The Save Darfur Coalition is asking for our help. Please take action and sign the petition to President Bush and the UN Secretary General. If the link below does not take you to the petition, please go to www.savedarfur.org. While you're there, be sure to sign up for their e-mail updates!

Click here now to sign the petition to President Bush and the UN Secretary-General.

This banner presently sits in front of Congregation Beth Shalom in Oak Park. Gail Katz, a congregant there who is also a dedicated activist for many causes, ordered it from the Save Darfur Coalition (www.SaveDarfur.org). Simple activism. She took the ball and ran with it. Now everyone who drives down Lincoln Road is reminded about the plight in Darfur.

Since this crisis is not going away, the Coalition must facilitate the drumbeat of awareness. We need more individuals like Gail who see opportunities for educating people and appealing to their conscience. We would love more organizations and influential community members to join the Coalition. Gail asked me to post the following meditation on overcoming indifference ...

"Overcoming Indifference" by Naomi Levy.

Let us pray as if everything depends on God, but let's act as if everything depends on us.

I watch the news, God. I observe it all from a comfortable distance. I see people suffering, and I don't lift a finger to help them. I condemn injustice, but I do nothing to fight against it. I am pained by the faces of starving children, but I am not moved enough to try to save them. I step over homeless people in the street, I walk past outstretched hands, I avert my eyes, I close my heart.

Forgive me, God, for remaining aloof while others are in need of my assistance.

Wake me up, God; ignite my passion, fill me with outrage. Remind me that I am responsible for Your world. Don't allow me to stand idly by. Inspire me to act. Teach me to believe that I can repair some corner of this world.

When I despair, fill me with hope. When I doubt my strength, fill me with faith. When I am weary, renew my spirit. When I lose direction, show me the way back to meaning, back to compassion, back to You. Amen.

I've invited more contributors to the blog, so it remains current and a team effort. The Coalition leadership has met twice in the past month and is pursuing the following priorities: preparing postcards directed at the newly seated Congress, seeking time for presentations at meetings/services/clergy groups around Detroit (e.g. describing the crisis, showing a PowerPoint, instructing people on how to take action, etc.), holding fundraising/awareness-raising events, and expanding the Coalition to include a wider range of interfaith participation.

Most importantly, the last two meetings confirmed that Darfur remains a collective priority -- the Coalition remains committed to its mission. Coalition activists also resolved to keep this blog filled with current information on local efforts and links to information. We need more people visiting here by including the link in our organization websites and newsletters, and making sure that it's worth visiting by adding relevant, succinct posts.

For those of you who don't know, the Detroit2Darfur Coalition was convened in the winter of 2006. We coordinated a sequence of events: a presentation by Matthew Emry of the American Jewish World Service, a battle-of-the-bands fundraiser by students at the Frankel Jewish Academy, a news conference at the Holocaust Memorial Center, participation in the Million Voices for Darfur postcard campaign, inclusion of Darfur in the Soul Seder, the launch of this blog, a delegation of two busses at the Rally Against Genocide in Washington D.C., and several lobbying delegations.

The next Detroit2Darfur Coalition meeting will be on Wednesday, January 10th at 2:00 pm, at the Max M. Fisher Building in Bloomfield Hills. Please contact me if you would like to attend: cherrin@jfmd.org.