"Is anybody there?" - Syrian asylum-seekers

Does anybody care?

In Syria and beyond, turmoil continues, not least of it the fate of innocent citizens longing for peace and caught in the crossfire of warring parties. When help comes, it comes from humanitarian organizations and workers from non-warring parts of the world. The citizen workers also likely echo "Does anybody care?" It takes more than food and tents, the usual picture of refugees and displaced persons. It takes governments and policies, strategies and conviction followed by action. The United States should lead, as in the past, to make these innocents vitally important to the leaders of all non-warring countries looked to in the past. That is my view.

Here is part of the record that we, too, need to care about.

Today, attacks on asylum-seekers causes alarm in Germany.

Are Americans ignoring Syria's humanitarian crisis? Mort Abramowitz wrote that he thinks we are, and why he thinks so.

Similarly, "Who cares about Syria?" was Valerie Amos's opinion article in The Washington Post earlier.

Fred Hiatt wrote of a "defense of inaction in Syria," a provocative article about the record of current administration foreign policies.

Finally, but not least, is Thomas E. McMahon's letter to the Post in reaction to Valerie Amos's op-ed: How the U.S. can help Syria's citizens.

The News Alarms and the Good Transcends

Window view, NW Washington, DC, (c)2014 Jean P. Purcell

The Washington Post comes to our house every day. We know it is likely to be full of sad news front to back. 

Our TV brings in many news sources, all telling of dissension and disaster, threats and fright. They do this 24/7. 

News magazines in waiting rooms forecast the future of nations, climate, governance, militia, families, and more, often with dark predictions and falling hopes. 

Life and death, good and evil happen in human events. We are reminded of this every day. Some see or live within it daily.  

Christians today around the world realize that much of the world's news resembles in nature the Roman-ruled world of Jesus' years on earth. In earlier years, from Genesis to Malachi, it was much the same: the earth filled with turmoil, relatively few years of peace anywhere in their experience.  

“You took my sin and shame. Forever I will bless Your Holy Name.” These words run through my mind, from a song I cannot find. 

Good News is eternal, intended for all the world to know, all that Jesus taught by words and deeds.

Those who put their trust in God through His Son have the good news, the gospel, that over-rides and eclipses the distressing news of the day and the night. This good news brings hope to all nations: God made a way for all to come to him through his Son, and they shall not perish.

God’s Word goes forth in power in every language. “God spoke to me in my own language,” said a young man that had lain wounded from a self-inflicted gunshot, a failed attempt at a revenge-killing against the one who had killed his father.   

Someone took a Bible to the young man in hospital. The Bible was printed in a language different from his own, yet a language he knew. He read it, and then God spoke to him about his future.

“God spoke to me in my own language,” he said later. It was the language of his family, tribe, and tradition, not in English, the Bible he had been given.   

God told the young man that the effects of his wound would heal—against the most-assured medical predictions. Sure enough, the young man walked out on his own two feet from that hospital. He walked out a healed man with a transformed heart. The desire for revenge left him, replaced by God. I heard him speak of these things, “live” in his country, along with others with whom he serves the Lord today in Ethiopia and, as years have passed, possibly elsewhere, as well.

Isaiah wrote:

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.

And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations” (Isaiah 61:1-4).

Jesus read those words soon after his 40 days in the desert. This is the record in Luke’s gospel:

“And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.

And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place* where it was written, (*Esaias/Isaiah 61)

^“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”

And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.

And he began to say unto them, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:17-21).

Religions vary, “but the Word of the Lord stands forever” (Isaiah 40:8); 1 Peter 1:25) with power to save. Every soul that is in darkness, prison, sickness of the mind or body in which it dwells; every soul that despairs, without hope in this world, God knows perfectly: “…the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint” (Isaiah 1: 5).

John the Apostle wrote: 

And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne

and the beasts and the elders: 

and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;saying with a loud voice, 

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength,and honour, and glory, and blessing.

And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, 

Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever 

(Revelation 5:11-13).

 *****

Scripture source: King James Version (KJV) of the Bible--public domain

Woodward and Bernstein Editing Skills for Watergate

Cover via Amazon

The writers that do not need editors keep journals and private writings for themselves or to share in letters, e-mails, or blogs.

Writers that need editors are columnists, article writers, book authors and any other writer, such as in-house writing for organizations or business...anyone whose work is for publication.

Reporters have editors, of course, and we take for granted that this includes the best, prize-winning reporters. Two reporters untangled the Watergate story that kept the political world in Washington, DC, glued to their features in The Washington Post. Every day. For months. 

Robert Woodward and Carl Bernstein became more famous when their book about Watergate, All the President's Men, came out of film production starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.  

Remember who was Bob Woodward's most consistent and frequent editor?

Writers know words and thoughts and how they should fit together for specific genres to create reliable and interesting reading. Editors know these things too, perhaps in more detail, and definitely with the unique advantage of objectivity. Editors, therefore, bring what works to help bring readers to the easy chair, sofa, table or computer, Kindle or Nook, with attention glued to a writer's words and pages, whether nonfiction or fiction.  

Editing goes beyond grammar, spelling, and structure of language...sentences and paragraphs. Part of good editing is the ability to analyze writing projects, especially books, for direction and flow from beginning to end. 

No matter what genre a book fits into, readers expect some enjoyment or satisfaction from the process, even from the most serious book topics. There must be redeeming aspects within a work. In fiction, this can come through minor characters. However it comes, it is essential. These and other ingredients an editor looks for, with an objective eye. The good writer has more inside him or her, usually, than a manuscript displays before editing. Editors seek to help uncover that yet-to-be-expressed skill or insight that the writer can yet reveal.  

All of us love to finish a book feeling satisfied, even if shocked by how the story ended or how it was resolved. We want to feel that the writer did not set us up, but gave an adventure of imagination, people (real or fictional), and story. 

Remember who edited much of Bob Woodward's writing at The Washington Post when he and Carl Bernstein were hounding the Watergate story? Remember how Bernstein started their relationship, in fact, by taking an article out of a pile and editing it...at his typewriter, of course?

This brief overview of how editors can help writers improve might encourage a writer out there to welcome an editor, rather than dread "what might happen to" the work. What could happen could be even much better than the writer realizes...and that will come to the surface through a good writer-editor relationship. The editing process can enrich the skills and lives of both. 

Copyright (c)2011 Opinari Writers Network