There are many causes -- local, national and global -- that compete for our attention. The genocidal horrors taking place in Darfur seem remote and abstract and painful to comprehend. But there is a very good reason for us to devote attention to the problems in Darfur: paying attention to the suffering is the only way to make it go away.

One essential -- and missing -- ingredient in the global struggle against genocide is political will. Nicolas Kristoff of the New York Times recently wrote:

Before he died, Senator Paul Simon said that if only 100 people in each Congressional district had demanded a stop to the Rwandan genocide, that effort would have generated a determination to stop it. But Americans didn't write such letters to their members of Congress then, and they're not writing them now.Finding the right policy tools to confront genocide is an excruciating challenge, but it's not the biggest problem. The hardest thing to find is the political will.

Links to the Kristoff editorial and a discussion of issues can be found at http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/29/105830/84 ) A more personal and very compelling account of life in the region can be found at http://www.rhaarsager.blogspot.com, a weblog created by Dennis Haarsager and his younger brother Rob.

A small subcomittee of the Social Action Committee is working on a plan to find some political will. In the Spring, we hope to screen a movie about the situation in Darfur (http://www.darfurfilm.org/index.html ) and possibly bring in speakers to help raise awareness on the issue. We would like to find people from other churches and groups, and students from the universities to help us in the effort.

Our group will meet again January 12 at 5:30 at One World Cafe. In the meantime, we want to enlist others to join us. If you would like to become involved, please contact social action.