Weekly Meditations with Eric Johnson

From Episcopal Peace Fellowship (www.epfnational.org)

Liturgical Resources
Weekly Meditations with Eric Johnson
By
Mar 27, 2008, 13:45

Next Sunday's gospel gives us three quick stories of Jesus taking on an outcast as a disciple and coming in physical contact with two untouchable women. Jesus' willingness to touch the untouchable is reflected in today's efforts by Nelsa Curbelo, a 66-year-old former nun and schoolteacher, who took on the toughest young gang members in Ecuador's most violent city.

Instead of establishing programs, she spent almost two years listening to the young people she later served. She learned that there are positive aspects of gang life, such as teamwork, commitment and a sense of belonging. Using these traits to their best advantage, she helped young people acquire loans to start small businesses, with the added requirement that they renounce crime and include rivals from other gangs in their shops. It's an effective strategy; at one point crime in the neighborhood included 100 murders a month; now that number is down to 10. "Love," says Nelsa Curbelo, "is more powerful than violence. Love has the power to transform lives, to change cities and the whole world." [For more on this see the July 2008 edition of Ode magazine.]