MORGAN'S MOMENT...
A bar of soap for Christmas!
      A hint or what?
I share the words on the box: 
Wash Away Your Sins Cleansing Bar
Easy to Use
Tested and Approved for al 7 DeadIy Sins
Reduces Guift by 98.9% or More
The Better Cleanser for Liars Cheaters
and Wrong-Doers
A Sinner’s Necessity
Tempting "Do-it-Again" Scent
Warning: Habitual Use May Strengthen
Character
I’ve used the soap since Christmas
      hoping friends might notice a difference.
      Not!
It’s an old Bible idea to wash sins away -
      with water, hyssop, snow, blood
      even Jordan River water 7 times!
The Christian Gospel preachers proclaim
      that Christ has wiped our sins away
      with his dying on the cross.
I sum it up for you—Whatever works!
      But just in case
      I’m using my Christmas soap as long as I can.
— Art Morgan 
BOOK CORNER
       Time to take a break from the heavy stuff (like
Steven Hawkings) for a real life adventure story of
a young man who rowed around the “eastern island” of the United States. Starting in New York City he proposed to row up the Hudson and follow canals and rivers to New Orleans, then around Florida and home again to New York. The book is “On the Wqter - Discovering America in a Rowboat” by Nathaniel Stone. I liked it.
MOMENT MINISTRIES
Feb. 20, 2003
home address:  25921 SW Airport Ave.
Corvallis, OR 97333   541-753-3942
email at  a-morgan@peak.org
FEBRUARY MOMENT
Thursday February 20
Dates are often in conflict which creates large gaps between events in groups that meet as infrequently as ours.
A look at the calendar shows a late Easter. Lent
doesn’t begin until March. Our March Moment will be March 13 with Easter on April 20.
DOING MOMENTS
We had some strange ideas 25 years ago. Still do. One idea was that any religious community we might form should not use up individual time and resources for maintenance of an institution.
So we have no committees and no meetings other than our gatherings. In theory, this frees people to participate in more community groups and events. Many of our group are involved in very meaningful and useful community programs and projects.
Some are heavy into family schedules. We
remember sitting in church meetings at night, wondering whether these people shouldn’t have been spending that time home with their families. We didn’t want our group to pull people out of their homes if we could help it.
We had a similar idea about money. We chose not to get involved in retail church with its need for survival money. Yes, we use a bit of money, but we don’t have property or pay salaries. Basically, most who participate pay little or nothing. Are we creating poor habits of stewardship? We hope not. What we intended was that people would choose their own giving priorities. I don’t know for sure, but our guess is that most are supporting many community causes as an act of “mission.” From time to time we suggest wider causes (like Church World Service and others). The idea is that we offer time and resources out in the world rather than for ourselves.

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SAVE BAGHDAD!
         I have to assume that it’s been decided that the U.S. of A. is going to war in Iraq. Having given in to that troubling reality, I did the strange act of e-mailing my Congressman to suggest that an archeologist be included on the strategic military planning team.
         It’s a mandated requirement, I understand, that major construction projects have archeological
participation. You hate to tear up in 10 minutes what took 10,000 years to create.
         At any rate, I had a moment of curiosity in which I looked up Iraq in my Biblical reference materials. You probably know that the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers are located there. The names “Assyria” and “Babylonia” are among those now included in the borders of Iraq.
         We had to study about the emergence of the great biblical patriarch, Abraham, in our introduction to the Old Testament Without Abraham there is no Old Testament. He is the common Patriarch of Jews and Muslims as well as Christians.. Guess where Abraham came from? Right. From Iraq.
         Bible students all owned “The Westminster Historical Atlas to the .Bible.” A line was drawn that
started in the Persian Gulf, northwesterly up the Tigris and Euphrates River valleys, then westward toward the Mediterranean, down through what is now Lebanon, into Palestine, and finally across into Egypt. This was the “Fertile Crescent.” There was water and land for grazing and agriculture.
         Most people have heard about the Tower of Babel. lts story is told in Genesis 11. It was located in Babylon as well.
         The widely known Code of Hammurabi, on which many biblical laws may have been based, came
from this region.
         And, of course, Abraham from a place called Ur, south of Baghdad toward the Gulf, heard God say to him, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1)
         If there is even a thread of history in this ancient story of the origin of the Hebrews, it is remarkable and raises questions. One question. is why anyone living in such a virtual paradise would want to migrate so far to such a difficult place as the Land of Canaan? What really drove Abraham out of his homeland? Maybe the only answer is, “the call of God.”
         That brings up another troubling thought. (I don’t know why I think this way, but...) Did God have any idea what God was starting by sending Abraham and his tribes into a foreign land that was already happily occupied? Village by village, city by city, area by area, these Hebrews took possession of a land not their own. They imported their own variety of God (and gods) to replace the Canaanite deities that had seemed to serve those folks just fine. Did God suspect that these folks would be stilt be blowing each other to bits 4000 years later?
         Abraham’s God was “Shaddai,” meaning “The Mountain One.” Is that how the Moses story came to include receiving the 10 Commandments from the God Moses met on the mountain? The story of the flood surely was imported from this regiOn as well since the story parallels the Babylonian story, except that the Ark lands on a different mountain. It is also likely that the stories of the Creation and Garden of Eden came out of the same source.
         We suspect that the Hebrew storytellers added their own religious spin to ancient stories, since
Babylon has a historical reputation as a pagan culture. We cannot claim that the Hebrew religion was simply imported. It seems to evolve from traditions that came with the tribes of Abraham. They came from a developed civilization. One of my reference sources offers this commentary: 
“Archaeological discoveries have shown that Ur of the Chaldees was a center of advanced cultures. There were libraries, in the schools and temples. The people used grammars, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and reference works along with textbooks on mathematics, religion, and politics.”
         Where was I? Oh.. .my letter to my Congressman. Among other considerations blended into our
military strategy, especially with regard to minimilizlng “collateral” damage, I humbly suggested the inclusion of an archeologist. This land is not barren desert. It is motherland not only to its present occupants, but is motherland to the sacred history of Hebrews, Muslims and Christians as well. I expressed hope that someone would remember. “No reply necessary” I said. Or expected, I thought.
Art Morgan, February 2003