There is a grassroots campaign begun by a local peace center with a secular focus. I am hoping that people of faith will want to participate, and I am suggesting that such people write a faith-based message instead of a secular message on their note to the President.

 Place * cup of uncooked rice in a small plastic bag (a sandwich bag works fine). Squeeze out excess air and seal the bag. Wrap it in a piece of paper on which you have written:

 "IF YOUR ENEMIES ARE HUNGRY, FEED THEM. ROMANS
 12:20.

 PLEASE SEND THIS RICE TO THE PEOPLE OF IRAQ. DO NOT ATTACK THEM."

 Place the paper and bag of rice in an envelope (a letter-sized envelope or small padded mailer both cost the same to mail) and address them to:

 President George Bush
 White House
 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
 Washington, DC 20500

 Attach $1.06 in postage. (Three 37 cent stamps = $1.11) Mail it today. It is important to act now. In order for this protest to be effective, there must be hundreds of thousands of such rice deliveries to the White House. We can do this if we all forward this message to our friends and family. If every Mennonite and every Church of the Brethren household sent one of these, and the tens of thousands of persons from outside these churches who think war is a mistake also sent them, that would be hundreds of thousands of people!

 THE HISTORY BEHIND THIS IDEA

 There is a positive history of this protest. Read on:

 In the mid-1950s, the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation, learning of famine in the Chinese mainland, launched a "Feed Thine Enemy" campaign. Members and friends mailed thousands of little bags of rice to the White House with a tag quoting the Bible, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him." As far as anyone knew for more than ten years, the campaign was an abject failure. The President did not acknowledge receipt of the bags publicly. Certainly no rice was ever sent to China.

What nonviolent activists only learned a decade later was that the campaign played a significant, perhaps even determining role in preventing nuclear war. Twice while the campaign was on, President Eisenhower met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to consider U.S. options in the conflict with China over two islands, Quemoy and Matsu. The generals twice recommended the use of nuclear weapons. President Eisenhower each time turned to his aide and asked how  many little bags of rice had come in.

 When told they numbered in the tens of thousands, Eisenhower told the
 generals that as long as so many Americans were expressing active interest in
having the U.S. feed the Chinese, he certainly wasn't going to consider using
 nuclear weapons against them. (From "People Power: Applying Nonviolence Theory" by

 David H. Albert, p. 43, New Society, 19.)

 Thank you all for being people of hope, people of faith.



 Susan Ortman Goering