Newsletters

Date: May 28th 2008

(This is a rambling note on the transition of the PPF's offices and the Ufford-Chases to Stony Point Center in New York. If you skip it, you won't miss much of critical importance. As always, stay up on next events by checking the website at http://www.presbypeacefellowship.org.)

Friends,

Lately I've spent a great deal of time celebrating relationships and saying goodbye. I've made two trips across the border into Mexico to visit with folks with whom I've been friends for nearly twenty years. Sitting Tree, our small intentional community of more than thirteen years, held a small retreat in April during which we all camped out in our yard together (kids and adults), had pancakes and bacon cooked on our camp stoves in the yard, and then went to the park for Ultimate Frisbee and Capture the Flag. A few Sundays ago Southside Presbyterian Church commissioned our family to continue our work for justice as we move to Stony Point Center this summer, and a few hours later we held what my wife Kitty called a special "Quaker Meeting for Worship for Deep Breathing" at Pima Friends Meeting. That evening, nearly a hundred people joined us at Sitting Tree for a potluck, great music and sharing memories.

On May 19th (my 44th birthday) we cleared the last hurdle holding us in Tucson as our family went to juvenile court to celebrate the formal adoption of Troy and Leana. In a few days, having been as careful as possible about saying good-bye, we'll head east in a rental truck and the family car, and after a summer of travel and time with family, we'll settle in at Stony Point Center in August. Kitty and I will share a full-time position as "Transitional Co-Directors," and I will continue half-time as the Director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship.

Many friends and colleagues have wondered how we could leave behind so many important relationships here on the border, but Kitty has captured our hopes with her articulation that we intend to stretch our roots across the country rather than pull them up and transplant them. Twenty years ago the border seemed a distant reality to people in the interior of the country, but I now see that border in almost every community I visit across the country. Further, our concerns for economic justice, sustainable food systems, nonviolent accompaniment in situations of conflict, care for creation and massive migrations of people are more obviously connected to one another with each passing year. The trick is not to leave the border behind, but to carry our learnings and our relationships with us as we confront similar challenges in this new place where God has called us.

I'm excited about what this move means for the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship. As we've strengthened our work with similar fellowships and organizations working for peace from other Christian denominations and faith traditions (see http://www.christianpeacewitness.org and http://www.olivebranchinterfaith.org), my passion for the work of nonviolent direct action to protest war and torture has grown. Much of the locus of that organizing effort needs to be on the east coast, where all of us can work together to focus our energy on building the strongest possible witness against the war that the faith community can muster in Washington, D.C.

For those who have been a part of the Peace Fellowship for a long time, this move from our historic location in Nyack seven miles up the road to Stony Point is a great way to keep our connections to the Fellowship of Reconciliation strong. Further, Stony Point itself offers to strengthen the PPF with its history of several generations of witnessing for justice and reaching across barriers of separation. This move is, in many ways, a return to the historic roots of the PPF.

Though many have also questioned what my move to half-time will mean for the work of PPF, this too offers a chance to intentionally model what the next generation of vibrant, faith-grounded work for peace will look like. I believe that our work will continue to be fully dependent on the efforts of volunteers, part-timers and "tentmakers" who have other jobs to pay the bills. I'm pleased to experiment with that model myself, and to struggle, along with our volunteers with the challenge of juggling multiple vocational commitments. This is, in many ways, our attempt to issue a call to all of you to step up and offer your talents to the work of creating a meaningful, authentically Christian, nonviolent movement for peace in the world. My job, mostly, is to encourage and support all of you in your efforts and to resist the temptation to try to become the focal point of that movement.

In many ways, it's that desire for a committed new generation of followers who radically re-order their lives that has planted the seeds for the Ecumenical Order for Peace and Justice which we hope to foster at Stony Point Center. Over the last couple of years, many of us in the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, together with many other friends and colleagues, have been trying to imagine how we might give shape to a community that will provide spiritual grounding and concrete skill-building for the peace and justice movement. Our hope is to capture the imagination of a new generation of people of all ages who are committed to give their lives over to following Jesus. We're aware that what we're dreaming about is nothing new. It grows out of thousands of years of faithful folks re-imagining the church, and it builds on the efforts of countless others around the world who are experimenting with new monasticism, global partnership, emergent worship, the missional church , and new expressions of Christian community.

The Board of Directors at Stony Point and the staff and elected members of the General Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church (USA) – which owns Stony Point Center - have affirmed that this is an experiment worthy of the commitment of the resources of Stony Point. The title "Transitional" Co-Directors for Kitty and me is meant to imply a general recognition that Stony Point is going to become something new. Though it's difficult to quantify, we hope to plant an intentional community there at Stony Point that will model a spiritual practice of a Daily Rule of Prayer, weekly worship, and Sabbath Keeping. We expect that community to reflect the best of the reformed theological tradition, spiritual practices and disciplines borrowed from other Christian traditions, and strong partnership with communities from other faith traditions as well.

Together, we dream that Stony Point will become known as the place where people of faith will come from around the world to strategize and work together to develop the skills to transform situations of violent conflict and entrenched injustice in their communities. Committed Christians must give their lives, together with partners from other faith traditions, to the overwhelming challenge of our time – to confront the lies of a security based on aggression and power with the far-more sustainable, gospel-centered vision of a security based on love for one another, generosity, and justice that crosses all boundaries.

So stay tuned, my friends. You can expect the witness of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship to grow exponentially over the next several years. You can expect an ongoing process of discernment at Stony Point and in sister communities across the country as we try to imagine a renewed kind of Christian community. Perhaps most importantly, you can expect, as we do, the movement of God's spirit as we all seek to be faithful. We look forward to your participation in the journey.

Peace to you,

Rick