Jim's Peacemaking

Hello friends, The guy next to me in the flight into Bogotá just said, "NO, no! Won't work, don't even try it. Don't go there." Then without any explanation, he moved to a back seat in the plane. I guess when he saw me reading Christian Peacemaker Teams newsletter, he saw the word Christian and figured I was an ordinary missionary. So I did not know quite what to do. I had some fear that he did not like missionaries and that is why he moved. I sensed somehow that the Lord wanted me to relate to him, though I was not sure how. So I thought I would at least return the sunglasses which he had left on the seat. And to my surprise, he was very grateful. After a bit he came back and sat with me again and started to do more sharing and was friendlier than before. He said, "I am here on business. I love shooting guns and killing animals and flying airplanes. I have a problem with the FARC guerrillas. I have been in the Marines for fourteen years, and have been a l...

Hello Friends, First on a personal note, I now plan to enter Colombia and get a visitors visa at the airport on September 5th and return on November 21st. I do not know if I will have to go to Ecuador when and if I have to renew it. I hope not. I could just say I have been able to lower my slightly high blood pressure and cholesterol by exercise, diet, and supplements, which gives me peace of mind for beginning this two and a half months in Colombia. It has been a while since I have had any noticeable depression and that is good too. A question that is often on peoples' minds is: " Do you see any hope for change for the better?" In the 4 years I have been going to Colombia, each year it seems more and more people, from soldiers, human rights workers, to people on the street, are coming to see that supporting the violence of any armed group just turns into more violence. It is becoming ever clearer that war just does not work to resolve conflicts. That is one thin...

Hello friends, Is the war working? This is the question I asked the fellow behind the Veterans booth at our County Fair. A little to my surprise he said, "Well, that's obvious. It is not." Later I asked the same question of the fellow at the Republican Party booth. He was a lot more unclear in his answer, but ended by saying: "I do think we need to do a lot more talking and negotiating than we have been doing." I hope this can trickle up to the higher ups in the party. Both of these are evidence of the growing clarity amongst our population that the ways of violence and war are not practical, that in the end they do not work. That is one thing about war, the more you have it, the plainer the truth about its failures become to more and more people. The ways of the world do not work. I find great hope in this for the future. I see this also in the growing positive responses and the diminishing of nega...

Hello friend, Cultivating our life spiritually is an important part of peacemaking. This is the first of two letters which will include meditation exercises and some recent reflections that I've found helpful in my journey. Doing these meditation exercises seems to even give me insights for the whole day. For example, when I was tired and considering cutting short my quiet time, these words came to me: "Just show up." In other words, just pray. It's ok to pray even if I don't feel like it, which for me is probably fairly often. It is good just to go through the motions. This is a reminder that the effectiveness of my prayers depends on God and not on me and how I am feeling. Oftentimes it feels like hard work to force myself to pray, but I am becoming more and more convinced that it is worth it. Discipline and disciple go together. The other day I was trying to lift the fighting in Lebanon to the Light. The word I got for both Hezbollah and Israel ...

"What can I do for peace in Iraq?" asked someone to Cliff Kindy, a long time CPTer in Iraq, at one of his six seminars at the Cornerstone Music Festival. Cliff replied, "What I am sharing is what I experienced, which is one view of Iraq. Get other views from a number of news sources , talk to people who have been in Iraq, especially soldiers. They need to tell their story and we need to hear their story for our healing and their healing. We need it for the healing of our nation. We can not expect the government to provide this. The churches need to do this." Several times Cliff reminded people how important getting other points of view and connecting with people who have been in Iraq is to build a lasting peace in the world. Here at our Cornerstone Booth is Hilda a woman from Norway signing up to be on our mailing list, one of the over 300 persons who did so. One of the leaders of the band Me with out You put in an unsolicited but good plug for CPT at Main Stage b...

Judging War by Death's Tally Death and its increase on the battlefield have become the most contentious measures of failure or success for the United States in recent years - pointed to by some as further evidence of war gone wrong, or dismissed by others who see no sacrifice as too great for the American cause. Ever since Sept. 11, 2001, varying perceptions of the U.S.-led war on terror have teetered on this quotient of lives lost - as if somewhere in the calculus of human destruction can be found sufficient cause for national shame, or sublime hope for the battles still to be fought. The occupation of Iraq has become especially death-riddled, so there certainly has been no shortage of this volatile fuel. Nearly as troubling as these fatalities are Americans' responses to them, ranging from stoic disregard to disturbing displays of fist-pumping elation. Two recent cases in point: * On June 15, it was announced that 2,500 American military personnel had died in Iraq - a total t...

How did you like my CPT Presentation?" I asked a fellow who had attended my slide presentation that morning. "We have been talking about it all afternoon." he replied. My sense is that it was one of my best presentations as far as audience participation. We had more than 30 minutes of good questions, some of which the audience answered because I did not know the answers. The presentation was followed with several hours of personal conversations about CPT work. Many persons at this People against Poverty and Apathy Festival knew little or nothing about Christian Peacemaker Teams. I made several new friends and connected with lots of old friends. This all made the challenges of camping in this 61 year old body worth it. Thanks for the help of your prayers. Remember to pray for our time at the Cornerstone Christian Music Festival July 4 th -8th. We will have a booth there and Cliff Kindy will share in six talks about his time with CPT in Iraq. May the Lord give us humble ...