the keynote speaker was Frida Berrigan, peace activist and Senior Program Associate of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation. she spoke about the 'global arms trade', which is all a euphemism except for the 'global' part, which is pretty accurate. 'arms' is a blatant euphemism that really refers to advanced technology designed to kill and maim people and destroy property. 'trade' is something of a misnomer because it's not an equal playing field of exchange between countries; in reality, out of the $55 billion of weapons that are exchanged worldwide each year, the United States supplies 70% of those, and its closest competitor is Italy with a 3.7% share in that market. so, there's mostly one seller and lots of buyers. Frida had many more eye-opening things to say about the 'arms' and the 'trade', but mostly encouraged us to be curious about what's going on, and what is the difference between the arms that the nations think they need to design and produce and stockpile, vs. the kind of strong, true peacemaking arms we need way more of in this world.
the first workshop i went to was about women's spirituality and peacemaking. there was time and creative space for sharing how we as women have been negated by society, told we're not enough and we should be thinner.sexier.quieter.more modest.more shapely.more achievement-oriented.more practical.etc. then we joined in a ritual of remembering times when we have felt powerful as women. the session came from a small-group curriculum called 'Traveling with the Turtle' published by Pace e Bene, a Catholic peace and justice publishing company. we ended with a communal body-sculpture of ourselves in powerful positions, most with arms raised or arms around each other. all the arms we need.
there were images of turtles all over the room, in honor of this small group. i love turtles. my ideal style of living resonates with the intentional taking-time, the purposeful slowness, leading to wisdom because of the space for reflection in the midst of that life-giving pace of activity. also, one image in the room made me think of how turtles have to adapt to different environments. they have to learn to live and move and breathe and navigate equally well on land and in water. they spend their whole lives transitioning between these two, never fully belonging in either. like me! like all third culture kids!
the lunchtime literature tables included a local poetry and painting community, a conscientious objectors league, a campaign for establishing a 'department of peace' in the government, a used book sale, and author/Sacred Heart parishioner/Camden dweller Chris Haw selling and signing his book Jesus for President (co-written with friend Shane Claiborne)
the second session i chose was about the myth of redemptive violence, with stories and reflection questions interwoven with material from Walter Wink's theology of nonviolence shown in Jesus of the gospels. this workshop was led by Fr. Gerard Marable, an African American priest who has had several young male family members shot and killed in Camden, who is a prominent leader in CCOP, who is trying to merge his own parish with a primarily Hispanic parish, and is on the journey of discovering what it means to practice, promote, and pursue peace starting within his own inner violence and his relationships and his community and the world. he brought up an interesting question we have to ask ourselves, to test our cultural competence when we have these kinds of conversations - "who is in the room? and who is not in the room?" for example - he was one of the only black people at the entire gathering. most Sacred Heart members are aging middle class white people from the suburbs who come into the heart of Camden, the middle of a majorly black and hispanic neighborhood, and they do helpful work to serve in the community but not much success involving the community in taking over the work of serving within itself. some folks at this workshop came from a church in Philadelphia where the congregation appears to be 'very integrated', mostly black, some hispanic and some white, and very vibrant and inclusive worship times. but still, this elderly gentleman said, when they have their meetings of the Catholic Peace Fellowship, it's just a few white people who show up, and they're wondering why don't the black parishioners care about these issues. why, Father, when we were behind them in all the civil rights marches and struggles for equality in this country, why won't they stand with us in the justice issues of the world today? why?
my impulse was to ask, well, what are you doing that is somehow not inviting to them? fortunately Fr. Gerard was able to bring this realization to the table very diplomatically, that when we notice certain groups of people whose voices are not in the room, the first thing to do is examine ourselves and what it might be about us that is not inviting them into the room, not making it feel safe or meaningful to them to join in those conversations and efforts.
i wondered to what extent, too, it has to do simply with the life situations of the majority of the black parishioners as opposed to the relatively more affluent and comfortable white parishioners who freely choose to come in from the suburbs to attend these 'integrated' churches in impoverished neighborhoods. can you imagine what it feels like, when you're just trying to survive, just trying to meet the bottom-of-the-psychological-pyramid needs for food security, job security, and emotional security, trying to find support in your immediately-surrounding relationships. all of those issues of nuclear disarmament and fair wages for farm workers in Florida and stopping the far-away war in Afghanistan...seem so distant, so luxurious to worry about when all you can do is work to survive and provide for your family. not that people in poverty are not capable of thinking compassionately and acting to help others beyond their immediate surroundings - they absolutely are capable! and often when issues are presented in a meaningful way, with a deserved sense of urgency and magnitude of need, people who have very little themselves may very well be, proportionately, the more generous to the causes. but if you're talking about bi-monthly meetings with agendas and assignments and action steps toward the distant and relatively abstract goals of ending a war or making peace in the middle east or gaining justice for immigrants or even registering people as conscientious objectors...that may just not seem to matter as much as getting food on the table so that your child is not crying with hunger pains that night or getting frostbite from lack of gloves or boots you couldn't buy that month. what do you think? am i being too simplistic or stereotypical here? there's the people who feel like they don't have all the arms they need to just get through each day, and then there's the people who have arms to spare to lift up all these worthy causes in the world, but not enough to just walk arm in arm alongside their neighbors, their brothers and sisters they clamor to see and embrace in church but turn a blind eye to the kind of homes and jobs and financial situations they go back to after mass. and there's all kinds of others in between and even further extremes. and yet we mostly all have good intentions, we all want to care, we all want to share our arms with somebody, somehow...
and the day concluded with a prayer service honoring a variety of our brothers and sisters in history who have given their arms, their hearts and minds and ears and voices, and even their lives given up in the process of making peace and working for justice, in the hopes that we may do the same, in our own ways, times, and places.
amen.
