My first blog photo

I've never posted a photo on my blog, and I thought it was time for me to give it a try.

I attended a conference in the local area this week -- it was about how the church should stand up against torture.

In the photo, you see several symbols.

These are symbols Rick Ufford-Chase brought to the conference, No2Torture. One is a basket -- for our love offering to reimburse two churches in the area that provided us with food and lodging for our conference.

There is a cup -- something Rick picked up from his trip to the Congo -- where people have suffered from oppression and violence. The brown covered Bible is Ricks, which he uses when he travels. The cross comes from Costa Rica, where the people know a lot about torture and violence. The ornament is Mary and the Christ Child, and comes from Bethlehem -- Christ was tortured before his death. The Bible at the bottom of the photo was brought to the conference by a chaplain, who served to remind us that while we are meeting to discuss our nation's policies on torture, we also need to be supportive of our military members. All of these were placed on a Prayer Shawl. Rick said he had been unaware of how people knitted these as a prayer discipline, until recently when someone gave him one to give to the victims of Katrina. After that, he began to receive many such shawls.