Creating a Culture of Peace

...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.

Forty residents of Arlington, MA, gathered at the Calvary Methodist church on March 16^th to participate in a CCP workshop. They had requested preparation for a possible visit to our town by the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church.  In January WBC had threatened to picket the Arlington Children’s Theater’s production of “The Laramie Project” about the life and death of Matthew Shepherd.  The Boston area has been a frequent target of the WBC and their hate-filled signs and scriptures. Although they didn’t end up coming to Arlington this time, they did picket in several surrounding communities, and there is little doubt they will arrive in Arlington someday.

Dave Patterson’s group seized on the idea of  providing  small, personal, sustainable peace gardens throughout the community.  They laid out tasks and a timeline, materials and tools required, likely allies and critics, costs and their assignments and meeting times.