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June
8, 2003
You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and
take your rest in safety. You will lie down, with no one to make you
afraid, and many will court your favour. Job 11:18, 19
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Dear Sister!
Angel Co-op will be changing the
way it looks and operates, very soon, to make all the women who
contribute and read it safer from the possibility of
unpleasant Internet experiences. Does that sound like a strange and
paranoid statement? Well, as many of you know, I work with women who
have experienced abuse, and this past Friday we attended our annual
retreat workshop. The topic was "Women and Cyber-violence". A police
officer who works in the area of crimes involving technology, and a
computer expert from the University, brought us up to snuff about the
real dangers, anywhere on this globe, with divulging personal
information on the Web. In our pleasant, smallish city there are cases
of computer fraud, harrassment, and worse. The women who presented in
the afternoon talked about the very real dangers to women where
Cyber-violence is concerned (90% of victims are female).
Because there are people out there
who apparently have no greater desire than to harrass and hack (and even
to stalk, rape and murder), Angel Co-op will take the following
protective measures:
- all
identifying information from now on in will be altered or eliminated
from the site: email addresses, photographs, information about where
people live, their ages, etc. I'm hoping that this does not make the
site less interesting, but for the purposes of safety, I really do
believe this needs to happen. No one's email address will be passed
along to anyone else.
- The Photo Gallery
page will be dissembled. This hurts my heart to do, but apparently some
of the grosser porn violations involve an individual's cutting and
pasting ordinary people's heads on porn star's bodies, and then flying
them on porn sites. Can you imagine? Also, sometimes pictures of
precious children are also used on porn sites. Even though there is a
small chance of this happening, the opportunity does exist.
- We will provide a link to
resources like CyberAngels, advertised as the "World's
Oldest and Largest Internet Safety Organization" so that you can educate
yourself on the risks of the Internet and methods of "harm
reduction". Visit CyberAngels site at
http://www.cyberangels.org/
- We hope to have a page of our
own dedicated to Internet safety for women
For interest's sake, here are some
of the characteristics of two types of stalker:
|
Psychopathic Personality
Stalker |
Psychotic Personality Stalker |
|
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Generally male |
May be male or female |
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Absence of mental disorder |
Delusions or delusional fixation |
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Targets familiar victims |
Usually targets strangers |
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Harassment may be anonymous |
Attempt to contact the victim |
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Usually some precipitating stressor |
Absence of precipitating stressor |
This is a somewhat general
and broad classification system on which to examine stalking. The latter
category usually implies the presence of some mental disorder, and the
individual may not or may not be aware of his actions. (taken from an
article by Wayne Peterick on the Crime Library site at
http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminology/cyberstalking/)
On a much happier note, we are
very pleased to be offering a page called "Pat's Ponderings"
where spiritual and theological questions will be answered. Pat
(of the "Ponderings") is an old pal of mine. She studied the Bible with
me when I was preparing to be baptized. I know her to be thoughtful,
responsive to the Lord's working in her life, and wise. Please feel free
to direct any questions of a spiritual or doctrinal nature to Pat. Your
question and her answer will be published on the page that we create.
The first question is:
What does God's grace mean?
According to my dictionary (The
New Grolier, 1973) the word 'grace' has a particular meaning in theology,
i.e.: "The unmerited love a favor of God; divine unmerited love and favor
of God; divine influence renewing and morally strengthening man; a state
of reconciliation with God."
This seems straight-forward enough and something about which we could all
agree. And yet, within Christian circles there is much talk about the
grace of God. What does it do? How is it obtained? Is the grace of God
poured out on us all without regard to our faith?
The ultimate illustration of God's grace was at the cross when Jesus gave
up
life for us. He paid the penalty for our sin and gave us access to
eternal life. By this act of inexpressible sacrifice, all of heaven was
poured out on our behalf. This grace is for us all. There is no shortage.
We can do nothing to earn this grace. For some of us, this is very
difficult. We realize that the price of heaven has been paid and we know
the we unable to repay this most costly price, the life of the Son of God.
Still, we so want to do "our part".
Grace is an attribute of God exercised toward undeserving human beings. We
did not seek for it, but it was sent in search of us. "For the grace of
God that brings salvation has appeared to all men." Titus 2:11
But let's not stop there. While the grace of God is our only title to
heaven-- indeed is our only title to the next breath we breathe on this
earth-- this grace goes even beyond this amazing love and prepares us for
heaven. Think a minute about the sin in your life. Does it bring joy to
you and to those around you? Would you like to carry this sin problem with
you into heaven? It is the grace of God that leads us to repentance and
that same grace gives us the power to so hate sin with such a passion that
we would rather die than to hurt Our Lord. The grace of God brings about a
transformation in our lives. It is never given as a substitute for human
effort and yet without the grace of God human effort is without value.
The study of the grace of God is not to be taken lightly. We need to drink
deeply from God's well of understanding. No matter how much we learn of
God's Grace on this earth it will still be but a taste of what we have to
learn throughout eternity.
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