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Contents:
Norman, Harmeet, and James of the Christian Peacemaker Team in Iraq, are held
hostage as result of their call to “Getting in the Way” of violence, war, and suffering.
James Loney, age 41, community worker, Toronto, Canada. Program coordinator
CPT Canada. Takes testimonies of detainee families in Iraq to report abuses
and recommend rights. Peace activist, trained mediator, works in community
conflict resolution services. Provides housing & support for homeless persons.
Writes, “I believe that our actions as a people of peace to be an expression of
hope for everyone. My hope in practicing non-violence is that I can be a conduit
for the transformative power of God’s love acting upon me as much as I hope it will
act upon others around me.” James wrote the prayers that appear in this space
during Lent.
For our scorched and blackened earth
Forgive us for we know not what we do
For the scandal of billions wasted in war
Forgive us for we know not what we do
For our leaders who wage war in our names / Forgive us for we know not . .
.
For our Caesars and our Herods / Forgive us for we know not . . .
For our generals and tacticians / Forgive us for we know not . . .
For the men and women in battle / Forgive us for we know not . . .
For the men and women training for war / Forgive us for we know not . . .
For the scientists and researchers / Forgive us for we know not . . .
For the arms dealers and the merchants of death / Forgive us for we know not
. . .
For our taxes that funded the evil of war / Forgive us for we know not . .
.
Deliver us, O God / Guide our feet into the ways of peace
In humility, we ask / Hear our prayer. Grant us peace.
Statement from Family & Friends of James Loney –
We, the family and friends of James Loney, are proud of our son, brother,
uncle, and friend for his tireless work with the oppressed. We love him
and are praying for his safe return.
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Norman, Harmeet, and James of the Christian Peacemaker Team in Iraq, are
held hostage as result of their call to “Getting in the Way” of violence, war,
and suffering. Norman Kember,
age 74, London, England, married 45 years, 2 married daughters, a grandson.
Pacifist all his life. Professor of medicine. Volunteer with local
program of food for homeless. Likes walking, birdwatching, writing humorous
songs & sketches.
For the victims of war / Have mercy
Women, men and children / Have mercy
The maimed and the crippled / Have mercy
The abandoned and the homeless / Have mercy
The imprisoned and the tortured / Have mercy
The widowed and the orphaned / Have mercy
The bleeding and the dying / Have mercy
The weary and the desperate / Have mercy
The lost and the forsaken / Have mercy
For those fleeing in terror / Have mercy
If I am not to fight or flee in the face of armed aggression,
be it the overt aggression of the army or the subversive aggression of the terrorist,
then what am I to do? ‘Stand firm against evil’ (Matthew 5:39) seems to
be the guidance of Jesus and Gandhi in order to stay connected with God.
Here in Iraq I struggle with that second form of aggression. I have visual
references and written models of CPTers standing firm against the overt aggression
of an army, be it regular or paramilitary. But how do I stand firm against
a car-bomber or a kidnapper? Clearly the soldier disconnected from God
needs to have me fight. Just as clearly the terrorist disconnected from
God needs to have me flee. Both are willing to kill me using different
means to achieve the same end . . . .
It seems easier somehow to confront anger within my heart than it is to confront
fear. But if Jesus and Gandhi are right then I am not to give in to either.
I am to stand firm against the kidnapper as I am to stand firm against the soldier.
Does that mean I walk into a raging battle to confront the soldiers? Does
that mean I walk the streets of Baghdad with a sign saying “Americans for the
Taking?” No to both counts. But if Jesus and Gandhi are right, then I
am asked to risk my life, and if I lose it to be as forgiving as they were .
. . . (Tom Fox, “Fight or Flight?” October, 2004)
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Norman, Harmeet, James, and Tom, of the Christian Peacemaker Team in Iraq, are
held hostage as result of their call to “Getting in the Way” of violence, war, and
suffering. James Loney has written a series of prayers, “Litany of Resistance,”
we print each Sunday – with biographical notes on the four. Tom Fox,
age 54, Clearbrook, VA, father of two. 2 years work with Iraqi human rights
organizations. 22 years practicing Quaker. Committed to more complete
grasp of Islamic culture and telling truth of war’s effects on ordinary Iraqis.
Plays bass clarinet & recorder & loves to cook! Has been professional grocer.
Works a lot with children. Believes “there is that of God in every person.”
Deliver us, O God / Guide our feet in the ways of our peace
In humility, we ask / Hear our prayer. Grant us peace.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world / Have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world /
Free us from the bondage of sin and death
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world /
Hear our prayer. Grant us peace.
from the daughter of Tom Fox -- I want to be able to communicate
just how loved my father is, but more than that, I just want to hug him. I
want to find a way to give him back the strength he has given me. I want to
show him how much the peace in his heart has inspired me and helped me find my way
in life . . . . I love my father. I am so thankful to have been raised by
such a loving, honest, gentle man who continues to teach me the importance of living
my principles. In pictures, in video, my dad looks so tired right now.
So very tired. I do not care to imagine. I struggle to even find the
space to express my own emotions. I will continue to hold him and everyone
that he is with in the Light and pray for a peaceful resolution.
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Norman Kember, Harmeet Singh Sooden, James
Loney, Tom Fox -- members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams’ Iraq Peace Team
– are being held hostage in Iraq. CPTers bear direct nonviolent witness to peace,
justice and solidarity in dangerous places of the world – “Getting in the Way”
of violence, war and suffering in behalf of innocent peoples. James Loney,
of Toronto, Ontario, has written a series of prayers called “Litany of Resistance.”
We will print one each Sunday as the “way” part of “The Walls in Our Way – Our
Way Past the Walls.”
Let us pray –
You have learned how it is said / Love your
neighbor and hate your enemy
But I say to you who are listening / Love your
enemies
Do good to those who hate you / Bless those
who curse you
Be compassionate / Judge not
Do not condemn / Grant pardon
Because the amount you measure out / Is the
amount you will be given back
Let everything you do/ Be done in love
Blessed are the poor / For theirs is the kingdom
of God
Blessed are they who mourn now / For they will
be comforted
Blessed are the meek / For they will inherit
the earth
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice
/ For they will be satisfied
Blessed are the merciful / For they will be
shown mercy
Blessed are the poor in heart / For they will
see God
Blessed are the peacemakers
For they will be called the daughters and sons
of God
Blessed are they who are persecuted because of
righteousness
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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Scripture strongly affirms ministries of spiritual
healing . . . The root of the word healing in New Testament Greek,
sozo, is the same as that of salvation and wholeness.
Spiritual healing is God’s work of offering persons balance, harmony, and
wholeness of body, mind, spirit, and relationships through confession, forgiveness,
and reconciliation. Through such healing, God works to bring about reconciliation
between God and humanity, among individuals and communities, within each person,
and between humanity and the rest of creation. The New Testament records
that Jesus himself healed the estranged and sick and sent out his disciples
on ministries of healing. James calls us also to pray for and anoint the
sick, that they may be healed.
All healing is of God. The Church’s healing
ministry in no way detracts from the gifts God gives through medicine and psychotherapy.
It is no substitute for either medicine or the proper care of one’s health.
Rather, it adds to our total resources for wholeness.
Healing is not magic, but underlying it is the
great mystery of God’s love. Those who minister spiritual healing are
channels of God’s love. Although no one can predict what will happen in
a given instance, many marvelous healings have taken place.
God does not promise that we shall be spared
suffering but does promise to be with us in our suffering. Trusting that
promise, we are enabled to recognize God’s sustaining presence in pain, sickness,
injury, and estrangement.
Likewise, God does not promise that we will
be cured of all illnesses; and we all must face the inevitability of death.
A Service of Healing is not necessarily a service of curing, but it provides
an atmosphere in which healing can happen. The greatest healing of all
is the reunion or reconciliation of a human being with God. When this
happens, physical healing sometimes occurs, mental and emotional balance is
often restored, spiritual health is enhanced, and relationships are healed.
For the Christian the basic purpose of spiritual healing is to renew and strengthen
one’s relationship with the living Christ. . . .
Laying on of hands, anointing with oil, and
the less formal gesture of holding someone’s hand all show the power of touch,
which plays a central role in the healings recorded in the New Testament. .
. . Anointing the forehead with oil is a sign act invoking the healing love
of God. The oil points beyond itself and those doing the anointing to
the action of the Holy Spirit and the presence of the healing Christ, who is
God’s Anointed One.
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“Calypso Freedom”
Original tune, “The Banana Boat Song” from Jamaica.
Freedom lyrics, sit-in movement. New arrangement by Bernice Johnson
Reagon and Evelyn Maria Harris.
Freedom, give us
freedom / Freedom’s coming and it won’t be long (repeat)
Well I took a trip
on a Greyhound bus / I got to fight segregation now this we must
(I got to fight
segregation around the nation,
we got to keep on
fighting all around the world)
Well I took a trip
down to Alabama way / We met a lot of violence on Mother’s Day
(but I ain’t scared
of no violence, / I won’t run from violence no)
Well on to Mississippi
with speed we go
The blue shirted
policemen they meet us at the door
(but I ain’t scared
of no policemen no they don’t scare me,
they can wear blue
shirts or white shirts or any color shirts, I don’t care)
Well you can hinder
me here, you can hinder me there
But I go right down
on my knees in prayer
(I will pray for
freedom / I will sing for freedom
I keep a-fighting
for freedom, I keep a-marching for freedom)
The
words of judgment are over; God is now ready to do a new and totally
different thing.
The
day of salvation is at hand.
The
forthcoming salvation will be analogous to the Exodus: God will
make a way through the wilderness between Babylonia and Palestine .
. . just as God made a way through the sea when the Hebrews came out
of Egypt.
(Fred Craddock)
I consider
the human person to be the irremovable central place of the struggle between
the world’s movement away from God and its movement toward God . . . . Our age
is intent on escaping from the demanding “ever anew.”
(Martin
Buber)
Poetry
will change your name, / you shall no longer be called
wounded,
outcast, lonely or afraid. / I will change your name,
your new
name shall be / confidence, joyfulness, overcoming one,
faithfulness,
friend of God, / one who seeks my face.
(D. J. Butler)
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If you think you are too
small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.
– Bette
Reese
Everyday problems teach
us to have a realistic attitude. They teach us that life is what life is:
flawed, yet with tremendous potential for joy and fulfillment. Everything
is workable.
– Lama Surya Das, Buddhist Lama, Author of Awakening
the Buddha Within
The best possible work
has not yet been done. If I were 21 today, I would elect to join the communicating
network of those young people, the world over, who recognize the urgency
of life-supporting change, knowledge joined to action: knowledge about what
man has been and is can protect the future.
– Margaret
Mead, Anthropologist
You gain strength, courage,
and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear
in the face… You must do the things you think you cannot do.
– Eleanor
Roosevelt
“Thank God for children
These wondrous gifts he
has given
It doesn’t matter if they’re
mine
They are still a part of
me”
–
Anonymous
“It takes a village to
raise a child.”
– African
Proverb
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“Abundant
Catch”
On the shore fish toss in the stretched nets of Simon, James, and John.
High above, swallows. Wings of butterflies. Cathedrals.
(Czeslaw Milosz)
“The Prayer
of Jonah” / (or: the futility of hatred)
Out of my distress I called
on you, O Lord, / but you did not answer me.
I refused to preach repentance
to the Ninevites, / but you forced me.
When I sailed away in the opposite
direction, / you hurled a violent wind at me.
Your monster swallowed me and
returned me to your path.
Repentance I would not preach
in Nineveh,
rather I cursed them, “Forty
days more and Nineveh shall be
destroyed.” / But you
did not listen to me.
You listened to the people of
Nineveh as they sat in ashes
covered with sackcloth.
I am angry because you are a
gracious and merciful God,
slow to anger, / rich in clemency,
/ loathe to punish.
If you will not destroy Nineveh
then give me death.
It is better for me to die than
to see my enemy live.
(Thomas
Reese)
The welcoming movement offers
a place of hospitality for those in the church open to God’s whisper of a new
thing. It witnesses to the lives of those seeking to take seriously the
incarnation, God’s good creation, and sexuality and sexual orientation as part
of that good creation. In so doing, it stands in the tradition of Jesus,
who overturned religious and social traditions that diminished people’s status
as children of God. It stands with Jesus in refusing to accommodate that
which excludes whole groups of people. It stands with Jesus who saw himself
as an outcast in his own land, and with a God who grants protection to the outcast.
And it affirms and witnesses to the belief that God’s grace is available to
all.
(Kelly Turney,
Shaping Sanctuary)
Surround me, O God, with your presence and / All
encompassing, unconditional love. / Nurture me; / Carry
me in your sheltering arms; / Turn me toward your / Unlimited
grace that is / Available to all – just for the asking. /
Relieve my anxieties and my fears, for / You are my
true Sanctuary.
(“Mirror Prayer”)
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January 15, 2006
God, creator of the universe, source of all lives, inspirer of human
imagination, is both story-teller and story-listener. It is this God
who empowers us to tell stories and listen to them. Stories expand
human vision and deepen human awareness of the mysteries of life and creation
. . . .
(C. S. Song, Pacific School of Religion)
“I can remember, I can remember when Negroes were just going around as
Ralph has said, so often, scratching where they didn’t itch, and laughing when
they were not tickled. But that day is all over. We mean business
now, and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God’s world . . . .
And that’s what this whole thing is about. We aren’t engaged in
any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are
saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people.
We are saying that we are God’s children. And that we don’t have to live
like we are forced to live . . . .
Bull Connor didn’t know history. He knew a kind of physics that
somehow didn’t relate to the tran physics that we knew about. And that
was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water would put out.
And we went before the fire hoses; we had known water. If we were Baptist
or some other denomination, we had been immersed. If we were Methodist,
and some others, we had been sprinkled, but we knew water.”
(Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1968, Memphis,
TN)
Hear well this good news, trust the word spoken, / Receive a new name,
become my own;
you are Beloved, precious and chosen, / with you I am well-pleased to
make my home.
Born of the Spirit, tempered and tested, / washed in the water, forgiveness
known.
Blessed and anointed with grace unmeasured, / you are Beloved, my child,
my own . . . .
Let us dream God’s dream, glimpsed on the mountain, / first by the one
King, then King again;
a dream deferred now, waiting the fountain / where justice rolls down
and praise ascends.
(John Middleton, “Beloved Child, Beloved Community,”
from reading Henri Nouwen’s Life of the Beloved and articles about
Dr. King’s vision of Beloved Community)
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January 8, 2006
“Sunrise”
You can / die for it -- / an idea,
or the world. People
have done so, / brilliantly, / letting
their small bodies be bound
to the stake, / creating
an unforgettable / fury of light. But
this morning, / climbing the familiar hills
in the familiar / fabric of dawn I thought
of China, / and India
and Europe, and I thought / how the sun
blazes / for everyone just
so joyfully / as it rises
under the lashes / of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many! / What is my name?
What is the name / of the deep breath I would take
over and over / for all of us? Call it
whatever you want, it is / happiness, it is another one
of the ways to enter / fire.
Mary
Oliver, New & Selected Poems
She who reconciles the ill-matched threads / of her life, and weaves them gratefully
into a single cloth – it’s she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
and clears it for a different celebration
where the one guest is you. / In the softness of the evening / it’s you she
receives.
You are the partner of her loneliness, / the unspeaking center of her monologues.
With each disclosure you encompass more / and she stretches beyond what limits
her,
to hold you.
Rainer
Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
Translated
Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy
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