What metaphors or images would
describe the spiritual foundation for your work?
The parable of the
sowing of the seeds. Another vigil participant wrote
about this image related to what we do at the vigils. This
is a metaphor for a lot of things I do. John talked about
how God just distributes seeds everywhere; on the rocky soil
and the good soil. His sense of being at the vigil is just
distributing the seeds everywhere--our prayer for peace, our
witness for peace. You never know where they are going to
grow. That really resonated for me. Particularly at the next
vigil, I was feeling that way -- standing there distributing
seeds. By that time we had been at the vigil for about a
year and we had been standing in the same place, that same
earth, week after week after week. I had the image of roots
growing there. I knew something was growing, but I didn't
know what it was. I could feel roots growing beneath us
there in that place.
As people come by, they take us in different ways. They
have a lot of curiosity, especially the children. Sometimes
they come up and speak to us, sometimes they come up and
tell us their message, ask questions, or take a photograph,
especially the tourists from other countries--as part of
seeing the sites of America. Sometimes in your life there is
some image, something that you encounter, homebody's words
that just come back to you again and again. You never know
when seeing the vigil might be that thing for someone. It
might come back to them later. It is coming back because it
is an image that reflects something in their own soul.
What do you actually do at the
vigil and how is it different than a normal protest?
We started, in a way, as a response to the bombing of
Yugoslavia. Many of us felt that the bombing was wrong. We
wanted it to be focused on turning to God as the first step
in seeking peace and the way to find peace. In that sense, I
think it was different than other vigils, which are focused
more on trying to make a political message. People would
come who had been to many protests or demonstrations and
wanted to know what we chant at the passers-by. They thought
of this as an opportunity to basically lecture the people
who were walking by that what was happening was wrong. There
were some people who came to the vigil who weren't sure the
bombing was wrong, but were wanting to pray for peace. For
me, the primary message was "Turn to God, there is a
peaceful way. You don't have to have to resolve horrible
conflicts with bombs. In fact, bombs are just going to make
more violence."
Most of the signs say things like "pray for peace" or
something like that. One of my favorites is "open the way
for peace in your heart and in the world." It has the
picture of a heart and a picture of the world.
I have become much more aware from my participation in
the vigils over a year and a half that everything we do in
our lifestyles is very much connected to the fact that we
have wars in the world and that we have injustice. Our
lifestyle in this country is on the backs of people in other
countries. Their resources are being taken from them to
support our lifestyle. All of that is part of conflict.
Last week during the vigil a man came up to me and asked
about the vigils and what we are about. Very quickly I said
that there is a connection between our lifestyles and war
and violence. He said, he had just been driving into the
city on the highway. While watching all the other cars
around him, he had the realization that there was a
connection between the wars we had in the Middle East and
our need for oil. I said, "Yes! there is a connection." It
is like he had just made that connection in his mind, and
right there we were for him to find and reinforce that
realization. It seemed wonderful that we were there.
Another image that calls me is that of
the rising sun. The image of the rising sun is
somehow a symbol for my life. I know that the rising sun has
also been considered a symbol for Christ. For me it is a
symbol of the light that shines in the darkness. You must be
awake.
How has living in this house in
North Philadelphia and being involved here effected your
spiritual life?
I experienced a lot of struggle living here that I didn't
expect. I expected to feel really afraid all the time, but I
didn't feel that. My struggle came from unclarity about what
I was called to do or what my role was here. I thought I
would be coming here to do the things I felt called to do,
spiritual ministry and writing. But there was an expectation
from the oversight group that if I was called to live in
this house, that I was called to be an equal partner with
Jorge in his ministry. So for two years, I tried to do that.
I was haunted by thinking there was something else I was
called to do. Some of my struggle was being called to do
something that I didn't want to do or that wasn't
comfortable or was hard. The normal ego struggle. There were
moments when I felt I understood that what I was doing here
and how I was living here were really a part of God's plan
and the way God is working. It was an opportunity to live
and embody the teachings I had taken into my mind. When you
have challenges, that is when you get to practice
forgiveness and patience and so forth. After I had lived
here for two years and I was reflecting on this experience,
what I felt was a sense of this golden light, which I had
experienced at different times, was actually becoming a part
of my body.
I felt that light, for instance, on a day when I helped
organize a planting of flower bulbs in January. It was a day
when I had made other plans, but I knew the bulbs were
available and I had to plant them before the frost. Jorge
was away, so I organized a community event, for neighbors
and school children, and Friends to plant the bulbs
together. And I had a sense of what a blessing it was,
especially to experience community in relationship to the
Earth What I had at first planned for myself at that time
was to go on a spiritual retreat, quiet time to be by
myself. It didn't happen, but at the end of that day of
planting, I felt a sense of the nearness of God and Jesus
that was extraordinary for me. I'm sure I wouldn't have
gotten that at that particular time by saying "no" to the
opportunity to plant those bulbs.
I had to plant them before the frost. Jorge was away, so
I organized a community event, for neighbors and school
children, and Friends to plant the bulbs together.
And I had a sense of what a blessing it was, especially
to experience community in relationship to the Earth.
Most of the people who live in this
neighborhood are either Latino or African-American. I
haven't felt other or strange or unwelcome because I am not
Latino or African-American. I felt other in another way. My
interest in my spirituality seems pretty foreign to most
people, and I haven't felt many openings to be able talk
about that. I have gotten close to some people. I was really
moved one day, and the women who said it to me was moved
when she said it to me, "you changed my
thinking about white people."
Anything else you want to say about
the connection between prayer and peacemaking?
Peace comes from God. Genuine
peacemaking comes from God, whether you are conscious of
that or not. A very personal example I had of that was a
conflict situation with a person I was working with where
one of us was going to win and one of us was going to lose.
I'm right and you are wrong and I had a lot of confusion
about that. I prayed especially to Jesus and I had all kinds
of images of Jesus bringing all kinds of different people
together and I began to be filled with an understanding that
there was another way. All of this stuff that was going on
in my mind is kind of worldly thinking and I got an
invitation to enter into another space. And as I accepted
that I just began to feel more at peace and this incredible
joy and love for the other person, for everyone else. As it
turned out in that situation, there was another way neither
of us were losers. It wasn't the way I had thought I wanted,
so it was hard to let go of what I thought, but the
understanding was that there was another way. That
experience I had in response to prayer was
extraordinary. It was like experiencing
heaven. I'm sure that all the experiences in my life,
including the prayer vigil, sort of open me up to receive
that. And I'm sure that experience will open me up to the
next one.
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Do you have any stories of people
passing by the vigil that you had interactions with that
have seemed tranformative?
I can think of ways we've been transformed more than I
know of anyone else being transformed.
There was a time a young man came by. He said "what's the
way to the highway" or something like that in a way that
seemed angry and aggressive. He asked a kind of gruff
question and didn't get a very compassionate response. He
walked by and waved his arm and took in all of us and said
"This is all hypocrisy!" and walked
by. Jorge didn't really hear what happened. So I told Jorge
what happened, and he went after that young man. He stopped
him and asked him what his situation was and what kind of
help he needed, and he asked him to come stay in our house.
He was homeless and in the city. He said his bus ticket was
stolen He wanted money for a bus ticket. I wanted to paint
the kitchen. So we hired him, and he and I spent the day
painting the kitchen, and he stayed with us two nights.
After we gave him the money, he decided to do something else
with the money, to go somewhere else than he said he was
going. We gave him our phone number, and he called us
collect several times. For months, we had a relationship
with him That whole experience was a transforming one for
us.
During the vigils, what ways do you
pray?
That has changed over time and also changes over the
course of the hour. Usually it starts out by prayers asking
for peace in the world. Sometimes almost as a repetition of
a phrase, "give us peace, peace in the world". It is a
prayer of asking, but it is also a prayer of helping me to
focus on what I am there for. Usually what happens after a
certain point is the realization or the memory that God is
always sending peace to the world. That is God's desire, for
there to be peace in the world and for us to live in
harmony. God is always ready to send peace and to teach us
peace, but what is necessary is for us to be willing to
receive it and to be open to it and to learn how to live in
it. So then it seems sort of unnecessary to ask God to send
peace. That instead what becomes necessary is to turn to
open and receive it, and be ready to be a vehicle for that
peace. So that is the next step. And then, often times, it
is being filled with the feeling of peace. Sometimes I go to
the vigils and I am not feeling peaceful. I might have had a
quarrel with someone there. Instead I will first begin by
praying first of all for peace within myself, then for peace
in the world. It reminds me of what my intention is: to live
in peace, which reminds me that the way to do that is to let
go of the grudge against that other person.
There are times over the course of an hour when I really
begin to feel the presence of God, feel God's peace, feel
wholeness in the world, that is always there and it is
radiating peace. Sometimes I begin to feel that peace in
relation to the people that I see passing by and feel, in a
sense, God's love for them. So it becomes my love for them
too. But it is more a sense of almost being a window through
which God is loving the world. Or maybe my eyes are open so
I can see that God is sending love to everyone, through
everything. There are moments filled with grace when I can
look at them and smile at them and think about God loving
them. And that is a prayer too. At that moment, it is still
a prayer for peace in the world, and turning to God. It
seems like that is the way to bring peace into the world is
to be a vehicle or a channel of God's peace.
Sometimes going to the vigil is like plugging into an
electric socket. It is this sense of power, power in prayer.
I can feel that the prayer is powerful, that it has an
impact. I don't know what it is.
I am reminded of another Quaker who feels that one of the
things we are doing at the vigils is a kind of penance, on
behalf of our country. So much of our country's resources
are continually going into preparations for war, This is a
way of saying we have to repent for that.
At the end of the bombing of Yugoslavia, we had the
realization that the process for preparing for war was
continual and that there are conflicts all over the world
all the time. The need for prayers continue, not just for
one particular crises.
I feel very much that God is preparing me and many people
to be part of something that will happen. It might seem like
it is just happening then, but it is actually being prepared
for now. Who knows how long God is preparing for each moment
humanity takes a turn towards God's way.
I am also interested in how this
house, Casa Amistad, relates to spirituality and peacemaking
for you.
This house is in North Philadelphia, which is considered
to be one of the poorest and most violent neighborhoods in
the country. This particular neighborhood, Fairhill, was
actually named for a Quaker estate that used to be here. As
the neighborhood went downhill, Friends left.
In the early 90s, some people were concerned that the
Friends Peace Teams would send people to areas of conflict
around the world, and said "What about our inner cities?"
There were some Friends in Philadelphia who were interested
in what Friends could do about violence and conflict in the
city. A group of them were invited to do a listening project
here in North Philadelphia, which involved Friends going
door to door and talking to people and listening to people.
Jorge was a part of that. One day he stood up in worship and
said, "Why have Friends left the city?" And he realized, as
he often does, the first person that needed to hear his
message was himself. He bought a house here and the Peace
Team had finished the listening project, and had formed the
concept of the Fairhill Friends Ministry, which is a Friends
ministry to the neighborhood, based in this house.
It is called a ministry because the most important thing
is that people are present and live here and we are
neighbors. We have helped advocate for a new playground in
the park, held after school programs, organized trash clean
ups in the park, and some other projects. There is a lot of
pressure to do projects, but the spirit is that it is not
the projects that matter so much as being here.
For me, one way I saw that really
clearly is something that happened a few years ago. Before
the monthly clean ups in the park, we would go around and
leave invitations at everyone's door saying there is going
to be a clean up this Saturday in the park and saying, in
Spanish and English, we invite you to come. Usually it was
the same people that came. Once in a while some new people
would come. But there were many people who never responded
and there were some people down the block who kind of knew
us, through these invitations. One Christmas morning at
5:00, there was a knock on our door and this woman who lived
several houses down the street said "My house is on fire and
my telephone doesn't work." So we called the fire
department. It turns out that what was happening was more
than a fire. There was a fight between her and the man she
was living with and the fire had been set deliberately. For
me, the fact that she walked several houses down and came to
our house, was just an indication of an awareness that we
are here and the door is open. Even though she had never
responded to anything before, she knew that we would be here
when she came. Other neighbors came out too. The house
wasn't totally destroyed, but she still isn't able to live
there. One of the wonderful things that I saw was how Jorge
was able to minister to both her and the man she was living
with. He actually prevented her from going back to into the
house on the morning of the fire to get a gun., but he was
able also to minister in a longer term way. He helped them
to transform their lives and to encourage the spirituality,
especially in her, that was trying to emerge. That was very
powerful to witness. Neither of them spoke much English, so
I was more a witness than anything else. Although, one day
she smelled gas in her house and she was afraid to light the
stove and she was afraid not to light the stove. Jorge
wasn't here, so I went with her to the house and opened the
windows and we lit the stove together.
Jorge has been here for 5 years. Neighbors know they can
come tell him problems. People like to come complain about
their problems with someone else. Jorge will say, I will go
with you to talk to that person--not the kind of response
they are used to. The attitude of many people is that you
complain that life is so bad and so terrible because the
city doesn't give you services and so forth. When I came
here, I saw a lot of that. For me, there was a very heavy
feeling at the neighborhood meetings. People would talk
about things and there would be a whole lot of negativity.
Over the time I was here I could more and more see the sense
that you can look at the problem and say "what can we do to
make it better", instead of say "oh, that's just the way it
is and it can't be changed." That is the biggest
transformation that I have seen here. Its more important
than the new playground.
Before I moved here, people said to me things like, "you
are crazy" and "you'll be killed." So I was very afraid, but
I was also afraid to not listen to that leading. During my
prayers, I was reading the gospels. It was arrogant of me. I
was thinking God has a spiritual mission for me, and what
does God want to do with me in the city? Then to read in the
gospels how God calls people to the places of brokenness and
that's just the way it is. As I went through that, I
realized that if God is calling me here, I can trust that.
Whatever happens I don't need to be afraid. So when I moved
here I really did feel an amazing trust. That is not to say
I feel at ease coming home late at night. But I didn't feel
easy about that in my suburb.
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