day-to-day life is not exciting. It’s a job; it’s service.

Yes, I miss the comforts and comradeship of home, especial-ly during the holidays. It’s often lonely, and I long to be with my friends and family. But I wear my uniform with pride, know-ing because I’m here, you can feel safe enjoying the holidays. That’s my gift to you.

If you know anyone in the military, please go out of your way to thank them.

Nun finds solace in athletic past, new hope in serving her God

By WaYne coffeYNew York Daily News

AFTON, Va. — It’s 4:15 in the morning, and Sister An-drea Jaeger is already in her full habit, the first prayer session of the day behind her. God speaks to her all the time, tells her what His plan is, but these early wake-ups, this is all Jaeger’s idea. She has her brown leather Bible next to her — her name is in-scribed on it — and so much to do: sick children to visit, a foundation to run, vows to keep.

Why sleep in when you can do good deeds, and go for a contemplative, one-hour run, too?

“I just love the serenity of the morning,” Jaeger says. “The phone doesn’t ring. No-body else is awake. It makes me so excited. Here comes another day!”

Sister Andrea Jaeger is 41. She is three months into her new life as a Dominican nun in the Episcopal Church, and almost a quarter- century beyond her short-lived stint as the biggest sen-

sation in women’s tennis, a ball-bashing baseliner with waist-length pigtails that swung with every ground-stroke, and braces that befit her teenage station.

Jaeger is an alternative energy source, fueled by Providence. She has a girlish voice and a big laugh, and an amped-up signoff to her cell phone voicemail (“God’s love and blessings to you”). She can speak eloquently for 20 minutes in answer to a single question, and often does.

The answers always come back to her personal rela-tionship with God, a jour-ney that has transformed her from tennis brat into hu-manitarian; umpire-baiter into child-saver; conflicted prodigy into devout care-giver, all without forgetting how to be playful.

During a recent visit to the children’s cancer wing of a Cincinnati hospital, Jaeger led sing-alongs and brought lightness, and roared with laughter when a little girl called her “a fun nun.” She jokes about how it used to take three minutes to get dressed when she just wore sweats. Now it takes a half-hour.

“I finally understand why

women were spending all that time in the bathroom,” she says.

Jaeger is here in the Shenandoah Mountains, vis-

iting with her writer friend Rita Mae Brown, having traveled from her home in Hesperus, Colo. Brown, a mentor and kindred spirit

whom Jaeger first met when Brown was a tour regular as the partner of Martina Navratilova, is helping her with a children’s book. Stay-ing in a cottage at a bed-and-breakfast, Jaeger steps on her flowing black habit as she heads upstairs, briefly stumbling.

“I still have to get used to wearing this,” she says with an embarrassed smile.

A first-generation Ameri-can, Jaeger was a most im-probable tennis wunderkind. She was raised in Chicago by her German-born par-ents, who came to the U.S. in 1956. Her coach/father, Roland, was a former boxer and bricklayer who ran a saloon called The Postillion Lounge. She started tennis at 8, and thanks to inexhaust-ible energy and abundant athleticism, took to it quick-ly, becoming a top-ranked ju-nior by the time she was 13, turning professional at 14. She entered qualifying play in her first tournament in Las Vegas, a Futures event for up-and-coming players. She won 13 straight matches and captured the first of her 10 titles.

Jaeger swiftly ascended the ranks of the WTA tour, all the way up to No. 2, at 16. She was a relentless 5-5,

130-pounder who was pushed hard by her father, mouthed off to linespeople and was a regular in the final week-ends of Grand Slams. The only trouble, according to Jaeger, is that she felt alone and adrift in the cutthroat culture she suddenly found herself in. She lived with a terrible secret: she did not want to be No. 1 in the world. She did not want to hone a killer instinct, or be-come an all-time great. As much as she loved to play, to dive for balls and set up points and reach a level few players ever get near, she did not want to do it at someone else’s expense. Her conflict ran so deep that she says she intentionally lost a number of big matches, Grand Slam finals included.

When Billie Jean King expressed interest in coach-ing her, Jaeger wasn’t even tempted.

“I saw her drive to be the best, and I did not have that drive to be the best,” Jaeger says. “I know if I worked with her I would’ve been No. 1 in the world. I know it, but it would’ve come at too great a cost. I was never going to tell people what God want-ed me to do — that I wanted to be of service to others.”

PaGe B6 Daily Press, Victorville, Calif. ReliGion Saturday, December 16, 2006 Page edited by Justin D. Beckett

Wearing the uniform with pride

Hanukkah, the blended celebration

Character Countsby Michael Josephson

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By teRRY mattinGlYScripps Howard News Service

T he candelabra should have eight candles in a straight line with a separate holder

— usually high and in the mid-dle — for the “servant” candle that is used to light the others.

The purpose of Hanukkah menorahs is to publicize the mir-acle at the heart of the “Festi-val of Lights,” when tradition says a one-day supply of pure oil burned for eight days after Jewish rebels liberated the temple from their Greek op-pressors. Thus, most families place their menorahs in front windows facing a street.

So far, so good.The lighting of the first candle

should be at sundown on the first night of the eight-day season, which begins on Friday (Dec. 15) this year.

Hanukkah candles should burn at least 30 minutes and it’s forbidden to use their light for any purpose other than viewing or meditating.

Blessings are recited before the first candle is lit, starting with: “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us by His commandments, and has com-manded us to kindle the lights of Hanukkah.”

Each night, another candle is added — with eight burning at the end of the season.

That’s it. That’s what Jews are supposed to do during Hanukkah. They’re supposed to light the candles and give thanks to God.

It’s all about lights shining in darkness.

“This is a simple holiday with a simple message and it isn’t sup-posed to be all that complicated,” said Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, the largest umbrella group for Orthodox Jews in North America.

“You come home from work, you light the candles, you say the blessings and then you sit down with your kids and play games with dreidels.”

It’s pretty small stuff com-pared with all of the emotions of Passover.”

Some Jewish families will sing Hanukkah songs and fry some potato pancakes called “latkes,” homemade donuts or other festive foods using hot oil — a key symbol in the season. Many parents give their children small gifts each night, such as coins or chocolates wrapped in gold foil to resemble coins.

This is where, for many, the Hanukkah bandwagon starts to get out of control. As the Jewish Outreach Institute Hanukkah Web site bluntly states: “Hanuk-kah is the most widely celebrat-ed American Jewish holiday, possibly because it is a fun, child-centered occasion.”

Everyone knows why Hanuk-kah keeps getting bigger and big-ger, said Weinreb, who also has worked as a psychologist special-izing in family issues.

“How can a Jewish kid grow-ing up in America or anywhere else in the Western world not get swept up, to one degree or another, in the whole business of Christmas? The music is everywhere and the decora-tions are everywhere. Many of your school friends are having parties and they’re all excited about the gifts they’re going to get,” he said. “From a Jewish perspective, all of this is a rabbi’s worst nightmare. You want to find a way to say, ’That’s not us.’ But, in the end, many people lose control.”

Before you know it, someone else’s Christmas tree turns into a holiday tree and, finally, into something called a Hanukkah bush.

The end result is ironic, to say the least. Hanukkah is supposed to be a humble holiday about the need for Jews to resist com-promising their beliefs in order to assimilate into a dominant culture. However, for many fami-lies it has become the biggest event on the Jewish calendar — because it is so close to the all-powerful cultural earthquake that many call “Christmas.”

Those old-fashioned notions about giving children a few modest Hanukkah gifts have evolved into expectations of a nightly procession of toys, clothing and electronic goodies. And, in many of America’s 2.5 million households with one Jewish parent and one Chris-tian parent, the rites of the shopping mall have been blend-ed to create the pop-culture reality called “Chrismukkah.”

Former tennis star Jaeger sports a new habit

The Associated PressStuart M. Matlins, co-editor of “How to be a Perfect Stranger,” poses with copies of the religious etiquette book in his office in Woodstock, Vt., on Thursday.

Craig Warga / New York Daily NewsSister Andrea Jaeger poses with her brown leather Bible and a tennis racket in Afton, Virginia, while visiting a friend. Jaeger, 41, a former professional tennis star who started playing at 8 years old, is now three months into her new life as a Dominican nun in the Episcopal Church.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Courtney Kue-hn went to a Hmong wedding and — surprise! — tradition dictated a toast to her old college roommate. Paul Purdy went to synagogue with a Jewish girl-friend and accidentally stood for the Mourner’s Kaddish.

Such trans-cultural encounters are common in a nation under many gods, especially this time of year when cel-ebrations often involve friends from other faiths. Questions come up. Is it OK to serve pork at a holiday par-ty? Should my Buddhist friend get a Christmas card?

Religious etiquette guides offer some answers.

The books, including “How to be a Perfect Stranger” and “Multicultural Manners,” focus on issues far weighti-er than recognizing salad forks. Inside, is advice on how to be sensitive to other faiths and cultures. A few examples:

—Do wear white at a Hindu funer-

al, (it’s the faith’s symbolic color of mourning)

—Don’t order a beer at a Muslim wedding reception (Islamic law forbids alcohol)

—Washing of the feet, symbolizing Jesus’ love for humanity, is optional for guests at a Seventh-day Adventist ceremony

—During Hanukkah, which begins at sundown Friday, you light a shammash and eat a sufganiot (one is a candle, the other a doughnut).

The advice is especially useful in a nation becoming more diverse. Chang-es in U.S. immigration law during the 1960s allowed more non-Europeans into the country, increasing the presence of minority faiths.

“Clearly, there are dramatic changes that have taken place in our country in the last 50 years,” said Stuart M. Mat-lins, a co-editor of “Perfect Stranger” and editor of companion guides for

weddings and funerals.While exact statistics are difficult to

calculate, there are thought to be more than a million Hindus in the United States, at least several million Bud-dhists, and several million Muslims and Jews. Even the nation’s dominant faith, Christianity, is far from mono-lithic. Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists and Episcopalians each have distinctive practices.

Cultural collisions are unavoidable.Albany resident Purdy, raised in a

Christian home, went to synagogue in October with his then-girlfriend’s family for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, when he inadver-tently stood for the mourning prayer. He realized his gaffe and sat down again quickly.

Purdy’s interfaith philosophy is “if you’re paying attention, you’ll do OK.” But the guides are for other people who want to make sure, or for the curious.

Religious etiquette: Celebrating the holidays without offending your friends