though fit as a flea

This is an exert from an update of a UK CPTer in the West Bank. Hope is a rare commodity in situations of long-term conflict, so this made me really happy and I wanted to share it with all of you:

"...I've been looking back at my time here and comparing the situation now with how things were maybe a couple of years ago. The main local community leader told me a couple of days ago that he thinks the Palestinians in the area have found their voice. There is no doubt that this community works together to resist injustice. Their response is non-violent, but there is no passivity here. Every day kids come to school in defiance of the risk of settler attacks on the way.

Every day shepherds take their flocks out and farmers harvest their crops. They go nearer to the illegal Israeli outpost of Havat Maon than I have seen them do before. Shepherds regularly graze animals unmolested on land the other side of road 317, while a couple of years ago soldiers arrived to move them on almost immediately. The villagers are using the Israeli legal system whenever they can. The photos of an action to remove an Israeli roadblock just before I got here show that the whole community was involved, old women, young women and children in the forefront just as much as the men. That's a change from a demonstration two years ago when the women were very much to the side. The sight of settlers does not automatically raise anxiety in the way that it did a couple of years ago. And somehow I have the sense that the Israeli police and civil administration (a more permanent presence than the soldiers who come and go) have a respect for the Palestinians in the community. In this area the last few years have seen the growth of Palestinian non-violent resistance. I find it inspirational and a real privilege to see.

Although I'm tired (though fit as a flea), I can't wait to come back..."

I don't know if I believe this, but I like it

"Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself then providence moves too...whatever you can do or dream you can begin it. Boldness has genius and magic in it. Begin it now."

- Goethe

St. George's Day

If you click on the dragon picture on the right you can watch the film:
www.danielingrambrown.co.uk

I think it is a really strong comment on religion and patriotism. For the record, the maker of the film is a Christian.

An MCCer in Haiti

http://kwhildebrand.blogspot.com/

whatever your sphere

http://blizzard.cs.uwaterloo.ca/tetherless/video/

Here's a great little story, it doesn't matter what field you work in, you can do good stuff!
(The video isn't thrill a minute, but I think it's worth watching.)

living books

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article3790377.ece

I'm not sure what I think of this. I mean...hm...

a choice in one direction

"Mindful of the grace and trust which has been extended to us, mindful that the process of discernment is an ongoing one which requires that we listen to contrary as well as agreeing voices, mindful that every choice in one direction means a choice in another direction not taken, we are nevertheless grateful to be here, grateful to all of you, grateful, most of all, to the God who calls, the God who answers."

http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2008/04/16/iraq-letter-cpt-iraq-team-constituents

I love my faith

A new friend looked up Mennonites on Wikipedia and told me that it said basically what I'd said when trying to describe this odd little blip in Christian history. So today I just went to see what Wiki had to say, and it made me glow with very un-Menno pride. What a great little denomination! I then checked out Ten Thousand Villages and realized I'd had the decade and a few other details wrong, but again, what a wonderful thing to be connected to!
I know we're just human and flawed, but still...

*beams*

Not that it's really possible to be unbiased...

But this gentleman has some interesting things to say. I heard him speak this week, and I appreciated his focus on economics. I think, in the spirit of this profile though, he doesn't see economics as inherently also political. Which mystifies me:

http://my.brandeis.edu/profiles/one-profile?profile_id=457

I really hope he is right

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89164759&sc=emaf

action art

From the London Catholic Worker mailing list:
"CATHOLIC WORKERS GUILTY OF DEFENDING THE INNOCENT

Following a peace protest at Northwood military headquarters near Rickmansworth, three Catholic Workers were found guilty of soaking the main sign base with fake blood. Susan Clarkson, Martin Newell and Scott Albrecht were ordered to pay a total of £315 each in fines and costs today at Watford Magistrates Court.

On the morning of December 28th 2007, the three had put red paint, to symbolise the blood of the victims of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, on the name plate by the main gate. They had then knelt down to pray as they were arrested. They were later charged with ‘criminal damage’ after being detained for 14 hours in Watford Police Station. While they were being held, the Catholic Worker Farmhouse near Rickmansworth was raided by a squad of 10 police looking for evidence.

The three defended themselves by stating that these wars are illegal under international law and immoral, and that they have a legal and moral duty to try to bring them to an end. They said that they believed they had in fact improved, not damaged, the sign, by making it a more truthful representation of the nature of activities at the base. The court also heard that they had acted in a peaceful, calm and respectful way, and were friendly with a number of the military personnel at the base who were sympathetic to their cause.

They were accompanied on their act of witness by a number of friends carrying placards with the words “War shall cease all over the Earth… Psalm 46” , “We all have blood on our hands”, "Northwood HQ, calling the shots in Iraq and Afghanistan from leafy suburbia!", and remembering the dead of all parties in Iraq and Afghanistan, while reading out a list of the names of the dead.

Northwood is the headquarters for British joint forces (air, land and sea, as well as special forces like the SAS) deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as Trident nuclear submarines. The Northwood facility has 2,000 employees and is presently undergoing a major expansion, up-grading and refit to make it ready to work with the new European Defence Force. Its website asserts that “Northwood is very much in the front line” of military operations.

The three made a statement to the police on the day and to the court: "We come here today on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, when the Christian churches commemorate the day when Herod ordered the killing of small children in his attempt to kill the child Jesus, to pray, to remember, to resist and to repent. We pray for all the dead of the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, civilian and military but especially for the innocent. We pray that our hearts may be strengthened with the faith to embrace non-violence as a means of resolving conflicts.

We remember those who have had their lives devastated by war. War does not work; it kills the innocent and destroys our earth. We resist the war making machine of the government of this country by coming to this military headquarters and transforming the signs outside. We use signs and symbols to reveal the bloodshed of war and our hope that the message of non-violence which Jesus gave us in the Gospels, and for which he gave his life, will be for the healing of the nations. We repent for our complicity in the deaths of the innocent by too often allowing our fear to keep us silent. We pray that our hearts may be disarmed and invite our brothers and sisters in the military to allow their hearts to be disarmed also. We encourage them to refuse to fight and kill"."