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Push Back to Nonviolence

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Jim's Peacemaking Newsletter
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Dear Friends,        Push Back to Nonviolence

10/22 thru 11/9 I was in Oregon where I gave 13 talk/discussions in schools and churches, one of them in Spanish. As usual I got pushback each time where people expressed their questions about my proposal: To tell Isis we really want to talk and to show it we will stop bombing and instead drop humanitarian aid like tents, clothing, and medicine. The most common reservations were “I believe we could never talk to Isis. They are not reasonable.” My responses were something like this. “I have the same questions. But we might be very surprised. I think they may say, ‘Let’s see how serious they are.’ They too are created in the image of God. Then there is that within all of us to respond to love. “I don’t know for sure what they would say, but if not this then we need to try something else. We can always go back to bombing, which obviously just makes their support grow.” I always appreciated the pushback response, for it always brought out others’ similar thoughts. This enabled me to share my response to their thinking. I sensed each time afterwards that most people in the audiences thought my proposal to talk to Isis was a reasonable alternative to our 15 years of military action which has not been working. Always many heartily thanked me. Often I added, as a church we should be asking God to show us the ways of Jesus to deal with the Mideast. Instead of government think tanks for figuring how to kill more efficiently, we need think tanks to figure out how to make peace nonviolently. Wars resolve and end with talking, Vietnam, War II, War I… Why not seek to talk at the beginning? Does being killed and killing bring us closer to talking? Pray my sharings will move people to pray and lobby our representatives. Again donations are much appreciated.

Shalom, Jim

Also I spent 3 good days in Washington State visiting our daughter Emily and her family.
Here is a Quaker family with whom I had many especially good conversations on peace and the election and not always agreeing.  All but 2 of them spoke Spanish. The son on the left in the dark shirt let me use his car and bed while he was off house sitting.
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