Jim's Peacemaking

Hello Friends #3 Greetings. I know that this letter is coming to you fairly soon after the last letter. However, the urgency of the war situation has made me feel I need to get this out to you; it is to encourage us to commit ourselves to pray for peace. Your honest feed back on these sharings are always appreciated. The dialog which we held last Sunday, titled “War? Peace? What Do We Do Now?” went really well. The participants felt so good about it that when a 70-year-old vet suggested having another discussion on Sunday March 2, only positive comments were offered in spite of people’s busy schedules. The dialog was held in an Open Space format. The results were not quite what I had hoped for, but I understand that Open Space formats usually have the outcomes that the participants had been hoping for and not what the leadership tried to direct. If you want to find out more about how Open Space works go to http://www.openspaceworld.com/users_guide.htm Below is a prop...

Friends #2 Hello, again. I’ve decided to try to write short updates of my peacemaking work every two-three weeks, as a way of keeping friends like you informed. If at any point you need to use the delete button because you are overwhelmed with e-mail, rest assured I will not be offended; I use it a lot myself. So, you can expect to receive a letter like this every few weeks. One thing that stands out for me lately is how central the teaching “ to love our enemies” is to peacemaking and the teachings of Jesus. This has led me to put George Bush and each of his cabinet members on my prayer list. Praying for them has been transforming me so that I can see them more as brothers and sisters and less as the evil opposition, as I previously have often seen them. Along with this has come the insight that we really all have the same goal in mind--peace--though we differ on the means. This has led me to think that there might be a space in which we can be in solidarity with each other. ...

Peacemaking Report #1 Hello Friends, This last month I participated in an intense training session for those who are planning to be part of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). This is some sharing from my experience during the training that might interest you. Training was very intense and full. Much of the info was just introductory because of limited time, just giving us tastes of the subjects. We were encouraged to do more study later. One topic was racism. Training was located in a "rough" neighborhood -- police even stopped and informed us this was not a safe place to be. I become aware that when I walked down the street and I passed a stranger of color I often had a certain fear that was absent when the stranger was white. After going to church at the First Church of the Brethren, which is 80% black, I often asked for a ride to the training center. I began to notice how I always asked whites, so the last time I asked a black man. ...