- Five years too many.

Yet again, we mourn this hellish incarnation of war. This war is on Iraq, and it is showing yet again why all war is humanity’s great sin.

Here are some pictures: one sign from today’s rally at San Francisco’s Civic Center (put to good use); the other sign from the two-way protest at Berkeley City Council a few weeks ago (the one where the Lafayette Flag Brigade deigned to enter Berkeley city limits in order to sing patriotic songs (poorly) and make it known to anyone who would listen that they didn’t like the Berkeley City Council’s decision to support the Code Pink protests at the Berkeley Marine recruiting station; in response, ‘Code Pinklets’ (as the Flag Brigadiers called them) and folks from the World Can’t Wait campaigns staged a counter-protest; I’ll let you guess which protest this sign is from).

The pictures below are from the memorial vigil at Grace Cathedral. As an acolyte passed among the crowd dispersing incense, clergy from various faiths (among them Christian, Buddhist, and Jewish) read off the names of victims of this war on Iraq. We crowded around them, standing among pairs of shoes placed on the cathedral steps.

The effect of the shoes was profound. I appreciated the somber tone of the vigil, even while my soul is fed by the liturgy of street protests just as much. The memorial vigil allowed me a few moments to pause and try to really remember the loss, as Jesus urged us to do as his disciples.

I imagined the people who, but for being murdered by this war, might have stood there on the steps filling those shoes. There would have been hundreds of them, thousands, hundreds of thousands – the actual number don’t really matter when mourning. Too many. I wondered if they would stand in those shoes staring out from the steps, as the shoes were pointing, facing the world with accusing eyes, or if they might turn around and listen to the prayers being spoken from the top of the cathedral steps.

With the lessons from my Swedenborgian friend still fresh on my mind, I understood for the first time the concept of angels, at least as she describes them: the disembodied presence of those humans who have died but are still among us. And even though fear (and its companion, hatred) was the source of their deaths, these angels only love, and ask us to remember.

I also knew that a pair of shoes was not nearly enough to remember the complexity of even one single person lost in this war. Standing next to my partner and amongst many of my dear friends, I felt just how much effort it would take to properly remember anyone so dear to me as them.

Shoes were not made to memorialize murders; they are not strong enough to bear the burden. But they are an important start.

- UMC Bishops Pass Resolution on Iraq War

Passed on from Kim Montenegro

Dear Bishop Shamana, District Superintendents, Administrative Assistants, & Conference Communications,

On November 9, 2007 The United Methodist Council of Bishops passed a Resolution on the Iraq War. Click here for a link to the General Board of Church & Society’s website where you can sign to support the Council of Bishops Resolution. I hope that you will consider signing this “online”. Please pass this info on to your constituents.

Thank you for your consideration, and all that you do.

- She Said, She Said – Reflections on Peace Week

She said:

Here’s a topic that you have all probably wrestled with for some time but that came up again at dinner tonight with a group of PSR students: This week we all reminded ourselves that peace is a good thing. What do we need to do in our own lives to make peace possible in the world? Signing paper plates and delivering them to Barbara Lee makes a statement of our will and intentions. Does it tangibly move us closer to peace? Perhaps, especially if she is able to act on it. Or is it just good show? Certainly she needs to know how we feel. What else are we doing? Are we reading books to learn how food supply, $5 Walmart tee-shirts from China, international debt, oil supply, and the arms lobby are perpetuating the current mess?

Two books mentioned at dinner tonight are Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma and John Perkins’s Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, both of which speak of forces larger than our small voices working for a different god than the one speaking for the poor. In the Dismantling Racism workshop at orientation in August, we first-year Caucasians were confronted with the question, What privileges are we as whites willing to give up/share so that all people, regardless of color, may live in equality? A similar question regarding peace might be, What are we as Americans willing to give up so that people around the world may have food, clothing, shelter, security, freedom from war?

Everything is so interconnected: how many lights we leave on, how long we shower, whether we drive or walk or take public transit, whether we buy organic and local or eat grapes flown in from Venezuela in January. Saying we desire peace is only the first step. How do we give that feet?

She said:

I appreciate your words, thoughts and challenges addressed to all of us. I am, in fact, so appreciative that I think the final paragraph of your email should be posted on our blog site. It appears to me that the questions you raise do not warrant a single answer, but in fact aim to slice through the very idea of single-answer solutions. I dig it. You have highlighted the “interconnected” nature of this war web we’re living in AND simultaneously asked us how we might fling the string(s) so to speak. This is THE conversation that Rev. Lynice Pinkard dared us to have on friday night. Why not take up this conversation as the next phase?

I have to admit I am tired of writing, reading and talking about activism. This is not all I do in the name of “peace,” but the institutions I find myself in highly emphasize these modalities and to a certain extent we academics are domesticated in the ‘house of language’ (Soelle, I think). Having said that, maybe some inspired-embodied-action will come from our dialogue. Besides, when will we ever get past this mind/body dualism? One truly makes possible and reinforces the other, no? Perhaps dialogue through blogging is a way you can keep connected to SEW Peace/Peace Particles. I certainly hope we can keep your voice with us in some way.

In closing, I want to lift up a concept that Rita Nakashima Brock laid down on Friday night at the “Resisting Imperial Peace” EATWT talk: the present moment-ness of love. She basically credited eco-theologians for driving home/bringing back the ‘mindfulness’ of spirituality by connecting our consumer habits with our relationship to deity. The love of a creaturely/earthly g*d now necessitates that we think twice (and hopefullly act different) before leaving the light on, or consuming another round of gas when we can take public transit. In this sense, the prospect of peace and the fulfillment thereof are always at hand…or in your face…and calling us outloud. This is exactly what you have lifted up in your email, Meighan.

What I’m trying to say is that many of us do (or try and fail) the work of peace in the present moment, in ways that are not trumpeted in chapel or celebrated on the wall of Mudd. We can do more, yes, but the SEW Peace got together, not b/c we lacked peace-full action in our own lives, but because we wanted to enliven the (then dead) campus around anti-war issues. Maybe our efforts this week seemed self-serving and narrow. However, the silence of a “progressive and bold” american theological seminary in the face of a corrupt, inhumane, imperialistic war waged by its government was too much for some of us last year. True, children in Iraq are still dying. True, many of us don’t even know the details of geography, ideology and decision making driven to end “terrorism.” But even more true, none of this atrocity will end if we stay posted up in our dorm rooms, heads in books, lips sealed shut and hearts iced over.  Peace Week was a birth-cry. Now, as I think you’ve eloquently pointed out: it’s time to shake. I look forward to your call taking us in new and important directions. May Her grace guide our feet.

Sincerely, Your sister in the struggle.

- Pictures from Peace Week 2007!

Check out our page of pictures and reflections from PSR’s Peace Week 2007 by clicking here.

- Peace Week Events!

Peace Week at the Pacific School of Religion
September 17-21, 2007

Coordinated by PSR students and PSR Peace Particles
(Seminarians to End War and Sow Peace, a.k.a. SEW Peace)
All events are free and open to the public.
For more information, please contact sewpeace <at> gmail.com.

Schedule of Events for Education, Witness, and Action

All Week Growing Art Piece on PSR Quad

Monday

12:30 pm – Mudd Building Consecration of the Art, with music and free peace T-shirts

Tuesday
PSR Chapel Service 11:10 am, PSR Chapel — Luke 16:1-13, “Drop the Debt, not Bombs” – Robyn Morrison, preaching

Wednesday
Taize Worship 7:30 pm, PSR Chapel

Thursday
Healing Prayer Worship Service 6:30 pm, PSR Chapel — Psalm 79

Thursday-Friday
24-Hour Peace Pray-in Buckham Chapel – 6:30 pm – 6:30 pm

Friday – International Day of Prayer for Peace
Peace Teach-in – all workshops take place in the Mudd Building
10:30 am – Workshops:
1. Pastoral Care for Veterans, with VA Hospital Chaplain Carolyn Talmadge
2. Peace for Israel and Palestine, with the Network of Spiritual Progressives’ Nichola Torbett
3. Rebecca Ann Parker sermon, “Theological Education in a Time of Wars,” podcast and discussion
1:30 pm – Workshops:
1. Veterans for Peace, with Ted Arrindal and other PSR veterans
2. Creative Writing for Peace, led by Christina Hutchins
3. ENGAGE Training, with Pace e Bene trainers Ryan Baum and Robyn Morrison (session runs 1:30-4:30 pm)
3:00 pm – Workshops:
1. Peace Pilgrim – movies and discussion, led by Sheryl Butler
2. “Ground Truth” – movie about the Iraq war, hosted by James Leveque

Public Panel 6:30 pm – PSR Bade Museum, “Resisting Imperial Peace: Theological Reflections”

Worship Service 8:30 pm – PSR Quad, Preaching by Lynice Pinkard of First Congregational Church of Oakland, “There is a Balm in Gilead”
Party for the Peaceful 9:30 pm – Mudd 100