Newsletters

Date: November 16th 2007

Sisters and Brothers,

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how one’s faith blurs the distinction between the personal and the political, or between the personal and the professional. The task of good organizing during this difficult time is to create opportunities for people of faith to get involved in ways that make it difficult to tell the difference between the two. Our hope with the Peace Fellowship is to invite folks to take action that will embody the values we profess as followers of Jesus.

• We want to see grandparents and their grandchildren show up at events where they are confident that their commitment to be nonviolent and positive in their approach to peacemaking will be honored.
• We want to encourage folks who are in the pews together on Sunday morning to commit to take bold, daring action for the cause of peace during the week – an extension of what it means to be “church.”
• We’re looking for students who know that their education takes on real meaning when they engage the world around them and go to work on the things that matter most in a world of need: justice, care for creation, and responding to violence in our communities and around the world.
• We’re looking for parents who want to model what it means to make a difference for their kids, inviting them to work together to change the world.

Over the next few months, we’ll continue to highlight some of the opportunities to get involved. I hope that you’ll see that our commitment is not to create good programs, but rather to offer opportunities for action that will help ground you in the things that are most important to you.

This weekend, please keep the folks who involved in nonviolent protest in your prayers – especially those gathered at the gates of Ft. Benning in GA to close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC (www.soaw.org), and those here in Arizona who are speaking out against torture (www.southwestwitness.org). Many Presbyterians are among them.

Peace to you, and more to follow soon.

Rick