IN THIS ISSUE ...

Visitor Stories:

• Healthy food and work ethic lead to long lives in Stearns County

• For these SCSU football players, team spirit dovetails with Holy Spirit

• EDITORIAL: Where should you stand on capital punishment? Look to the cross

• Two girls from St. Cloud join 3,000 other of ‘God’s best collaborators’ to make a difference in the world by filling it with love and compassion

Pinwheels for Peace

FAITH ALIVE



Pinwheels for Peace
Photos

Kevin Schreiber, center, and classmates fold pinwheels to be displayed on the lawn of Cathedral High School/John XXIII Middle School. Students wrote prayers on the pre-pinwheeled paper before folding it, origami-like, into spinnable spirals. (SCV photos by Sue Schulzetenberg)

Angie Klaverkamp and Sam Scheevel plant pinwheels in front of Cathedral High School/John XXIII Middle school for world peace day.

Maddy Pesch, left, and Jamie Holthaus place pinwheels on the lawn of Cathedral High School/John XXIII Middle School south building as a sign of peace. A field of 700-plus pinwheels symbolized peace and justice at the St. Cloud-area Catholic intermediate & secondary school.
___________________

Peace Jam 10th Anniversary Conference Photos:

Archbishop Desmond TUTU


The Dalai Lama appears on the jumbo screen while addressing youths at the conference.
Reiko Koyama and Rachel Koch.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu invited everyone to stand up, raise their arms, and as they swayed back and forth, to chant
“I am a V.S.P.
I am a very special person."

Healthy food and work ethic lead to long lives in Stearns County

by Sue Schulzetenberg
Visitor Staff Writer
STEARNS COUNTY — Good clean living and a happy attitude are the secrets to living a long life, said Alben Swenson. Swenson, age 101, one of Stearns County’s growing number of centenarians, lives in Belgrade and attends Mass at the Belgrade Nursing Home.

Swenson lives in a county where men and women have among the highest life expectancy in the nation. Stearns County women top the charts with an average life expectancy of 84.6 years in 1999, the latest year available. Stearns County men rank well too with a life expectancy of 77.2 years.

Sister Marold	Sister Suzanne

These statistics were recently released by the Harvard Initiative for Global Health and Harvard School of Public Health with a new study that compared differences in longevity in races and counties.

While Swenson has his theory of good living and a happy life contributing to longevity, he also attributes Stearns Countians’ qualities of sociability and kindness as playing a part. Theories vary among Stearns Countians about what leads to longevity of life.

“There really is no secret; it’s all in the hands of providence,” said Sister Marold Kornovich, 90, a member of St. Benedict’s Monastery in St. Joseph.
Although Sister Marold spent much time in Stearns County teaching at various schools and has been back at the monastery for about seven years, she also credits her hardiness to her upbringing in Gilman, which is in Benton County.

“We grew up on a loving farm,” she said.

For these SCSU football players, team spirit dovetails with Holy Spirit

by Joseph Young
Visitor Interim Editor

ST. CLOUD — Eleven young athletes huddled together on Sept. 23. It was the day the St. Cloud State University Huskies were hosting the South Dakota Coyotes at Husky Stadium in the Huskies’ North Central Conference opener.

But this huddle was not on the rain-soaked field, but an indoor huddle on campus, five hours before the game was to begin.

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name ...” the young men prayed, holding hands, holding the huddle together.

A twelfth man among them would not be performing on the field that evening, but he would soon be performing an afternoon wedding Mass, as soon as this prayer service ended. He was Father Kevin Anderson, pastor of Christ Church Newman Center, the parish where the football players present for these pre-game prayers are members.

Earlier, Father Anderson greeted the players as they filtered into the prayer room. They compared notes about the progress of other college football games already underway on national television. They joked about how the SCSU cheerleaders cheated a bit when performing the traditional post-touchdown push-ups — one for every cumulative point scored to that point — during SCSU’s 71-0 non-conference home opener victory over Minnesota Crookston.

EDITORIAL: Where should you stand on capital punishment? Look to the cross

The scribes and the Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman, and said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery. The law of Moses commands us to stone her. What do you say?”

Jesus said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.” Hearing this, the crowd began creeping away, one by one.

But before they left, Jesus stopped them in their sandal-tracks, crying out, “Amen I say to you, if the criminal justice system deems this woman guilty and she is convicted of the capital crime of adultery by a jury of her peers, then the state is justified in putting her to death, thereby satisfying society’s sense of justice and retribution, fostering a deterrent effect on other would-be adulterers, and ensuring that she will sin no more.”

Those verses are from the recently unearthed Gnostic Gospel of Joseph the Younger, a third-century Coptic translation of an apocryphal document that had originally been written in Greek before 150 A.D.

Two girls from St. Cloud join 3,000 other of ‘God’s best collaborators’ to make a difference in the world by filling it with love and compassion

Story and photos
by Kevin LaNave
Special to the Visitor

DENVER, Colo. — “I am in awe of you.”
The speaker was Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, and winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. He continued, “I mean that very seriously. You are remarkable young people.”

The audience was 3,000 young people from all around the United States — including Rachel Koch and Reiko Koyama, two 12th graders from St Cloud — and from 31 other countries, as well.

“Those of you who come from societies with considerable affluence could just say, ‘My life is going well. Tough luck to those who are suffering.’ But, you don’t. And, those of you who come from societies and situations that are poverty-stricken and are forced to live in conditions of squalor, could be overwhelmed by despondency. But, you are not,” Archbishop Tutu said. “You have all chosen to be here.”

The Anglican archbishop was addressing Rachel, Reiko and the entire sea of youthful exuberance during the 10th anniversary of PeaceJam, an international organization and movement that brings together Nobel Peace Prize laureates and young people.

“You did not have to come here — but you did,” continued the archbishop. “By coming, you are saying, ‘I care about poverty. I care about war. We are going to fill this world with love and compassion.’”

ST. CLOUD — Twisting and winding paper into spiraling shapes that would spin like miniature windmills, students at St. Cloud Cathedral High School/John XXIII Middle School created “Pinwheels for Peace” during World Peace Day, Sept. 21. But first, they composed peace-themed prose, or haiku, tanka or other poetry, on their paper so that when curled and folded, the “vanes” of their pinwheels displayed moving messages of peace after “planting” them outside in the gentle breeze.

Pinwheels for Peace: Quotes & statements of inspiration

“I think of a card that my dad gave me for my 15th birthday. It said, ‘Only dead fish go with the flow.’ I believe we need to help people who swim against the flow, and save those who are drowning.”

“This culture does not respect youth as it should.”

“I used to refer to myself as being bi-racial. Then I met another young person with bi-racial background who talked about the harmony he senses between his different racial backgrounds. He told me, ‘We’re harmony.’”

“I’ve heard that ‘sentiment without action is irrelevant.’ But I also believe that it’s important to find what our ‘sentiment’ is — what we’re passionate about.

For most of us, that doesn’t come from a vision sent by God or a phone call from a Nobel laureate. We have to look within ourselves.

I have found my sentiment by exploring my experience of being thrown out into the street in Korea as an orphan. It was a horrible experience — but as I’ve gotten in touch with my memories and feelings from it, I’ve found what I’m passionate about.”

“We need to look beyond a person’s racial background, or whether they have homosexual or heterosexual orientation. If a good person is a good person, see them as that.”

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate; our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” (Marianne Williamson, though often mistakenly attributed to Nelson Mandela)

“The fact that today is not good does not mean that we cannot do something to make the world a better place tomorrow.”

“If the Nobel laureates can do something major like the stories they’ve shared with us, then I can do it, too.”

“If you’re a dreamer, come on in.” (from a poem by Shel Silverstein)

“I’m inspired by people who have seen and experienced tremendous suffering, yet have a sense of humor — like the Dalai Lama when he was joking with us yesterday, and Bishop Tutu when he danced around on the stage.”

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