Sunday, June 30
Page 3

MESSENGER DINNER: SIMON SAYS . . .

Addressing a sold-out crowd of about 500 Annual Conference attendees at Sunday's Messenger dinner, former US Sen. Paul Simon urged people to follow the instructions of the prophet Micah: Act justly. Show mercy. Walk humbly with your God.

"Our insensitivity to the rest of the world comes off as arrogance," he said. "Somehow we have to respond more."

And despite his 22 years of experience in the legislature of one of the largest countries of the world, Simon urged people to remember that small things really change the world.

"We have to reach out. We have to listen to one another," he said. "We have a responsibility to people who have never in their lives had a meal like we just had."

Following the theme of practical peacemaking, Simon spoke of issues from the past, those facing our world now, and those just appearing on the horizon.

After a series of race riots in Springfield, Ill., he said, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People came into being. In South Africa, the African National Congress used the NAACP's constitution as a basis when writing theirs. Mahatma Gandhi joined the ANC, went to India, and led a nonviolent, successful movement for independence.

Martin Luther King Jr. heard about Gandhi's success and, in turn, led a nonviolent movement to change the status quo on race in the United States. And back in South Africa, Nelson Mandela followed in King's footsteps to bring full-circle to the chain of events.

Small things really do change the world.

In Rwanda, as the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people started to take shape, a Canadian commander told US officials an additional 5,000 to 8,000 troops could stop the massacre. Though Simon and Sen. Jim Jeffords (Ind., N.H.) asked for help, the White House administration refused because there was no public-opinion support for such action.

The violence spilled over into Burundi and the former Zaire, with between 800,000 and 1 million people killed in Rwanda alone.

"We all live our faith inadequately," he said. "But we are best known by our actions. Too often we are not responding to the physical needs of people. The message of the Bible - is feed my sheep. It didn't say, 'Count my sheep.' "

The son of a minister and a devout Lutheran, Simon, 73, said the greatest sermons his father ever preached were not from the pulpit, but by what he did.

Former US Sen. Paul Simon

To look at Simon's accomplishments is also to witness his passion.

At 19, he became the youngest editor/publisher in the country, working at a newspaper in Illinois. His investigative reporting skills led to his being called as a key witness to the US Senate at 22. Simon was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1954, the state senate in 1962, and became lieutenant governor of Illinois in 1968. He went on to serve five terms in the US House of Representatives and two terms in the US Senate before retiring and founding the Public Policy Institute at the Southern Illinois University.

He was written 19 books and served as the co-chairman of a recent committee appointed by the governor of Illinois to study the application of the death penalty in the state.

His concerns for the present and the future include a rapidly expanding world population, expected to hit 11 billion people in the next century. With a static water supply, and 300 million people already living in areas with inadequate water supplies, he foresees an explosive situation.

"Fourteen thousand people a day die because of poor quality water," he said. "Nine thousand, five hundred of those are children.

"We were stunned at what happened at Columbine High School, as we should be, but 630 times that many children are dying unnecessarily today, June 30, 2002, and we hardly pay attention to it."

Children are at risk in a variety of ways around the world. In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, 17 percent of children die before age 5. The region has just 10 percent of the world's population, but is home to 90 percent of the world's AIDS orphans. In Liberia, the African country settled by former U.S. slaves, the capital Monrovia has no electricity and no water system. Around the world, more than 500,000 people die each year as a result of the illegal sale of small arms.

"Somehow, things aren't what they ought to be," said Simon. "Like the biblical story of the Good Samaritan, we can't be walking by on the other side. Forty-three million Americans don't have health insurance. That ought to be on our conscience."

And though he spent an hour pointing out the problems and shortcomings plaguing this world, Simon had one simple, short phrase with which to leave the Brethren.

"I want you to change history. Positively."