Nonviolence Training
Episcopal Heroes & Heroines of Nonvolence
By
Feb 27, 2007, 12:36

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

 

Desmond Tutu was born in Klerksdorp, in the South African state of Transvaal. The family moved to Johannesburg when he was 12, and he attended Johannesburg Bantu High School. Although he had planned to become a physician, his parents could not afford to send him to medical school. Tutu's father was a teacher, he himself trained as a teacher at Pretoria Bantu Normal College, and graduated from the University of South Africa in 1954.
 
The government of South Africa did not extend the rights of citizenship to black South Africans. The National Party had risen to power on the promise of instituting a system of apartheid -- complete separation of the races. All South Africans were legally assigned to an official racial group; each races was restricted to separate living areas and separate public facilities. Only white South Africans were permitted to vote in national elections. Black South Africans were only represented in the local governments of remote "tribal homelands." Interracial marriage was forbidden, blacks were legally barred from certain jobs and prohibited from forming labor unions. Passports were required for travel within the country; critics of the system could be banned from speaking in public and subjected to house arrest.

When the government ordained a deliberately inferior system of education for black students, Desmond Tutu refused to cooperate. He could no longer work as a teacher, but he was determined to do something to improve the life of his disenfranchised people. On the advice of his bishop, he began to study for the Anglican priesthood. Tutu was ordained as a priest in the Anglican church in 1960. At the same time, the South African government began a program of forced relocation of black Africans and Asians from newly designated "white" areas. Millions were deported to the "homelands," and only permitted to return as "guest workers."
 
Desmond Tutu lived in England from 1962 to 1966, where he earned a master's degree in theology. He taught theology in South Africa for the next five years, and returned to England to serve as an assistant director of the World Council of Churches in London. In 1975 he became the first black African to serve as Dean of St. Mary's Cathedral in Johannesburg. From 1976 to 1978 he was Bishop of Lesotho. In 1978 he became the first black General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches.

This position gave Bishop Tutu a national platform to denounce the apartheid system as "evil and unchristian." Tutu called for equal rights for all South Africans and a system of common education. He demanded the repeal of the oppressive passport laws, and an end to forced relocation. Tutu encouraged nonviolent resistance to the apartheid regime, and advocated an economic boycott of the country. The government revoked his passport to prevent him from traveling and speaking abroad, but his case soon drew the attention of the world. In the face of an international public outcry the government was forced to restore his passport.

In 1984, Desmond Tutu was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, "not only as a gesture of support to him and to the South African Council of Churches of which he is leader, but also to all individuals and groups in South Africa who, with their concern for human dignity, fraternity and democracy, incite the admiration of the world."
 
Two years later, Desmond Tutu was elected Archbishop of Cape Town. He was the first black African to serve in this position, which placed him at the head of the Anglican Church in South Africa, as the Archbishop of Canterbury is spiritual leader of the Church of England. International economic pressure and internal dissent forced the South African government to reform. In 1990, Nelson Mandela of the African National Congress was released after almost 27 years in prison. The following year the government began the repeal of racially discriminatory laws.

After the country's first multi-racial elections in 1994, President Mandela appointed Archbishop Tutu to chair the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, investigating the human rights violations of the previous 34 years. As always, the Archbishop counseled forgiveness and cooperation, rather than revenge for past injustice. In 1996 he retired as Archbishop of Cape Town and was named Archbishop Emeritus. Today he is a Professor of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Published collections of his speeches, sermons and other writings include Crying in the Wilderness, Hope and Suffering, and The Rainbow People of God.

Further Reading:
Archbishop Tutu is the author of six collections of sermons and writings:

➢    Crying in the Wilderness (1982)
➢    Hope and Suffering: Sermons and Speeches (1983)
➢    The Words of Desmond Tutu (1989)
➢    The Rainbow People of God (1994)
➢    The Essential Desmond Tutu (1997)
➢    No Future without Forgiveness (1999)
➢    God Has a Dream: A vision for hope in our time. (2004)

➢    Desmond Tutu: A Biography by Steven D Gish

Recommended Links:
➢     The Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation http://www.tutufoundation-usa.org/home.html
➢     Nobel Peace Prize http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1984/tutu-bio.html
➢     Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu

 

Bishop Paul Jones
 
The Christian Witness of Bishop Paul Jones by Michelle J. Kinnucan
09/04/2002
 
As the drumbeats of war intensify in prelude to a possible US attack on Iraq, we would do well to reflect upon the life of Paul Jones. As early as 1915--the year of the German terrorist atrocity of the sinking of the Lusitania--Jones, the Episcopal Bishop of Utah, preached against war. His faithful witness to the nonviolent teachings and example of Jesus came as the carnage of World War I escalated and during one of the worst periods of political repression in US history. The Constitution was savaged, thousands of immigrants were rounded up and deported, and scores of American citizens were imprisoned or worse for speaking against the war.

While he was still Bishop of Utah, Jones wrote a pamphlet explaining his views. It says, in part:

“After thus studying again [Jesus'] life and teaching, I find it quite impossible to believe that people can be true to the things which He taught and the example which He gave and at the same time take part in war; for war is the organized destruction of our enemies and it is always accompanied by hatred and bitterness, thus necessitating an attitude of mind and course of conduct the opposite of that enjoined by Christ. . . . “

“It is unthinkable that [Saints Paul, James, Peter, or John] would have taken any part in a war or in preparation for one. And I need only to refer to the example of the Christians of the early centuries who preferred to die rather than go into the army and cause someone else's death, to show that they all interpreted our Lord's teaching in the same way. . . . “

“The day will come when, like slavery which was once held in good repute, war will be looked upon as thoroughly un-Christian. At present it is recognized as an evil which nobody honestly wants, but not yet has it received its final sentence at the bar of Christian morality. Only when Christian men and women and churches will be brave enough to stand openly for the full truth that their consciences are beginning to recognize, will the terrible anachronism of war . . . be done away.”

World War I was a particularly ghastly affair that highlighted the evil, futile, wasteful nature of modern war--millions died. WWI ushered in the first large-scale use of machine guns, tanks, and chemical weapons. Diplomats and politicians proclaimed it the "war to end all wars" but many modern observers agree that it actually resulted in the even greater horrors of the Third Reich and World War II.
 
For his principled Christian opposition to war, in general, and World War I, in particular, Jones was pressured into resigning in 1918 as the Bishop of Utah. A special committee of the national House of Bishops of the Episcopal church reported that:

“The underlying contention of the Bishop of Utah seems to be that war is unchristian. With this general statement the Commission cannot agree. This Church in the United States is practically a unit in holding that it is not an unchristian thing. In the face of this unanimity, it is neither right or wise for a trusted bishop to declare and maintain that it is an unchristian thing  . . . . The Bishop of Utah ought to resign his office.”

However, eighty years later in 1998, in a vindication of his stance and ministry for peace and against war, Paul Jones' name was added to the Calendar of Saints of the Episcopal Church for commemoration on September 4. The Episcopal Peace Fellowship (EPF) has written the following prayer in Bishop Jones' honor:

“Loving God, Creator and Sustainer of humanity, to whom each person is sacred and for whom all wars are unchristian: Raise up in this and every land and time courageous women and men who, like your servant Paul Jones, will stand firm in proclaiming the gospel of peace when the multitude is clamoring for war, and who will dare to call your church to fulfill her reconciling vocation. This we ask in the name of the One who calls us to peace and reconciliation, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, on God, now and for ever. Amen.”

It is too late for the dead of September 11th and in Afghanistan. It is not too late for the imperiled people of Iraq and the American service members who will be sent to kill them. Bishop Jones preached not only a disapproval of war but also an active resistance to war and preparation for it. As I write this September 4th and 11th are approaching and I wonder, in the days to come, how many "Christian men and women and churches will be brave enough to stand openly for the full truth" that war is "thoroughly un-Christian?"



Bishop Paul Jones: The Cost of Questioning Church and Country
By Joseph Wakelee-Lynch
 Originally published in The Witness magazine, March 2002
 Friday, March 1, 2002
 
In April 1918, a month after the U.S. entered World War I -- the war to end all wars -- a prominent Episcopal voice against war was silenced. Bishop Paul Jones, serving the then-Missionary District of Utah, was forced to resign his post.

Religious support for the war was strong even before the U.S. entered the conflict. In 1916, the Episcopal House of Bishops lauded those who promoted peace, but the bishops made it clear that Christians should be ready to serve the state in time of crisis:

"[America] must expect of every one of her citizens some true form of national service, rendered according to the capacity of each. No one can commute or delegate it; no one can be absolved from it. National preparedness is a clear duty."

In 1914, when Jones was selected by the House of Bishops to lead the Utah district, he was already a prominent advocate for peace. He believed war couldn't be reconciled with Jesus' teaching. He advocated an aggressive Christian response to conflict and acknowledged that Germany was in the wrong.

"I believe most sincerely that German brutality and aggression must be stopped," Jones said before the House of Bishops in 1917, "and I am willing, if need be, to give my life and what I possess, to bring that about. . .

"I have been led to feel that war is entirely incompatible with the Christian profession. . . Moreover, because Germany has ignored her solemn obligations, Christians are not justified in treating the sermon on the mount as a scrap of paper."

In 1917, vestry members at Utah's two largest and most prosperous parishes, joined by the District Council of Advice, organized a campaign against the bishop. They charged that Jones shouldn't speak as an Episcopal leader but as an individual, particularly because his flock disagreed with him, and that his views had harmed the church's work in Utah.

Jones refuted the charges and research by Douglas G. Warren shows that Jones enjoyed significant clergy and lay support in his district. Many Episcopalians supported the war, but they believed Jones had the right to speak as bishop and that he had not harmed the church's work. Yet, after a convoluted process of examination, the bishops finally asked for his resignation.

In April 1918, Jones complied. In his letter of resignation, Jones argued that the House of Bishops by its action was stating that war is not an unchristian thing and no bishop may preach against it if the government and the church have accepted it.

"These conclusions I cannot accept;" he wrote, "for I believe that the methods of modern international war are quite incompatible with the Christian principles of reconciliation and brotherhood, and that it is the duty of a Bishop of the Church, from his study of the word of God, to express himself on questions of righteousness, no matter what opinion may stand in the way."

Jones, who died in 1941, never again served as bishop. But his work for peace continued. He was a founder of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and its secretary for 10 years. He helped found the Episcopal Pacifist Fellowship, now the Episcopal Peace Fellowship. During World War II, he helped resettle Jews and others who fled Nazi Germany, and he argued for greater understanding in relations with Japan.

Jones' legacy today may be more important than before, says David Selzer, EPF chairperson.

"In a time of particularly high patriotism, Bishop Jones was loyal to the sense of seeing the Gospel as the Gospel of peace rather than the Gospel of vengeance."

Further Reading:
     Bishop Paul Jones: Witness for Peace    John Howard Melish (Forward Movement Publications, 1992).
     EPF’s Pamphlet “Bishop Paul Jones.”

Useful Links:
     http://thewitness.org/article.php?id=646
     http://satucket.com/lectionary/Paul_Jones.htm
     http://www.episcopal-ut.org/DialogueMain/DialogueArticle/september2002/paul.htm
 


DR. MARGARET MORGAN LAWRENCE,
AFRICAN AMERICAN PHYSICIAN AND CHILD PSYCHIATRIST
 
Dr. Margaret Morgan Lawrence was named the John Nevin Sayre Award recipient for 2003 by the Episcopal Peace Fellowship.  The Sayre Award is presented every three years to an Episcopalian who has demonstrated a faithful commitment to peacemaking within and beyond the Episcopal Church.

Dr. Lawrence and her late husband Charles were avowed pacifists in WWII and joined EPF in 1943.  Due in large part to their leadership, St. Paul’s, Rockland County, NY, became known as “The Peace Parish” in the region and attracted others of similar conviction.  After Charles died in 1986, Margaret formed an EPF chapter that met in her home once a month, and she made visitations to parishes, encouraging others to join EPF.  In 1988 she was the oldest pilgrim to walk 85 miles from London to Canterbury with a pack on her back to help bring EPF peace concerns to the Bishops at Lambeth Conference. She served two terms on the EPF National Executive Council and also served on the Council of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.  Margaret remains an uncompromising and articulate voice against racism, militarism and other forms of violence.

Margaret’s struggles and accomplishments are lovingly described by her own daughter in Balm in Gilead: Journey of a Healer.  Following medical training, she taught Pediatrics and Public Health at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, co-founded a Community Center for Mental Health and was director of its school unit and child development center, served as Chief of Developmental Psychiatry Service at Harlem Hospital Center, and became Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.  She published two books and contributed numerous article and book chapters on mental health. She is a member of national and regional psychoanalytic and medical associations and has served on boards of programs for children and families.  Her distinguished service and achievements are acknowledged by the numerous awards and honorary doctoral degrees she has received.

The Sayre Award is named for the Rev. John Nevin Sayre, a founding member of the U. S. branch of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), who was instrumental in founding EPF in 1939.  More than anyone else Sayre provided EPF with guidance for its own first twenty-five years.  In the words of the Rev. Thomas Lee Hayes (1991 award recipient), “the strongest memory for EPF is Nevin’s gift of walking by faith, not by sight….”  Dr. Lawrence has been lead by her faith and then her talents and commitments throughout her life and is an exemplar of this gift.

Dr. Lawrence will receive the award during the 74th General Convention at the EPF/Witness Reception on Saturday, August 2nd, at 4:00pm.  (Tickets are available from EPF). The event will be held at Gethsemane Episcopal Church, Minneapolis, Rector, The Rev. Sandye A. Wilson.

Previous Recipients of the Sayre Award are:

1979- The Rt. Rev. Daniel Corrigan
1982- The Rev. Charles Radford Lawrence
1985- Dr. Rosa Cisneros (posthumously)
1988- Mrs. Catherine Wakefield Ward; Dr. Paul L. Ward; The Rt. Rev. Coleman McGehee
1991- The Rev. Thomas Lee Hayes
1994- The Rev. Dr. John Maurice Gessell
1997- The Rev. Canon Brian J. Grieves
2000- The Rev. Seiichi Michael Yasutake

Margaret Morgan Lawrence, M.D.

 “We belong together,” says Margaret Lawrence to parishioners of St. Paul’s, a vibrant, predominantly black congregation.  They are reconsidering a painful shared ministry with three, weak white parishes.  Margaret is not afraid to live in uncomfortable or hostile territory, and she has long held to walking the road together.   

 The words are a theme in Margaret’s pioneering journey to becoming a distinguished child psychiatrist. As a young, religious, black woman, she entered a medical field dominated by white men with no use for her or for spirituality. It must have taken courage, independence, and ego strength to withstand the assaults of blatant and cruel discrimination she suffered not only where she grew up in Mississippi, but also in New York’s universities, medical schools and hospitals. She remained focused and independent. Refused pediatric residency at Columbia’s Babies Hospital because she was black, she worked at Harlem Hospital, serving the young urban families and troubled children there.  Her firm conviction, learned in her own life, was the inner strength that victims can summon in the face of adversity. She was firm with those she counseled, outlining clear and practical expectations and responsibilities.  In true pastoral tradition, she spent years and years with patients, black and white, adults and children, well-to-do and poor.  Child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Margaret has called herself a psychoanalytically-oriented community child psychiatrist.  She was an outspoken activist for medical care for the poor, better working conditions for hospital staff, and an end to racism.

 In the Episcopal Church, Margaret Lawrence served in the 1960’s on the national Committee on Peace and International Affairs and on the national Committee on Colleges and Universities; in the 1970’s on the New York Diocesan Standing Committee and Committee on the Ordination of Women, and on the General Convention Committee on the Preparation for Ordained Ministry. She was a trustee of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, of Seabury Press, and on the Advisory Board of the Center for Christian Spirituality at General Theological Seminary.  Both seminaries awarded her honorary doctorates.

Margaret and her husband Charles were avowed pacifists in WWII and joined EPF in 1943.  Due in large part to their leadership, St. Paul’s (became known as “The Peace Parish” in the region and attracted others of similar conviction.  After Charles died in 1986, Margaret formed an EPF chapter that met in her home once a month, and she made visitations to parishes, encouraging others to join EPF.  In 1988 she was the oldest pilgrim to walk 85 miles from London to Canterbury with a pack on her back to help bring EPF peace concerns to the Bishops at Lambeth Conference. She served two terms on the EPF National Executive Council and also served on the Council of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.  Margaret remains an uncompromising and articulate voice against racism, militarism and other forms of violence.  Parishioners at St. Paul’s are not surprised if she stands boldly after hearing a violent psalm and publicly questions the priest whether it holds any valuable lesson.  She continues to focus on the spiritual – with healing pools and altars in the home, yoga, prayer groups, a radiant joy, and pastoral care and compassion for others.

Margaret’s struggles and accomplishments are lovingly described by her own daughter in Balm in Gilead: Journey of a Healer.  Following medical training, she taught Pediatrics and Public Health at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, co-founded a Community Center for Mental Health and was director of its school unit and child development center, served as Chief of Developmental Psychiatry Service at Harlem Hospital Center, and became Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.  She published two books and contributed numerous article and book chapters on mental health. She is a member of national and regional psychoanalytic and medical associations and has served on boards of programs for children and families.  Her distinguished service and achievements are acknowledged by the numerous awards and honorary doctoral degrees she has received.

Margaret remains “the radical reconciler.”  Her faithful life-witness is an inspiration for us today. Yes, Margaret,  “We all belong together!”  The Episcopal Peace Fellowship is honored to award Dr. Margaret Morgan Lawrence the Sayre Peace Award for her faithful commitment to peacemaking within and beyond the Episcopal Church.

More on Dr. Lawrence: article from Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Fellowship Magazine:  Fall - 2001
Living from the Spiritual Center:
 An Interview with Dr. Margaret Cornelia Morgan Lawrence

Editor’s Note: Margaret Lawrence, born in an Episcopal rectory in Vicksburg, Mississippi, is one of the nation’s foremost child psychiatrists. In active retirement in Skyview Acres (a fifty-year-old cooperative community the Lawrences helped found in Pomona, New York) she has long been active in the Episcopal Church, the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. She and her husband Charles both served on the FOR National Council (he was the NC chairperson in the 1950s).

Now in her eighty-seventh year, she was interviewed by Fellowship for this special issue on aging on July 7, 2001 by Richard Deats, editor.

RD: People often think of psychiatry as apart from religion. Yet, as your daughter Sara says in her biography of you, Balm in Gilead, your personal and professional life includes a soulful center. It has roots in ritual, music, mystery, and ministry. How have you combined these two perspectives of life?

ML: I was a pediatrician in residence before I was a psychiatrist. Already my faith was part of my life. I became interested in child psychiatry because I found that as an instructor at Meharry Medical College I was teaching a lot of child psychiatry–for which I had not been trained. With the recommendation of Clarence Pickett of AFSC, I talked about my intent to become a child psychiatrist with Dr. Viola Bernard in New York. She urged me to enter residency training at the New York Psychiatric Institute together with psychoanalytic training at the Columbia Psychoanalytic Center for Training and Research. This I accomplished, but only with the help of Dr. Bernard and others who were, in 1946, already working to help Negro (as we were then called) applicants to obtain psychiatric training in New York City. In one of my first classes at the Columbia Psychoanalytic Center I learned that my color was not the only characteristic that made me unusual. The director in his lecture said, "Never accept a patient who says he is religious. He is too dependent." A fellow trainee later commented, "Margaret, you'll get in trouble if Rado (the director) finds out you are religious." A brother trainee (we had the same analyst) later told me that one day when he was lying on the couch he interrupted his flow of free associations, saying, "Do you know that Dr. Lawrence is religious?" There was a long silence. Finally, Dr. Milch responded, "How do you know that I’m not?"

I knew my faith, and I knew it made a difference in both my personal and professional relationships. But in working with people, I never raised questions about their faith. If they did so, that was fine. Then we were able to communicate.

I am no longer responsible to "the rules of the trade." What’s more, in retirement I find myself increasingly involved in matters of the spirit and I’m free to talk about it with my family, church sisters and brothers, and friends. In my home I have a number of small altars, complete with icons and candles. We at St. Paul’s Episcopal, Spring Valley, New York, have organized a monthly meeting of Home Fellowship for Bible Study and Spiritual Seeking, open to all.

RD: As a professional who is both African-American and a woman, how have you dealt with the prejudice of both gender and race?

ML: Both personally and professionally, I have always treated being a woman as an advantage. After leaving Vicksburg, Mississippi, at the age of fourteen and returning to New York to continue my education it was often my lot to find myself "a first." I was the first Negro trainee at Columbia Psychoanalytic Center and the first Negro resident at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Particularly at the Institute I chose to become an advocate for Negroes and other minorities–the poor and the sick. I became an advocate because persons of color, who were few, did not, to my eye, receive the best care that the Institute had to offer. My thesis became: Find ways to help all persons identify their strengths. Knowing their own strengths, persons can learn to do what is best for themselves and for others as well.

This was my challenge as I joined the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. Meanwhile my "vineyard" was at Harlem Hospital Center, an affiliate of Columbia P&S. I returned to Harlem in 1963. Earlier, I had had an internship and residency in pediatrics there. I was invited by Dr. Elizabeth Bishop Davis, then chief of psychiatry. Her invitation was augmented by a dream: "I was walking along happily with a black baby in my arms. Suddenly I stopped. I had dropped the baby. I recovered the baby and resumed my happy walk. I looked. I had dropped the baby again. This scene was repeated until the end of the dream." I knew then that I must return to Harlem. There I organized a Developmental Psychiatry Service for infants, young children, and their families. This service included a therapeutic nursery for preschool children, located in a nearby day care center.

In 1954, with Dr. John A.P. Millet, I co-founded the Rockland County Community Mental Health Center. I directed the Center's Children's Services; the School Mental Health Unit (1957-63); and finally the Child Development Center for pre-school children (1967-74). Once, at a School Mental Health Unit conference, Dr. Louis Hay, founder of "Junior Guidance Classes" in New York City, asked, "How do you, as a Negro, deal with prejudice towards you in working with the nine school districts in the County?" My answer: "I think we are too busy and the schools too glad to have the service to be prejudiced." However, a few years later, in the Seventies, some of us attended a meeting of the County Legislature concerning the Mental Health Center. When my turn came I asked why, since the founding of the Center, with the exception of two assistant teachers in the therapeutic nursery, there was still only one (OOPS!)...black person on the entire Center staff. It was the first time that I had said "black" in public.

RD: As a leader in the Episcopal Peace Fellowship and in FOR, what observations do you have for peacemakers? Why do peacemakers, for example, sometimes have difficulty making peace among themselves?

ML: After a big FOR party at Al and Dotty Hassler’s, someone asked, "How many odd, would you say, attended the festivities?" The answer came, "Do you mean how many in all?" (laughter)

My husband Charles and I many years ago had an article in Fellowship on peace and anger. I've always felt that many–including myself–in our intent to be peacemakers don’t know how to listen to or deal with anger. Often, too, we find it difficult to "speak the truth in love." We don’t want to hurt the other. Anger at a "level of unawareness" may inhibit us in giving the best that we have to offer.

RD: How do you keep centered?

ML: When? (Laughter) I don’t always stay centered. But I pray. It takes a lot of prayer. I have on my wall in the kitchen a plaque, made from a gourd, that says: "Pray without ceasing." A Nigerian lady attending the centennial of the ICWA and its World Day of Prayer at Stony Point, brought it to me in 1986, soon after Charles Lawrence died. Henri Nouwen’s book on icons, The Beauty of the Lord has been very helpful, as have the small and large volumes of Lady Julian of Norwich and Hildegard of Bingen. Daughter Paula (an Episcopal priest) constantly supports my spiritual life.

In this period of aging, I pray, "O God you will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are fixed on you; for in returning and rest we shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be our strength"(Isaiah 26:3; 30:15). I have in my house a "healing pool" that was blessed by sisters of the Convent of St. Helena and named Siloam, from the story of Jesus healing the blind man. [When Jesus asked him, "What do you want that I should do for you?," the blind man replied, "That I should receive my sight." Jesus spat on the ground, and with his fingers rubbed the spittle into the dirt. The clay he placed on the blind man’s eyes and then told him to go bathe in the pool of Siloam (John 9).]

Each morning I get into the healing pool and meditate, pray, and exercise. Outside of Siloam’s large windows is a forest of trees. In formations of trees one can sight the Trinity. After Siloam comes yoga exercises, which I have practiced daily from age sixty until now. After breakfast, Forward by a Day, a devotional book, aids me in regular, structured reading of the Bible and daily worship. I write down notes in journals about what I read, think, and feel, and what I dream.

As I look back, Charles and I were centered a lot in each other. In a social setting he did all the talking and I would listen. (My very grown children say that this isn't so!) But then, off I would go, with "Excuse me" and a smile, into fascinating conversations. People now will often tell me they've read Balm in Gilead–and then before you know it, someone is telling me her life story! (laughter)

Charles’ death caused me to move out more to others, but he is still in my center and in my dreams. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between a dream and a vision.

In analysis–others’ and my own–I use dreams a lot. And if I want to dream, I can literally have one. With a slight show of interest on their part, I will teach my friends how to study their dreams. One’s dreams can solve problems.

RD: Many people, especially men, identify intelligence with logic and analytical ability. How do you contrast this orientation with the more intuitive approach which characterizes your thinking?

ML: Charles was a great intellect. He sat at the head of the table and we had serious, deep discussions as a family. If someone would ask, "What does this word mean?" he’d rise from his seat and go to his study to consult the dictionary.

The Hassler and Lawrence families had a book club. Once when we were reading Buber's I and Thou Al said, "I don’t understand what Buber means in this passage." Charles said he didn't either. Its meaning was obvious to me and I told them. It was a revelation to me that these two men didn’t understand what was so clear to me! (laughter).

I know nothing about theology. I don’t read theology and I regret that. At a meeting of Religion in Higher Education, Seward Hiltner, a clergyman and psychologist, told me not to worry. He said, "You can engage in spiritual matters without pursuing theology per se."

I have a friend who is always asking in matters of the spirit, "What does this mean?" I ask rather, "In what form does this arrive in my spiritual center? What does the Holy Spirit say?" The medium is prayer.

When I am in my healing pool, I send out spiritual messages to others from my center to theirs. This assumes that all have spiritual centers.

RD: Who are some of your mentors?

ML: Dan Berrigan, who came to FOR to talk about his book on Isaiah. Reading Berrigan’s book, I realized how much Isaiah speaks to me. Henri Nouwen is a good counselor, though I never met. Julian of Norwich, the great English anchoress, is another. In 1988 I participated in the Canterbury Peace March from London to Canterbury at the time of the Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1988. (I was the oldest one on the Walk.) We walked for six days, slept in sleeping bags in churches. I took the opportunity to go to Norwich and see Julian’s cell, a copy of the original, in St. Julian’s Chapel, rebuilt following destruction by fire. Surrounding the Chapel are gardens, and under the window of Julian’s cell is a bench where people came to ask her counsel. She always referred to Mother God as well as Father God. She said we are all part of nature. We are all part of God. We are all part of Grace. Whatever trials we have, whatever relations we are in, God is always there.

I find my mentors in unusual places. I was driving home late at night from New York City. On the radio a journalist in London was telling of hearing a homeless man singing as he walked alone on the dark street. He recorded his song. A CD was made of the homeless man singing with symphonic music in the background, growing in volume and intensity as the man repeated again and again his simple, eloquent song: "Jesus’ blood never failed me yet. Jesus’ blood never failed me yet. I think I know, because he loves me so." The music continued for more than an hour. It had such power and grace! I wept as I drove. I can still sing it while cooking, or in Siloam, and be inspired.

Tears come readily to me: when I am sad, angry, joyful, have empathy with another, or even when inspired.

RD: Everyone faces eventual diminishment and death. How do you deal with these realities?

ML: I’ll be eighty-seven on August 19. I insist that diminishment and age are not the same thing, and I ask my physicians to consider my expectation of good health, rather than my age.

I see Charles standing at the corner of the fireplace watching me do yoga early in the morning, saying with his big smile, "Go, girl!"

When I was sixty I decided to do something about my body. Since I was thirty-five I've had evidence of arthritis, and at age sixty I dared ask Blanche DeVries Bernard to take me on as a student. She was eighty-seven! I studied with her weekly for six months, when alas, an accident made her an invalid. But it was Walter Walker, a fellow volunteer at the beginning of the Rockland County Mental Health Center and his wife Dorothy (both of whom came from Texas) who were my first non-church spiritual guides. They were, as my father was wont to say, "of the other persuasion." My father meant that they were not colored. Walter taught me to know myself as a whole: body, mind, feeling life, and spirit, as long as life shall last. I have, perhaps more recently, learned to face death with "Living or dying, I am the Lord’s!"  Walter and Dorothy gave me my first Martin Buber books. Walter was a person of great spirit. He died several years ago. Dorothy, a spiritual heavyweight herself, and I continue our valued friendship across many miles. Both of them are in my prayers.

RD: What do you struggle with in aging?

ML: The biggest thing I must work with is loss. It’s inevitable. You lose somebody. You lose somebodies.

I say to the youngest child, "It must be a great comfort (comfort = to make strong) to you to know you'll always have her (the deceased person’s) love. And you will always have your love for her."

When I work with a child in therapy, for instance when a child has lost a loved one, I have her make a "family play" with dolls. Children can tell you about the things that bother them. Never short-change the young. It is very important if a child has trauma, physical or emotional, for that child to be helped to talk about it. Listen to her. Help her to know it’s all right to feel what she feels. People can go throughout life with the influence of early trauma, unresolved, shaping their lives. Adults too, need help with trauma, especially with loss. I have been fortunate in having spiritual guidance from priests, in our Episcopal Shared Ministry of Rockland, who are called "missioners" (meaning "sent"). My family and good friends share this role with me, as I age. When you listen to someone else telling of her feeling of loss, you should identify with her what she is already doing to help herself.

RD: Have you any final thoughts?

ML: When Charles was president of the House of Deputies of the Episcopal Church, he arranged a silent retreat for all the chairs of church standing committees, just before the General Convention in Louisville, Kentucky. At the retreat we began each day with a story, offered us by the two leaders. They were preparing us for two twenty-four-hour days in silence.

One of the stories was to see ourselves as spiritually lost, in the bottom of an empty well, standing in the muck, and being completely overcome, unable to get out. Then after a long struggle a voice is heard: "You are my beloved daughter, in whom I am well pleased."
And that gave me the strength to make it out of the well.
 



Janet Chisholm
 

Janet's passions are empowering people for action through nonviolence training, connecting with grassroots EPF members, public witness, and abolition of nuclear weapons. She is a trainer of trainers for the EPF's "Creating a Culture of Peace" Nonviolence Program. At the Fellowship of Reconciliation, she was National Coordinator of Nonviolence Training. She has a background in urban social services, university teaching, and religious education. She served as interim director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and is former chair of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship's National Executive Council. She now works as Kirkridge Retreat Center, as coordinator of their Peace & Justice


Walking with Jesus Into the Desert
by Janet Chisholm 03/03/2001

The Desert Story is about a search for God. According to the Bible, and the desert fathers and mothers of the early church who intentionally went into the desert to live a simplified life focused on God, the Desert Story is about journeying - about being tested - about encountering God. Today, we know that the Desert Story is also a story about violence and the Bomb.

I want to share reflections about my journey, the desert, the Bomb and the temptations of Jesus in the desert.

My journey in the desert began when my parents moved to Las Vegas many years ago. It was a small town with only 18,000 residents and two modest hotels. My parents were seeking a warm, dry climate where my father's health would improve and they could raise their children. We came from Portland, Oregon, a lush land of greenery and rain where I played on soft lawns, and trees and flowers were everywhere. The change for me was very dramatic! We moved into a small motel room surrounded by dirt, where I was expected to play contentedly. The sun was oppressively hot, and there was one scruffy tree for shade. This certainly was no Promised Land of Milk and Honey, but a Land of Dirt... and Sunny!

Before long the natural beauty of the desert touched my soul. The sky reaching from horizon to horizon and filled with the drama of clouds and wind. The tall, colorful mountains surrounding the valley. The oases with their streams and shady cottonwood trees; and the flat desert, with its thorny mesquite bushes in which I could create a hideaway and block the entrance with a tumbleweed. The bursting flowers at springtime: yucca, belly flowers seen only when we got on our bellies, the red Indian paintbrush and more. When I was older, our family bought a horse. As a teenager, I was allowed to ride alone - all the way to the mountains. It was thrilling and liberating to jump the ravines and gallop for miles across the unfenced desert. This was like the Holy Land, I was told - like the desert where Jesus had walked. No wonder I felt healthy and whole, free and safe to explore and act boldly, and convinced this was a sacred land. And each year our family drove north along the main highway. We joined church friends on a desert hilltop to hold an Easter Service and watch the dramatic sunrise, with its spreading and brilliant colors slowly filling the heavens of God's beautiful creation.

During my elementary school years, there were many other occasions when our family drove north along that same highway. We rose early - as we always did for the Easter sunrise service. We drove out early, before dawn, while it was still dark, to get a good parking spot on the shoulder of the highway. We and hundreds of other families - cars full of children - our grandmother, too. It was the chance of a lifetime to watch the bombs go off. The newspapers and radio described the exact route to follow to get as close as possible.  And they told us it was safe! Everyone got out, put on dark glasses and waited. There was a great hush - we were afraid to blink and miss the spectacle. It was the hint of morning - a creeping glow was visible above the horizon - when finally a light exploded into the dark, there was a powerful sound forced into the air, the ground shook, and slowly dark billows tumbled out and rose, the mushroom cloud. And they told us it was safe!

As a Las Vegas High School freshman, I researched the effects of radiation on the human body. Recently, my mother was cleaning her garage and found my paper on the project. I had analytically reviewed photos of Japanese who were said to have survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings - of U.S. doctors treating them and gathering data about exposures. I spent time in the local Atomic Energy Commission office and interviewed Edward Teller - not realizing his renown, I asked my simple questions about his research. It was the Sputnik era and we were being encouraged to enter Chemistry and Physics if we had talent, because the U.S. wanted to catch up with the Soviet Union. I was doing my loyal best: studying rocket fuels and design, taking all the science and math courses I could get. It was expected of the brightest students - take the hardest courses, prove yourselves! And during my early school years, the nuclear testing industry employed the most people in town. It was the best place to get a good job. Despite the overwhelming evidence of sickness and dying that I summarized in the paper, I patriotically concluded with a quote from Dwight Eisenhower about the necessity of nuclear weapons to protect democracy. This certainly was no Land of Milk and Honey, but a Land of Bombs and Money!

In Honolulu, the Bomb exploded into my personal awareness again. I remembered the "survivors" in those black and white photos of doctors examining living victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - shriveled skin, scarred faces and bodies, babies born with deformed limbs - a white American military doctor with a stethoscope against the passive chest of a frail Japanese woman, the dazed children and the cold projections of reduced life expectancy. They were so similar to the films I began to see of Vietnamese survivors, the wounded, dazed, crippled and scarred victims of a deadly rain of napalm and bombs. "Stop this horror!" my heart cried out. The children of the deadly rain were being brought to the island, to Tripler Army Hospital, for skin-grafting and prosthetics. But the deadly rain continued. Some of us purchased films showing the victims and toured the Islands - and protested in many other ways - calling for a cease fire, for an end to all the killing and violence, an end to the victims who never made the nightly body count reserved for soldiers on both sides.
 
As a Navy wife, the Bomb touched my personal life again. I went to watch the first firing of a Poseidon nuclear submarine off Key West. With other family members of the submariners who were involved in the test firing, I watched the extraordinary event from a nearby surface vessel. The thunderous explosion and horrible power immediately recalled for me the explosions I had witnessed as a child. Others cheered and clapped. I was shaken to the core and wept.

A few years ago, the Bomb became personal again. There was a lump in my breast. (It turned out to be benign.) When I was scheduled for surgery, I called to inform my mother. With great distress, she talked about recent studies that indicated Las Vegas residents had been exposed to high levels of radioactivity during the bomb testing in the fifties - from the winds that had swirled in our hometown.

But they told us it was safe!

The silence was suddenly broken. No one in Las Vegas, during the years I lived there or since, had ever spoken to me before about the dangers of the nuclear weapons testing. Mother admitted she had had no concern then, no one seemed to - it was a time to show loyalty and patriotism. (I remember that the first TV pictures we watched were the McCarthy hearings.) Everyone was so trusting. With increasing alarm she disclosed some of the horrible clues to the dangers: the blasts broke windows and cracked the walls of buildings, tumbled dishware and other breakables onto the floor. There were thousands of insurance claims.

But they told us it was safe!
It felt like an earthquake, but it was not an act of God.
But they told us it was safe!

A man who worked for my father suffered from terrible skin cancer and finally had to stop working. He had been the only insurance investigator allowed on ground zero after a blast. He would go around and assess the damage with government experts. He was never warned of the dangers. The soles of his boots would be eaten off after one walk-through; he was always purchasing new shoes!

But they told us it was safe!
The sheep in Utah began to sicken and die in great numbers - and then the families became sick. And so much of our food came from there.
But they told us it was safe!

Protesting nuclear weapons is personal! I have spoken often against nuclear weapons and joined others in protest at the Groton Submarine Base, Electric Boat, the Nevada Test Site and the Pentagon. And I shall continue - until it IS safe for all of us. My desert is Holy Ground; not a wasteland or a land to waste, not a place to perfect weapons that will destroy, murder, and dominate. It is a place of testing and transformation!

Related Links:
Learn more about the Fellowship of Reconciliation at:
http://www.forusa.org
Learn more about the Episcopal Peace Fellowship at:
http://www.episcopalpeacefellowship.org/
Learn more about the Nevada Desert Experience at:
http://nevadadesertexperience.org/
 

JONATHAN MYRICK DANIELS
SEMINARIAN (14 AUGUST 1965)
 
Jonathan Myrick Daniels was born in Keene, New Hampshire in 1939, one of two offspring of a Congregationalist physician. When in high school, he had a bad fall which put him in the hospital for about a month. It was a time of reflection. Soon after, he joined the Episcopal Church and also began to take his studies seriously, and to consider the possibility of entering the priesthood. After high school, he enrolled at Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington, Virginia , where at first he seemed a misfit, but managed to stick it out, and was elected Valedictorian of his graduating class. During his sophomore year at VMI, however, he began to experience uncertainties about his religious faith and his vocation to the priesthood that continued for several years, and were probably influenced by the death of his father and the prolonged illness of his younger sister Emily. In the fall of 1961 he entered Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Boston, to study English literature, and in the spring of 1962, while attending Easter services at the Church of the Advent in Boston, he underwent a conversion experience and renewal of grace. Soon after, he made a definite decision to study for the priesthood, and after a year of work to repair the family finances, he enrolled at Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1963, expecting to graduate in the spring of 1966.

In March 1965 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, asked students and others to join him in Selma, Alabama, for a march to the state capital in Montgomery demonstrating support for his civil rights program. News of the request reached the campus of ETS on Monday 8 March (my sources are a bit confused on the chronology of that week, but I think this is correct), and during Evening Prayer at the chapel, Jon Daniels decided that he ought to go. Later he wrote:

"My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." I had come to Evening Prayer as usual that evening, and as usual I was singing the Magnificat with the special love and reverence I have always felt for Mary's glad song. "He hath showed strength with his arm." As the lovely hymn of the God-bearer continued, I found myself peculiarly alert, suddenly straining toward the decisive, luminous, Spirit-filled "moment" that would, in retrospect, remind me of others--particularly one at Easter three years ago. Then it came. "He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things." I knew then that I must go to Selma. The Virgin's song was to grow more and more dear in the weeks ahead.”

He and others left on Thursday for Selma, intending to stay only that weekend; but he and a friend missed the bus back, and began to reflect on how an in-and-out visit like theirs looked to those living in Selma, and decided that they must stay longer. They went home to request permission to spend the rest of the term in Selma, studying on their own and returning to take their examinations. In Selma, many proposed marches were blocked by rows of policemen. Jon describes one such meeting (ellipses not marked).

“After a week-long, rain-soaked vigil, we still stood face to face with the Selma police. I stood, for a change, in the front rank, ankle-deep in an enormous puddle. To my immediate right were high school students, for the most part, and further to the right were a swarm of clergymen. My end of the line surged forward at one point, led by a militant Episcopal priest whose temper (as usual) was at combustion-point. Thus I found myself only inches from a young policeman. The air crackled with tension and open hostility. Emma Jean, a sophomore in the Negro high school, called my name from behind. I reached back for her hand to bring her up to the front rank, but she did not see. Again she asked me to come back. My determination had become infectiously savage, and I insisted that she come forward--I would not retreat! Again I reached for her hand and pulled her forward. The young policeman spoke: "You're dragging her through the puddle. You ought to be ashamed for treating a girl like that." Flushing--I had forgotten the puddle--I snarled something at him about whose-fault-it-really-was, that managed to be both defensive and self-righteous. We matched baleful glances and then both looked away. And then came a moment of shattering internal quiet, in which I felt shame, indeed, and a kind of reluctant love for the young policeman. I apologized to Emma Jean. And then it occurred to me to apologize to him and to thank him. Though he looked away in contempt--I was not altogether sure I blamed him--I had received a blessing I would not forget. Before long the kids were singing, "I love ---." One of my friends asked [the young policeman] for his name. His name was Charlie. When we sang for him, he blushed and then smiled in a truly sacramental mixture of embarrassment and pleasure and shyness. Soon the young policeman looked relaxed, we all lit cigarettes (in a couple of instances, from a common match, and small groups of kids and policemen clustered to joke or talk cautiously about the situation. It was thus a shock later to look across the rank at the clergymen and their opposites, who glared across a still unbroken "Wall" in what appeared to be silent hatred. Had I been freely arranging the order for Evening Prayer that night, I think I might have followed the General Confession directly with the General Thanksgiving--or perhaps the Te Deum.”

Jon devoted many of his Sundays in Selma to bringing small groups of Negroes, mostly high school students, to church with him in an effort to integrate the local Episcopal church. They were seated but scowled at. Many parishioners openly resented their presence, and put their pastor squarely in the middle. (He was integrationist enough to risk his job by accommodating Jon's group as far as he did, but not integrationist enough to satisfy Jon.)

In May, Jon went back to ETS to take examinations and complete other requirements, and in July he returned to Alabama, where he helped to produce a listing of local, state, and federal agencies and other resources legally available to persons in need of assistance. On Friday 13 August Jon and others went to the town of Fort Deposit to join in picketing three local businesses. On Saturday they were arrested and held in the county jail in Hayneville for six days until they were bailed out. (They had agreed that none would accept bail until there was bail money for all.) After their release on Friday 20 August, four of them undertook to enter a local shop, and were met at the door by a man with a shotgun who told them to leave or be shot. After a brief confrontation, he aimed the gun at a young girl in the party, and Jon pushed her out of the way and took the blast of the shotgun himself. (Whether he stepped between her and the shotgun is not clear.) He was killed instantly. Not long before his death he wrote:

“I lost fear in the black belt when I began to know in my bones and sinews that I had been truly baptized into the Lord's death and Resurrection, that in the only sense that really matters I am already dead, and my life is hid with Christ in God. I began to lose self-righteousness when I discovered the extent to which my behavior was motivated by worldly desires and by the self-seeking messianism of Yankee deliverance! The point is simply, of course, that one's motives are usually mixed, and one had better know it. As Judy and I said the daily offices day by day, we became more and more aware of the living reality of the invisible "communion of saints"--of the beloved community in Cambridge who were saying the offices too, of the ones gathered around a near-distant throne in heaven--who blend with theirs our faltering songs of prayer and praise. With them, with black men and white men, with all of life, in Him Whose Name is above all the names that the races and nations shout, whose Name is Itself the Song Which fulfils and "ends" all songs.”

Further Reading:
➢    The Jon Daniels Story, ed. William J Schneider (Morehouse, 1992 ; ISBN: 0819215864) (orig. publ. 1967)  
➢    Outside Agitator: Jon Daniels and the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama, by Charles W. Eagles (Univ of North Carolina Pr., 1993; ISBN: 0807844209)]

Links:-
➢    http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/Jonathan_Daniels.htm
➢    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Myrick_Daniels
➢    http://www.pilgrimage4peace.com/
 

Rev. Naim Ateek

 
'I Never Lose Hope'

Palestinian theologian Naim Ateek understands the trap that violence and injustice have brought to the Middle East - and he sees ordinary, faithful people as the way out.
by Elizabeth Green and Emily Hershberger

On Palm Sunday in Jerusalem, Palestinian Christians at the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center shouted "Hosanna!" and invited the churches of the world to work for liberation anew - by thinking about their investments.

Rev. Naim Ateek, a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship, is canon of St. George’s (Anglican) Cathedral in Jerusalem and is founder of Sabeel, which has produced a 15-page statement that, in Ateek’s words, will go out "to all hierarchies of churches everywhere in the world." It was inspired by the economic boycotts that helped end apartheid in South Africa. Its mandate: selective divestment by churches from corporations and companies profiting from the occupation.

The document, titled "A Nonviolent Response to the Occupation: A Call for Morally Responsible Investment," addresses the reality of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, the continued building of the separation wall, and illegal settlements on Palestinian land.

"We had the Contemporary Way of the Cross, the Via Dolorosa for Palestinians," Ateek, 68, told Sojourners, recalling programs at Sabeel before the start of the second intifada in 2000 dissuaded most internationals from coming. "This is a liturgy we created where we take [visitors] to the stations of the cross that Palestinians have, such as demolished homes, destroyed villages, checkpoints. Every one of those is a station of the cross, a station of suffering."

According to Ateek, Sabeel "strives to develop a spirituality based on justice, peace, nonviolence, and love" among the Christians who make up less than 2 percent of the Palestinian population. A workweek includes daily prayer, Bible study with staff, and an inclusive, fresh celebration of communion. "Every Thursday at noon we have communion service, that’s agreed," Ateek said. "And this is a wonderful, wonderful time. Not only of worship, but of the discussion that goes on. We do it in an informal way, although we are still liturgical. But it’s a very different example of the church."

Sabeel’s outreach efforts bridge traditional boundaries. "Everything we do is ecumenical," he said, describing programs for youth, women, clergy, and interfaith gatherings. "So the different types of Catholics, the different types of Orthodox, the different Protestants, they are all together. And that’s one of the beauties of the work." Most notably, Ateek’s nonviolent liberation theology requires reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians even as it demands "justice and only justice" for his people.

It makes sense, then, that Ateek has faith "in a God of love, justice, mercy, and peace," and that he believes that "God’s will for all people is to have life and to have it more abundantly."

"But we must all work with God with this type of commitment and this type of faith," Ateek said. "And I think we will get there."

SUCH IS THE LOGIC of Sabeel’s call for divestment: God at work through the actions of God’s ordinary, faithful people. "Take the Presbyterian Church [(USA)], for example: They were one of the first ones to come up with statements against the occupation," Ateek said. "And then every major denomination has done the same. Wonderful statements. And those statements at the general assemblies or conventions are sent to the president of the United States, sent to the prime minister of Israel, to the ambassador to Israel - everywhere. This has been going on for many, many years."

"But nothing has ever happened," he said. "No government is willing to put pressure on Israel. This means that the churches are saying, ‘We are going to do it. We are going to absorb the loss. We are going to take a stand. If the governments - our governments - are not going to act, we are going to act.’ It is a wonderful thing. It really brings it back to the church. We should have done this a long time ago."

Grounded in theological, political, and legal analysis, Sabeel’s statement presents a two-step plan. First, churches must "exert pressure on companies and corporations to divest from business activities" that fund the settlements and the separation wall, maintain the occupation, or support violence against civilians through products, services, or facilities. If this has no effect - if "companies and corporations...do not respond and comply with morally responsible divestment" - then the churches themselves must divest. They are directly responsible, as shareholders, for the actions of the corporations in which they invest.

Theologically speaking, Sabeel calls churches to divest not only as morally responsible shareholders but as the body of Christ bearing witness to the sufferings of brothers and sisters in Palestine and in Israel. "Churches, by moving from statements to direct action and adopting financial policies that are in line with their moral and theological stance, create an example for the international community, even if it means incurring and absorbing some financial loss," the statement reads. Emphasizing that the worldwide body of Christ must transcend national borders, ethnic identity, and religious fervor, it goes on to reference 1 Corinthians 12:26: "If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it."

Sabeel brings this particularly Christian perspective into the broader divestment movement, joining secular and other religious groups. The U.S.-based Jewish Voice for Peace, for example, has called for divestment in years past. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions in Jerusalem, a secular organization led by Jeff Halper, has called for selective trade sanctions, a boycott of settlement products, and an end to arms sales that perpetuate the occupation in addition to selective divestment. The Presbyterian Church (USA) has led the way among U.S. churches; its Mission Responsibility Through Investment committee began a "process of phased selective divestment" in line with the church’s social investment policy (see "Should Churches Divest?" page 22), earning the commendation of the World Council of Churches in February. The Episcopal Church launched a yearlong review of its corporate actions in the West Bank, and in July the United Church of Christ was scheduled to vote on whether to pursue divestment options.

As a veteran of interfaith work, Ateek knows how to move gracefully alongside these different groups, seeking common ground and shared language.

"If we are talking to secular people like Jeff Halper - we work very well together - our relationship is based on human rights, on international law," he explained. "They’re approaching it from that perspective. I’m approaching human rights and international law from my perspective of faith. There’s no conflict there. What it all amounts to at the end of the day, from my position of faith, is God’s activity in the world - God’s activity through human rights, through international law, through U.N. resolutions, through different communities of faith - while still retaining my very strong Christian commitment. It’s not like I’m trying to dilute the gospel, but I am also sensitive to where other people are coming from."

Divestment, of course, promises no immediate solutions. The Presbyterian Church (USA) notes that the "process of engagement [for divestment] can take months or years." With the occupation ongoing, thousands more people - Palestinians and Israelis alike - may die; many more miles of the wall may go up; and the United States, which gave Israel more than $2 billion in military aid this year, will continue to fund the occupation with U.S. tax dollars. Activists sobered by this grim situation, said Ateek, tend to say, "‘What can we do?’ ‘There’s nothing we can do.’ ‘It’s too late, the whole country has been taken over, the whole land has been devoured.’"

But for Ateek, hope must live, even if only a flicker remains. "I appreciate these insights," he said. "But I never lose hope. My hope is not built on changing, fluctuating circumstances. Ultimately my faith and hope is in a God who would see to it that the situation would change."

Elizabeth Green was public policy intern with Call to Renewal and Emily R. Hershberger was editorial assistant at Sojourners when this article appeared. They interviewed Naim Ateek in February 2005 at the "In Word and Deed" conference hosted by Friends of Sabeel North America (www.fosna.org) in Atlanta. Sabeel’s statement on divestment is available at www.sabeel.org.

'I Never Lose Hope'.  by Elizabeth Green and Emily Hershberger. Sojourners Magazine, August 2005 (Vol. 34, No. 8, pp. 27-31). Cover.

Recommended Links:
➢    The Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, Jerusalem http://www.sabeel.org/
 


Rev Seiichi Michael Yasutake
September 25, 1920 — December 29, 2001
 

The Rev. Dr. Seiichi Michael Yasutake, a second generation Japanese American, was born in Seattle, Washington, and spent his early years in Seattle and Japan.

Since his ordination in the Episcopal Church in 1950, he served in a number of capacities in both the diocese of Chicago and the national church. For fifty years he was a "voice of conscience" for the Episcopal Church as well as many national and international communities.

After his "retirement" from full-time employment, Mike assisted at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Evanston and was priest-in-charge of a Japanese Episcopal Congregation at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Chicago. During the last two decades, Mike was the Executive Director of Interfaith Prisoners of Conscience Project (IPOC), which he founded in 1980 with the purpose of mobilizing support in church and society for the release of political prisoners in the United States and of monitoring prisons on human rights concerns. IPOC is sponsored by the National Council of the Churches of Christ, USA.

Up until the very end of his life, Mike was concerned about the violations of the civil liberties of those persons who are likely to be persecuted. In the wake of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, he was alarmed that there was a resurgence of hate crimes against persons of Middle-Eastern descent. He met with Muslim leaders in the Chicago area to help safeguard the civil liberties of all those Muslims living decent lives in the United States.

One quality that stood out among Mike's many outstanding qualities was his unflagging courage to stand up against opposition, criticism and stubborn resistance. Concentrating on peace and justice issues at all times through many organizations, he stayed active up to the day of his sudden death from a massive stroke.

Mike’s childhood and his early life experiences are relevant to explain his fervor and passion in challenging social injustices in the United States and in the world.

Due to family circumstances he traveled back and forth between the United States and Japan in his early childhood. When he was three years old, his mother was forced to leave him with his paternal grandparents in Japan to return to Seattle to seek medical help for his critically ill younger brother. When Mike was seven years old, he returned to Seattle to join his family and was enrolled in a kindergarten class. He remembers being ostracized not only by white classmates, but also by his Japanese American peers because he spoke no English. He felt like an immigrant in his land of birth, which made him sympathetic in later years to the problems facing immigrants in Japan (Koreans) and the United States.

In 1939, after graduation from high school, he returned to Japan for a year and a half to pursue training in kendo, the Japanese art of fencing. He always claimed that his observations of the militaristic climate in both Japan and the United States during this period deeply affected his attitude toward war. He heard a barrage of propaganda in Japan against the United States that he knew was false and when he returned to Seattle before the outbreak of World War II, he heard the same kind of racist attitudes expressed, this time towards Japan. As chair of the US-Japan Committee for Racial Justice, he dedicated himself to combating human rights violations in both Japan and the United States.

On December 7, 1941, when the public was still reeling from the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Mike’s father, a prominent community leader, was attending a luncheon meeting of his Poetry Society at a restaurant. Three FBI agents appeared at the restaurant and took his father, Jack Yasutake, into custody. Jack Yasutake was incarcerated in the Justice Department camps, separated from his family. Several months later, Mike, his mother, two brothers and a sister were removed to Minidoka, Idaho, one of the ten concentration camps built to detain 110,000 residents of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast for the duration of the war.

In 1943, after a year and a half of concentration camp life, Mike was allowed to leave camp to enroll at the University of Cincinnati. He believed that his equivocal response to the so-called "loyalty oath" which he was required to sign when he left camp prompted the government authorities to seek him out in Cincinnati to interrogate him about his loyalty because of "sensitive military research" that was being conducted at the campus. The controversial loyalty oath demanded that the Japanese and Japanese Americans "forswear allegiance to the emperor of Japan" and promise to take up arms to defend this country. Mike told the agents that he had never sworn allegiance to the emperor in the first place and therefore should not have to sign that part of the oath, and furthermore, he was opposed to war and would not bear arms. He was summarily expelled from the university. He then moved to Boston and enrolled at Boston University where he earned his B.A. degree. He received his Master of Divinity degree in 1950 at the Seabury Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois.

In 1951, he and Ruth Tahara, a registered nurse, were married, and they established residence in Oak Lawn, Illinois. He and Ruth raised a family of three children while he served as Vicar and later Rector at St. Raphael the Archangel Episcopal Church. It was while living in Oak Lawn from 1953-1963 that he became more aware of and involved in minority issues as his family was one of the few "minority" families in the community. When he actively worked to integrate the neighborhood, he was met with a great deal of resistance from the community.

During the height of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and the 1970s, an opportunity to become more involved in current social and political issues came about when he was offered a position as regional campus minister of the Episcopal Church in the Midwest Province. He identified himself with and stood with many young students who were publicly calling for social justice and peace. He became involved in the students’ anti-war movement and visited and supported war resisters in prisons. It is worth noting that some of the students of those years are today political prisoners or professionals, such as lawyers, working in defense of these political prisoners. During this period, he returned to graduate school and received his Ph.D. at Loyola University of Chicago in 1977.

The following year he was hired as a counselor at the YMCA Community College in Chicago and soon became Director of Counseling. It was there that he met and hired Carmen Valentín. Carmen had excellent credentials but was having difficulty find a job because of her outspokenness against racism at her previous teaching position. He said he knew she had a reputation for being a "troublemaker." He felt if a person in the context of an oppressive situation was not a troublemaker, she wouldn't be worth much as a counselor.

They formed a formidable pair at the college, according to Carmen, working on behalf of minority students including protecting Iranian students from Iranian counter-insurgency agents, and Arab students who were at risk because they disagreed with the United States government’s position in Palestine. "It was a scary time," Carmen says of that period. "We were a great team. We made that Empire shake." Carmen’s subsequent arrest for her support of Puerto Rican independence alerted Mike to the plight of political prisoners in the United States.

In spite of his experience in the civil rights movement, he said, he was completely ignorant, like most Americans, of the existence of political prisoners because of the media control in the United States. He decided at this point that he needed to educate the public about what the government was doing and founded IPOC to mobilize other people to work on behalf of political prisoners. Carmen, who now lives in Puerto Rico, was among 11 political prisoners released in 1999 by presidential clemency after serving 19 years of her 98-year prison sentence.

Carmen says of their release, "He [Mike] had a tremendous, tremendous part in bringing about our release. He organized incredible support from the religious community, and I think that’s what the [Clinton] administration really listened to." Mike’s support of the Puerto Rican independence movement, advocacy for other political prisoners, and activism confronting the injustice of racism and militarism often made his employers uneasy, cutting his tenure in different positions shorter than he would have preferred.

In addition to supporting the people who have joined the struggle for Puerto Rico’s independence, Mike fought for the civil rights of African Americans who have taken stands against racism, Native Americans who have demanded the return of their land, people who have witnessed against nuclear development, and the rights of indigenous peoples. As Executive Director of IPOC, he worked through many organizations in his struggle. Mike was active in the Episcopal Peace Fellowship for more than four decades and served on the National Executive Council. In 2001, he traveled to Las Vegas to participate with other members in civil disobedience at the Nevada nuclear test site.

In order to involve more Asian and Asian Americans in global human rights issues, he founded the Episcopal Asiamerica Ministries Advocates. It focussed on Asian and Asian American solidarity regarding the Puerto Ricans in the United States, and the Buraku and the Koreans in Japan. He served as head of the human rights committee of the Chicago Japanese American Citizens’ League. He also served as board member of The Witness magazine, published by the Episcopal Church Publishing Company. This small publication features articles on important but often controversial social and political issues confronting the Christian community and the world, and supports many of Mike’s causes.

In 1999, Mike applied for and received a grant from the Charles Bannerman Memorial Fellowship Program. He embarked on a project to bring together leaders from Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, Hawaii, Okinawa, and Cuba together to fight, as he stated in his proposal for the grant, "the effects of U.S. actions and force the United States to take responsibility‚ for the environmental, health, economic and social effects of its military and economic policies." He had already visited and met with the leaders of most of these areas; his last trip was to Guam only a few weeks before his death.

Recognition of his work came relatively late in life. In the Spring 1995 issue of Religious Socialism, he was identified as one of two "living Americans presently engaged in activity defining him as a radical who might be honored by the future generations of the American left." (The other was Noam Chomsky.) He was described as "a dissenter who walks his talk."

In 1996, several groups supporting political prisoners honored him with a Tribute in a benefit for the Puerto Rican Cultural Center. In 1998, his Alma Mater, Seabury Western Theological Seminary, awarded him an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree. In 1999, the Peace Museum of Chicago presented him with their Peacemakers Award along with eleven community peacemakers, including the Secretary of State, Jesse White, and Sr. Mary Kay Flannigan.

On July 10, 2000 at the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in Denver, Colorado, the Episcopal Peace Fellowship presented him with the John Nevin Sayre Award for Peacemaking "for serving as a consistent, persistent, vigorous and nonviolent witness for peace for more than a half century." He believed that all people of faith are called to join the struggle for empowerment of the poor, powerless and colonized (a large portion of them being people of color).

Mike was a familiar presence at the General Conventions of the Episcopal Church looking for deputies to sponsor his resolutions. His most recent resolution adopted by the General Convention was titled "Rehearing for Mumia Abu-Jamal on Death Row." This resolution declared that racism is manifest in our judicial and penal systems and called for the rehearing of the case of African American Mumia Abu-Jamal, radio journalist, author and human rights activist who was sentenced to death following a trial reported to be replete with irregularities. Since passage of this resolution by the General Convention, Mike and a national committee have been mobilizing religious leaders to act corporately to press the government to stop the execution and to grant Abu-Jamal a new trial. On February 28, 2000, Mike and religious representatives were among 185 who engaged in civil disobedience in front the Supreme Court building demanding justice for Abu-Jamal. They were arrested and convicted for "impeding traffic on Capital grounds."

Mike was trained in the martial arts of kendo while in Japan as a teenager and advanced to black belt level in 1939. In the late 1970s after a hiatus of some forty years, he took up kendo again for exercise and discipline and until the last week of his life, practiced twice a week at the local dojo in Chicago. He achieved the rank of 5th degree black belt when he was 73 years old.

The death of his beloved wife, Ruth, in 1998 ended their partnership of 47 years. She worked as a full-time elementary school teacher for many years in Evanston. As the key organizer of family affairs, her efficiency and support made it possible for Mike to become involved in a multitude of activities.

Mike is survived by three grown children (and their spouses): David (Debra) and Gregory (Debbie) Yasutake, and Sandra (Richard) Conners; and eight grandchildren: Cara (20), Joseph (17), Nicholas (11), Kalyn (11) Guy (11), Jonothan (9), Patrick (7), and Kelly (1). He is also survived by three siblings: Tosh and Joseph Yasutake, and Mitsuye Yamada.

The War Fever in the Superpower U.S.
 by S. Michael Yasutake
 October 28, 2001

As a Japanese American Nisei who lived in Japan just before World War II — between 1939-40 during the Sino-Japanese war — the present war fever in the U.S. brings to mind the image of militarism in Japan during that time.

As a young man of military draft age, I was exposed to the military and patriotic fever in Japan. Having become adequately fluent in Japanese, I read Japanese newspapers and listened to many a patriotic speech over the radio by Japanese political and military leaders. The presence of soldiers was evident wherever I traveled in Japan. Anti-foreign propaganda was noticeable, including distorted descriptions of the U.S. in the Japanese media.

Then, upon my return to the U.S. after 1 1/2 years of extended stay in Japan, I was exposed to anti-Japanese propaganda in the U.S. media, much of which I knew personally to be false, based on my personal experience in Japan.

Japan, then in the midst of Sino-Japanese war, was boasting that it had never been defeated in wars — that it was invulnerable. Japanese children were taught that when the mighty Genghis Khan attempted an invasion of Japan in the 5th century, a great storm destroyed the Khan's war fleet. Japanese history claimed that this storm was the divine wind ("kamikaze" in Japanese - the term used for the Japanese suicide piloted "zero" planes of World War II) that saved Japan. Gods were on the side of righteous Japan against the evil forces of mighty Genghis Khan conquering other parts of Asia.

During the 20th century, to counter European domination of its next-door neighbor China, Japan intensified its militarism in "self defense." Japan developed a slogan of "Asia for the Asians," whereby the ever righteous Japan would unite Asia under Japan’s benevolent rule. It thus justified the conquest and colonization of Korea and proceeded to invade China during my teenage years. In all of Japan’s military exploits, the Japanese people, who were celebrating Japan’s military victories during those years, never experienced war within Japan itself. Japan’s war was always fought someplace else.

Likewise, in all the wars that the U.S. has fought, the U.S. people have known the havoc of war only as it has been inflicted on others and not on the soil of the U.S. continent. When the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon took place on September 11th, as people mourned, the whole nation was in a state of shock mixed with the wrath of nationalism ("God Bless America") against the perpetrators who had invaded their homeland. Similarly, the Japanese learned directly of war on their own soil only when attacked by the U.S. How tragic it is that the spirit of nationalism such as in Japan and in the U.S. has seemed to dull sensitivity to the suffering of other peoples who have been invaded, victimized and brutalized.

Now the U.S. military is invading Afghanistan. The U.S. leaders are proclaiming that this is the war of the good against evil. Civilization and democracy that the U.S. and its allies represent are under attack. As the U.S. television and media so prominently displays, "America Strikes Back" — the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan is to get at the terrorists, it is claimed. The war fever in the U.S. now reminds me of the kind of militarism which I sensed in Japan during my stay there in 1939-40 and then in the United States following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

As the war rages on, we face the horrifying prospect of millions in Afghanistan people starving to death and dying of disease (based on the UNICEF estimate, upwards of 5.5 to 7.7 million people, 70% of them women and children). Aggravated by U.S. military actions, this does not yet seem to have worked itself into the consciousness of the people in the U.S. The mainline media, for most the only source of information, is not reporting much about the disastrous consequences of the U.S. invasion on the Afghanistan people.

In the midst of this massive national and worldwide catastrophe, those of us who are opposed to the present U.S.-declared "war on terrorism" are faced with a formidable challenge. But unlike during World War II and other recent war eras (with the exception of the latter part of the Vietnam War), there seems to be more vocal and assertive peace and human rights activism today in the U.S. Herein lies hope for the cessation of war and for winning of peace. These groups around the nation are small in size but nevertheless numerous and committed. They seem to be working ever more closely together, and could ultimately succeed in communicating to others, including some in the mainline media, the insane nature of the U.S.’ unilateral violent military action. It is to be hoped that more people within the superpower U.S. will help this nation to learn to resolve problems in peaceful collaboration with other peoples, and not to resort to violence and brute force as response to crimes against humanity, thereby compounding violence with more violence.

The U.S. as superpower is used to unilateral actions. It has relied on its powerful status to pressure other individual nations as well as the United Nations to implement policies favorable to U.S. interests. Aware of this dominance of the U.S. in international relations, increasingly peace and human rights groups are calling on the U.S. to act as a responsible member of a worldwide community. There are calls for the rules of international law and morality to prevail to which all parties would be accountable. Thus crimes against humanity when committed — whether by so called "rogue groups" or by superpower nations such as the U.S. — would be judged according to internationally agreed upon rules of justice applicable to all.

There are always underlying causes in conflicts. In international relations, there are histories of longstanding and deep-seated injustice. Wars have been waged by nations and groups as means to supposedly restore justice. However, it will hopefully become evident to more people (particularly in the superpower U.S.) that wars create more problems, and lead to future wars. With the world becoming more closely interrelated and with technological advances in war weaponry, wars only succeed in destroying people and ultimately the planet earth.

One modest recent attempt by the international community to deal with past injustices was the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa this past summer. In particular, Non-Governmental Organizations brought pressure on the WCAR to deal with the massive injustice of the history of slavery of Africans. This took the form of consideration for reparations to people of African descent. The U.S. government, in opposition to the desires of third world nations and justice groups within the U.S., refused to discuss the issue. Sending only low-level representatives (and those appeared only at the beginning of the conference), the U.S. refused to participate in the reparations issue, and walked out of the WCAR for the remainder of the conference.

While claiming to be concerned about racism, the U.S. refused to consider concrete actions that might have been the beginning of repairing history. However inadequate the conference may have been in dealing with some issues, nevertheless the WCAR was an example of how the international community can attempt to deal with deep-seated injustices of the past. It was also an example of how such injustices, when not resolved, become the source of conflicts, even centuries later.

When the United States "walked out" of the WCAR to oppose the agendas of reparations to blacks and of Palestinian/Israeli issues, the "whole world" watched. On this topic, the Boston Globe newspaper had a headline, "U.S. Runs from Conference, But It Can’t Hide (Derrick Z. Jackson)."

We must hope that the recent trend of efforts dedicated to human rights, justice and peace, particularly in the U.S., will continue. Activists must to come together to call for change in the U.S.’ relation to the world, particularly to the third world and its peoples. Regardless of the present state of hostility and suspicion of the Arab/Muslim world that seems to prevail in the U.S. today, the peacemakers and human rights workers will continue their struggle, knowing that there is no alternative but peace on earth for the survival of us all.

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