Creating a Culture of Peace

New article by Joan Chittister on the formation of the Organizing Committee of the Council of Elders:

There's a new group in town that you ought to know about. They just may be the beginning of a bridge between a climate of despair and a vision of new life for us all.

It's obvious that social change is in the air again. But thanks to this new group, it may be about to happen differently. Up until now, change at least initially has commonly pitted one part of society against another, Republicans against Democrats, north against south, white against black, the old against the young.

In 1922, mainstream types said of the young women who picketed the White House on behalf of women's suffrage, "They're destroying the family." Women who knew their place, "nice" women, turned their faces away from such a disgusting sight, ashamed of females who would act so boldly. "Upstanding" men dragged the women off to prison to force-feed them for wanting to do something as obscene as casting votes.

The vote came, of course, as necessary change always does. Eventually, even "nice" women did it; upstanding men accepted it; family life survived it. But nobody learned much. Almost a hundred years later, we're still suspicious of those who dare in every generation to suggest a change in systems that may have served the last era but is argued to be destroying this one.

So the temptation if not, in fact, the well-worn strategy is to brush off new social impulses of the next generation like the Occupy Wall Street movement as some kind of youthful rite of passage...  Read the rest of this National Catholic Reporter article here.

PLEDGE of Nonviolent Public Witness

I agree to reflect on and abide by the following nonviolent spiritual discipline:
1.  We will be open and respectful to all.
2.  We will exemplify caring and compassion for all.
3.  We will ground our actions in our spiritual traditions and practices.
4.  We will use no verbal or physical violence toward anyone, including the police and those who disagree with us.

...or how we spread CCP nonviolence training across our Episcopal Diocese

The Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem, PA has been blessed to work directly with Janet Chisholm, the designer of Creating a Culture of Peace, to offer nonviolence trainings in our diocese.  She was based locally for four years at Kirkridge Retreat Center, coordinating Peace & Justice Programs, following her time at Fellowship of Reconciliation and as Episcopal Peace Fellowship (EPF) national chairperson.  During her stay in our diocese, Janet also became a member, and later chair, of the Diocesan Peace Commission. She inspired several commission members to take Creating a Culture of Peace basic nonviolence training and also the facilitator training, so that they could offer CCP training throughout the diocese.  In the past five years, CCP has offered seven 3-day basic trainings and five 4-day trainings of trainers for us. These efforts have included several that were diocesan-sponsored or for which there were diocesan scholarships. They occurred first at Kirkridge Retreat Center, then later and today in congregations in both the southern and northern parts of the diocese as lower-cost commuter trainings.

Be warned.  After three days of nonviolence training in Minneapolis conducted by facilitators provided by Creating a Culture of Peace, I slept for twenty-four hours straight.  It was worth every moment. 

Take this training and take it seriously!  As German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, the “Desert Fox” of WW II fame said, “The best form of welfare for the troops is first class training.”  Do not doubt that nonviolence is properly conducted in deadly earnest and requires preparation.