Michael Westmoreland-White, who started the Christian Peace Bloggers blog-ring, has just published an interview with me on his new Wordpress site (which is replacing his Blogspot site). This should be the beginning of a series of interviews with the various members of the Christian Peace Bloggers blog-ring.
Check it out. It is super cool!
Suns and Warriors Put On a Show (And Demonstrate Why Pace Matters)
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Last night the Phoenix Suns and the Golden State Warriors, two of the
fastest paced teams in the NBA, were matched up against each other on
national televi...
15 years ago
8 comments:
Chris,
I appreciated your interview, and I've enjoyed this new development in your writing. I do wonder though - Is writing enough? It seems that we can speak of peace and non-violence all we like, but if we do not join the struggle to realize the New Jerusalem; to actively beat the sword into the plowshare; that our words are empty.
Those are my thoughts for tonight. I'm off to go watch "An Inconvenient Truth," and then probably do absolutely nothing to change the patterns of global warming ;)
Amy
Amy,
Writing is never enough. But hopefully that's not all we're doing, and sometimes it is the best we can do.
For many of us, we must cultivate peace in our own lives, and in our interpersonal relationships, before we can be part of any struggle, local or global.
As best as I can tell, the first struggle is personal - that is, working on becoming a peaceful person, a person trasformed by the peace of God. The second struggle is interpersonal - that is, after being transformed (and also while being transformed), bringing that newfound peace into our interactions with others. The final struggle is political - opposing the Powers, and trying to transform the globe one situation at a time.
I know that this sounds far too much like the sort of moderate incrementalism that typified the well-intentioned white liberal that Malcolm X so vehemently repudiated, but its the best I've got right now. And it isn't nothing.
Oh, and An Inconvenient Truth rocked my world. Great, great film. And, all in all more hopeful than you might expect.
My question for you Chris; you said in your interview that your experience has been primarily interpersonal. How indeed are you preparing yourself for the next aspect of the struggle for nonviolence, if indeed you are?
Amy,
The short answer is, "I don't know."
It is quite possible that I will never take the "next step," and so for me it might not be the next step. If I can help cultivate peace in the hearts of everyone I encounter - including and especially myself - that will go a long way to cultivating peace in the world. It may be that, as an educator (informally now, more formally later) I am called primarily to help shape people on a local level. Fortunately, none of us have to do everything ourselves.
It may be that I am at some point called to do something other than (I hesitate to say "more than," because that implies an insufficiency of task that I am not willing to accept) what I am doing now. If that is the case, I trust that at some point a more global plan will emerge.
Perhaps it is already. I am starting to get involved with an advocacy group, CLOUT (Citizens of Louisville, Organized and United Together). Perhaps my involvment with that group will lead to a different sort of mission. I don't know.
Funny you should mention CLOUT (Citizens of Louisville Organized and United Together--not to be confused with another organization, Christian Lesbians OUT--we had the name first), Chris. Founder and lead organizer, Rev. Robert Owens, a Presbyterian, is married to my pastor Rev. Cindy Weber (Baptist) and our congregation was a founding one.
Hmm.... While I strongly support the issues that CLOUT is working on, you might want to keep your eyes open as you get involved. I have a friend here in town who used to work for them, and (while I don't know the details because she signed a non-disclosure agreement), I understand that she left them for similar reasons that led to my leaving ACORN.
There's also the Louisville chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Louisville Peace Action Committee, Interfaith Paths to Peace, Kentucky Interfaith Taskforce on Latin America and the Caribbean (KITLAC), the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and much else.
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