Page 12A
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Saturday, December 23, 2017
HOPE: Bahá’í Faith believes the world is progressing toward unity
Continued from 1A
action.
This world is the only
one we have, she said, so
we have the responsibility
to make it as good as
possible.
“As someone who
doesn’t believe in an
afterlife, I think it helps
you to understand the
importance of being a good
person while you’re here,”
Beers said.
She said people might
hope for something to
benefit the homeless, for
example, but hope alone
doesn’t build a warming
shelter. Beers emphasized
we must take action and not
just hope for the better.
She also said there is
plenty to be hopeful for or
joyful about in our back
yard. Hat Rock State Park
near Hermiston or Harris
Park near Milton-Freewater
are nearby and let us get
out into fresh air. And
the community offers an
exciting arts scene, from
symphonies to writers.
And, she said, we live
in a place where neighbors
care about each other.
Beers also suggested
people on a winter break
from work or school might
take some time to help
others; just cleaning out
that closest can yield crucial
“As someone who doesn’t believe in
an afterlife, I think it helps you to
understand the importance of being
a good person while you’re here.”
— Shaindel Beers
donations for those in need.
———
Buddhism does not rely
on hope, and practitioner
Engum said he doesn’t hold
expectations for how most
things will turn out.
“It’s not about trying to
get something changed in
the future,” Engum said.
“It’s about being in the
present here and now, so I
can deal with what’s in front
of me.”
Engum still has hopes, he
said, and he can look for the
best that can happen and try
for the best that can happen,
but he emphasized he has
no special right to prescribe
the outcome. Getting
wrapped up in that kind of
thinking takes away from
living in the now and can
carry consequences, such as
depression, when hoped-for
outcomes don’t pan out.
“You take what comes
and deal the best you can
with it,” he said. “What I
hope for everybody, really,
whatever they are going
through, they are present
and able to be there and
deal with it instead of being
wrapped up in fear and
anxiety.”
Even so, he said, he
sees so much empathy and
caring in the community,
and plenty of reasons every
day to be hopeful.
“Just about the time you
think a situation is really
dismal and desperate,
that somehow there is an
abundance of kindness that
arises,” he said. “And it
comes from every corner.”
“And that,” he said, “I
find hopeful.”
———
Bill Young, a 1971
Pendleton High School
graduate, has hope.
The Bahá’í Faith he
has lived in his whole
life believes the world is
progressing toward unity.
“So by definition, we’re
a pretty hopeful group,” he
said.
He said there is
evidence that progression
is occurring. Worldwide
deaths from war and conflict
have been trending down
since World War II. But
like the others, Young said
hope alone will not make
the world better. That takes
individual action.
Young said Bahá’u’lláh,
the founder of the faith,
taught “Deeds, not words.”
Young also said in spite
of our nation’s political
divide, he finds “signs of
hope everywhere for the
United States.” We are
having national conversa-
tions about health care and
the price of college tuition,
he said. And while those are
political, they also are issues
of social justice.
The road to a better
future has bumps and ruts,
he said, and it’s how we
navigate those obstacles that
determines the future.
Young said he sees
lessons in the old Greek
myth of Pandora, who
opened a clay jar and
allowed death, disease and
other evils to escape into
the world. She closed the
lid before the last element
could escape — hope.
Young said with all the
ills in the world, we have
to find a way to deal with
them.
“That’s why hope is still
there,” he said. “Hope is
your tool.”
———
Contact Phil Wright at
pwright@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0833.
CHRISTMAS: More than half of the world’s refugees are children
Continued from 1A
mattered.
We were together. We
were home. It was enough.
My heart aches for
those who aren’t so lucky.
The UN Refugee Agency
estimated there were 65.6
million people worldwide
that had been forcibly
displaced from their homes
by the end of 2016, and
that number has only
grown higher since. It’s
an unprecedented amount,
surpassing the number of
people displaced by World
War II.
More than half of
the world’s refugees are
children. Many have no
idea whether their parents
or siblings are alive. Some
watched family members
slaughtered in front of
them, or fled as militants set
their village on fire. Others
are healing from injuries
caused by bombs falling on
their homes. Some escaped
from being conscripted into
service as a child soldier
or a suicide bomber or a
member of a brutal gang
and live in fear they will be
re-discovered and killed.
Closer to home, there
are people in our own
communities who don’t
have a “home” to go to for
Christmas Day. As we rush
about fretting that Christmas
will be “ruined” because the
pie got burned or a package
was stolen off our porch,
these people are sleeping in
cars and tents and warming
stations and milling about
Walmart to keep warm.
Others have a roof over
their heads but may struggle
from a crushing sense of
loneliness as they spend
the holiday alone due to
estrangement or the death of
loved ones.
It is easy to remember all
of those people in the days
leading up to Christmas,
when everywhere we look
there are giving trees and
red kettles and food drives
and churches collecting for
Operation Christmas Child.
But what happens when
Christmas is over? Do we
remember the homeless and
the lonely and the refugees
in January? In February?
I may not have a
“perfect” Christmas this
year — I’ve got a cold,
I’ll miss my adorable little
nephew who won’t be
there this year, and snow
might delay my hour
and a half drive home.
But I am humbled and
grateful knowing that those
complaints are nothing in
comparison to the Christmas
so many millions of people
around the world are
experiencing. Thinking
about that makes it easy
to think ahead to the next
holiday, and make a New
Year’s resolution that in the
year to come I won’t need a
holiday as an excuse to help
those who are suffering.
■
Jade McDowell is a
Hermiston-based reporter
for the East Oregonian.
EO file Photo
Union Pacific work crews replace railroad ties along
a spur running parallel to Umatilla River Road on
May 3, 2015, north of Hermiston. An Oregon law
that requires drivers to stop for trains will expand to
include all on-track equipment in 2018.
LAWS: Definition of vehicular
assault has been expanded
Continued from 1A
in their voter registration
cards starting at age 16
so that they are already
registered by the time they
become old enough to vote.
• If you’re getting
married next year but aren’t
the religious type, you will
be able to skip the ordained
minister and be married by
a secular organization “that
occupies a place in the
lives of the organization’s
members parallel to that
filled by a church or partic-
ular religious authority.”
• The wait time to get
a vasectomy should go
down in Oregon once nurse
practitioners can begin
performing the procedure.
• Fewer crashes will
be required to be reported
to the Department of
Motor Vehicles, after
the minimum monetary
damage requiring a report
is raised from $1,500 to
$2,500. Drivers are still
required to report to the
DMV within 72 hours
if damage caused by the
crash is more than $2,500,
a vehicle is towed from the
scene or the crash caused
injuries.
•
Manufacturing
employers will have to get
advance written consent
from most employees
before they work more than
55 hours in a week. Manu-
facturers will also be barred
from having employees
more than 60 hours a week,
unless they get temporary
exemption due to seasonal
work with perishable foods.
Manufacturing employers
will also have to calculate
each employee’s overtime
by the week (for more than
40 hours) and by the day
(more than 10 hours) and
then pay whichever sum is
greater.
• The definition of
vehicular assault has been
expanded from striking
pedestrians and bicyclists to
include striking motorcycle
riders or their motorcycles.
• Charitable or fraternal
organizations authorized
to operate bingo or lotto
games can now pay out
prizes up to $5,000 for a
single game, up from the
previous maximum of
$2,500.
• Children under the age
of 18 will no longer be able
to purchase nitrous oxide
canisters often known
as “Whip-its,” which
are intended to be used
for baking purposes but
can also be abused as an
inhalant drug.
• Laws that previously
required drivers to stop for
trains have been expanded
to include all on-track
equipment.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.
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1.9
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excludes TRD Pro
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They are integral members of our community and sel-
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For more details call 1-888-21-TOYOTA.
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Mon-Fri 8:30a - 7:00p
Sat 8:30a - 7:00p • Sun 10:00a - 5:00p