Communing, Rallying & Protesting All Over D.C.

To really belong to one another and to depend on one another–to really share a common destiny–is difficult for a community that wants to be diverse.  It is also the community’s only hope of survival.  Whether or not we will be honest with each other, whether or not we will let ourselves be truly known, determines everything.
Gordon Cosby (1918-2013)

We departed Baltimore on Monday after lunch and 45 minutes later we were settled in the Northeast section of Washington DC. We stayed at the 8-room Nelson Good House thanks to Sheldon Good (see this for an archive of Sheldon's postings on Huff Post), the associate director of Eastern Mennonite University's Washington Scholar's Program. Tom has had an internet relationship with Sheldon for about 3 years now. They first connected when Sheldon was the editor of Menno Weekly Review's blog site (see this for an archive of Tom's work on MWR) and heard from someone(?) about Tom's EasyYolk blog. They clicked over the substance of theological & political engagement, but eventually they found themselves connecting on topics of everyday life as well.

We had never met Sheldon face-to-face, so this was something we were really looking forward to this week in the Capital City. On Monday night, we shared dinner and beers with Sheldon and his friend Aaron Wheldon, who we quickly discovered, was a fellow classmate of ours at Fuller Seminary. Aaron, and his wife Lindsay, have since gone from the world of Anabaptism to Catholicism after they both have continued theological education beyond their Masters of Divinity.

On Tuesday, we slept in and rested during the day, catching up on some reading, writing and eating. For dinner, we gathered at the home of Rose Berger and Heidi Thompson, a couple who met at Sojourners Magazine more than a decade ago. Their "first date" was at a dive bar just a couple of blocks from the Sojo office. They were deep in conversation when a group of young men in ski masks robbed the joint at gunpoint. Heidi was facing the thieves while Rose continued her monologue despite the look of horror on Heidi's face. When Rose clued in, she immediately shifted her words to the ski masks, reasoning with them to leave the crowd alone to their beverages.

Rose, born and bred in Sacramento, has been working at Sojourners since the mid-80s and, for the past decade, has been on the editorial staff. She is a well-known figure at the intersection of faith and activism. In fact, we found out just a few days ago that she got arrested for civil disobedience at an action at a lobbying firm that apparently declared the Keystone Pipeline to be safe for the environment. Rose is a widely published journalist and poet, but doesn't take herself too seriously. Her warm presence is accented by a hearty laugh and a consistently verbal listening pattern that ensures you that she's on your team.

Heidi, from Youngstown, Ohio, transitioned out of Sojo and has been working with PICO, a faith-rooted activist organization committed to ensuring the dignity and equal rights of all people, the immigrant community being their most current focus. She prepared the meal for us and during her "tour of the table" before we ate, she made sure to point out the "complete protein" made available from the combination of bean salad and quinoa. The woman knows the way to our heart. Heidi possesses a curious spirit, a great question-asker who takes the truth seriously and certainly isn't afraid to take the conversation to the next level.

On Wednesday morning, we awoke early and joined Sheldon for a 6-mile run around the DC Mall. We parked at the Smithsonian and beelined it around the Capitol and then beyond the Supreme Court building and then back past the Air & Space Museum and The Washington Monument all the way to the Daniel Day-Lewis Lincoln Memorial. Our pace was much slower than Sheldon's usual. He made for a great tour guide.

After a quick shower and breakfast, we hustled over to the Potter's House Cafe & Bookstore to meet Tim Kumfer of The Servant Leadership School. The very first creative non-profit ministry of Church of the Saviour, Potter's started back in 1960 to minister to the needs of the neighborhood of Northwest DC. CofS has since added more than 3 dozen other non-profits and the church, at the legendary leadership of her late founder, Gordon Cosby, has remained small, branching out into 8 different cells of various brands and blends around the city.

Kumfer, a graduate of Duke Divinity School and a former intern at Sojo, is passionate about popular theological education--a space for ordinary people to learn and grow in their pursuit of a more radical faith and praxis. A participant with the CofS community 8th Day (which meets in the Potter's House every Sunday evening), he has just recently been recruited to usher Potter's into a new phase of outreach as the neighborhood rapidly changes. Potter's is set to temporarily close in just a few weeks, or as Tim so eloquently put it, take some needed time of "sabbath rest." In fact, all their books were 75% off when we were there. This set off an orgy of consumerism, mostly from Tom.

On Thursday, we drove 40 miles to Fort Meade, Maryland for the closing arguments of the Bradley Manning trial. Here's how Sheldon described the scene:

I will not forget this place: the most innocently nondescript "hall of power" one could imagine, tucked away two miles into the Fort Meade military base (a stark contrast to the pristine "halls of power" flaunted across the National Mall). And I will not forget sitting, listening, agonizing through 6 hours of the proceeding, and, with exhaustion setting in, deciding to leave early -- knowing, however, that Manning could not leave, that he may never experience freedom again, wondering if that is fair and just, wondering if we'll ever know the truth.

We joined 32 other spectators in the courtroom and three dozen others in an overflow portable with closed-circuit TV coverage of the trial. Most of these folks were curious activists who wore black shirts with TRUTH scrawled on the front. On the day we attended the festivities, the lead attorney for the prosecution took up 6 hours for his closing remarks (in contrast, the next day, the defense took 3 hours). Much of it was technical mumbo-jumbo but some of the rather disturbing moments that stood out were calling Manning an "informational anarchist" and his repeatedly ironic claim that Manning was only motivated by his quest for notoriety while methodically doing whatever it took to cover up his misdeeds.

This was a very difficult day for us, but we are truly grateful to have participated in it. We'll NEVER forget it. The whole scene was depressingly ironic. Manning is being tried for disclosing hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the public. These documents horrifically indict the US government as an Empire spreading violent death all over the world in the names of "peace" and "security." Manning, a bullied gay soldier stationed in Iraq, witnessed plenty of these atrocities and plotted to unveil it to the world by leaking just some of it to Wikileaks. He was arrested and relegated to long days in solitary confinement in a small cell. Now, he is being tried by a military court, largely out of view of the American Public. He will remain in prison for a long, long time. And the US government will be off the hook.

On our way back to DC on Thursday, we talked about the meaning of our time at Fort Meade and what we might do to make Manning's actions a more powerful Reality in our own lives and in the world. It's easy to become apathetic, cynical, indifferent or just overwhelmed with a story like Bradley Manning. Like the response to the unjust violent death of Jesus, many folks get by one more day by casting the significance into the future, when Redemption might magically come at the hands of Triumphal Divinity. The death of Jesus (and the life of Manning) can become Real when we witness the corruption and terror of the Powers (exposed by Jesus and Manning) and find the courage to nonviolently & creatively confront the manifold injustices routinely displayed by governments, corporations, families and faith communities. This is a Task worthy of our lives. At the very least, this day reminded us of that.

On Thursday night, we dined at Busboys & Poets, a coffeehouse, bookstore and cafe well-known to activists in DC. We got to finally meet Jenn, Sheldon's girlfriend (we weren't sure she really existed). We shared our stories over paninis and veggie burgers.

On Friday, we joined the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker house for their weekly protest and rally at noon on Friday in front of the White House. Art Laffin led us in word and song as we dressed up as Gitmo prisoners, many of whom are engaged in a daring hunger strike protesting their own maltreatment & torture. A powerful experience of "sitting shiva" with these prisoners, one which penetrated us to the core.

We digested the action with a walk to the Lincoln Memorial (which had been vandalized that morning) and the newly inaugurated Martin Luther King Memorial.

We found ourselves between the Capitol and Washington Monument communing with Kelly Nau, an old friend of Lindsay's from college. Kelly has been a nurse at a children's hospital in DC for the past year, after spending the last 2 years working at a Sudanese refugee camp. Our time with Kelly was short but sweet, as we shared in a time of mutual encouragement about our respective journeys since our last meeting (sometime back in 2010). We hope to reconnect with her again soon.

On Saturday morning, we participated in a march and rally against climate change with a group of ordinary activists called Summer Heat, who spent the week marching from Camp David all the way to DC.

Baltimore: In The Belly of the Beast

After 23 years of living within community, I'm a good deal mellower. I've discovered something about forgiveness, mercy, and tolerance. Not as much, perhaps as I should have learned, but more than I knew before. I can accept the deficiencies of other people, just as I can live with my own deficiencies, which, believe me, are legion.
Phil Berrigan, The Lamb's War

If God could use Jonah for the works of justice, there is hope for each of us. Are we not all reluctant prophets?
From the official brochure of The Jonah House

On June 1, 1973 (3 months before my birth), the scandalously married priest-and-nun pair Phil Berrigan and Liz McAlister (and a few friends) christened the Jonah House in a 14-foot wide row house in the heart of innercity Baltimore. Many people have actively participated with Jonah House over the years, but Liz and Phil, in addition to their 3 children, were the only members to stay at Jonah House the entire time (Phil passed over to God in December 2002). From the beginning, they were (and had been) thoroughly committed to nonviolent resistance of the Vietnam War. By "thoroughly," I of course mean "willing to get arrested and go to prison for long periods of time."

Those uncomfortable with the notion of good Christians getting arrested ought to be reminded of the rich 2000-year legacy of such a practice within the Christian Tradition. The list goes on and on and on, from the earliest martyrs of the Roman Empire to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King in the 20th century. And, far-too-often-overlooked, the ministry of Jesus himself was fraught with civil disobedience in the face of unjust laws and mores of Temple and Empire. He defiantly broke the Sabbath, boldly issued forth forgiveness (a radical form of inclusion, pre-empting a power only reserved for the priests) and publicly interacted with women (who, in that society, would never talk openly/publicly with a man who was not a husband or relative), not to mention his radical Temple Action that precipitated his arrest and execution.

In the mid-90s, Jonah, name after the wavering & whimpering prophet of the Hebrew Bible, moved their operations to an overgrown cemetary plot owned by the Baltimore archdiocese. They are dedicated to living out peace and specifically the issue of nuclear weapons, educating themselves and strategically and creatively plotting symbolic resistance actions--from Michigan to Colorado--at military bases with nuclear weapons installations (more than 10,000 nuclear weapons remain in the U.S.).

McAlister has been joined by Dominican sisters Ardeth Platte and Carol Gilbert since the mid-90s and are currently in a time of transition, as two young couples, Amber & Kevin and Ted & Amy, will be organizing and administering the daily operations of Jonah House by the end of the summer. The community is structured around highly routinized days and weeks. They meet every morning for Scripture reading and prayer. They eat lunches and dinners together (except for Saturdays), trading off cooking duties each day. They mow and weed the 22 acres of the cemetary grounds. They work the garden. They make food runs to the local pantry every Monday morning. They organize the non-perishable food to give to members of the community who come to Jonah House every Tuesday morning. On Sunday evenings they meet to organize the weekly schedule which includes events such as joining the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House at peace vigils at the Pentagon and White House and attending the Bradley Manning trial at nearby Fort Meade.

These nuns, who have all served significant prison time as a result of nonviolent civil disobedience, believe that they serve a unique role in witnessing for peace and justice, but that they aren't any better than anyone else involved in the Cause. On Sunday night after we watched a documentary on one of their actions in Colorado Springs, Carol clarified, "There is not a hierarchy when it comes to social action."

She explained that a woman who commits to raising children as peacemakers in a society of greed and violence is doing work just as important as the Plowshares Action. And at all the protests and rallies and vigils and organized arrests, everyone is joined together with different duties united in a common mission to be faithful to the nonviolent Jesus. They just want to be faithful to what they believe God is calling them to do...and they encourage everyone to pursue their own calling in regards to peace and justice...and to do it consistently and faithfully.

On Sunday morning, Jonah House hosts a liturgical community of worship. Members of the community rotate facilitating and leading discussion on the weekly Gospel passage from the Catholic lectionary. They celebrate the Lord's Supper together as an inclusive interfaith People of God (the bread is baked every Saturday night by a Jewish member of the community). This intergenerational blend of radicals includes teachers, students, professionals, blue collar workers and activists.

After a time of prayer, we all sat down to eat a potluck meal together.

In the early afternoon, we teamed up in the basement to organize food for Tuesday morning pickup.

On Monday morning, we joined the community in a lectio divina session at 6:30. Lectio is an ancient Benedictine practice of reading the daily Scripture passages multiple times and listening for the voice of God "shimmering." Each person then shares a word or phrase from any of the readings and follows up with a more specific response about what that shimmering means for them. Ardeth's shimmering phrase was "do not be afraid, stand your ground" from that morning's Hebrew Bible reading (Exodus 14):

Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today.

She shared that the Trayvon Martin tragedy was still burdening her heart and then went on to share beautiful stories of people nonviolently standing their ground in a way that diffuses the violence in front of them (one example was of a friend who hopped out of bed and cooked breakfast for an intruder standing over her, no doubt about to rape and/or steal from her. He instead had breakfast with her, demanded nothing further, and left in peace), subverting the Stand Your Ground laws in more than 20 states that allow citizens to use force when feeling threatened.

After our lectio time, Lindsay and I went for a 30 minute run through the row house neighborhoods of Baltimore and came upon a park and reservoir with a gigantic statue of Columbus raising his sword and standing his ground. This was a simple reminder that the glorification of violence and domination is everywhere, from our history to our contemporary contexts of fear and anxiety. The lives of these beautiful women testify to that Alternative Lifestyle covenanted to Love, Gentleness, Humility, Service and Compassion. Not success. Just faithfulness.

Thomas Merton once wrote that there must be 20 people in the world who see things precisely as they are and who are not dominated or even influenced by any attachment. According to Merton, these are "the ones who are holding everything together and keeping the universe from falling apart." I'm pretty sure we met some of these folks at the Jonah House.

Liz stands in the door frame of her room at Jonah House. Above her head, the sign reads (translated from the Latin) "Don't Let The Bastards Grind You Down." A desperately appropriate reminder.

Liz led us on a tour of the 22 acre grounds:

The garden is planted on the northwest corner of the land. The tent and hanging shirts are there to keep the deer away from the fruits and vegetables:

Truly, we've never met anyone quite like these radical nuns (and their proteges) at Jonah House. We were intimidated in the days leading up to our trek to inner city Baltimore, but quickly, we were put at ease by their humble service, passionate convictions, curious questions and grandmotherly wisdom.

Heatin' Up in Philly

After you take a right on 7th it will get really intense.
The closing words of a young man who gave us directions to the North Philly neighborhood of Kensington

Our lands are parched not by nature, but by imperial hubris. In such a world, these biblical visions of redemption as rehydration, of quenching every thirst, are compelling. May we persuade our faith communities to reclaim them for our theology, our liturgy and our political practices--watershed by watershed.
Ched Myers

We left the farm on Thursday afternoon and arrived in North Philly just a couple of hours later. The temperature had continued to rise, climbing towards triple digits with horrifying humidity. We immediately encountered scenes like this all over the city:

Most of these row homes don't have AC so this is, most likely, the only way to keep cool (and sane) on Summer days like these.

After arriving at the The Simple Way and getting settled into their House of Hospitality, we met the Esaus, a gracious young German couple on a pilgrimage of their own. They had just spent 4 days in Brooklyn and were scheduled to visit the Bruderhof community in upstate NY and the Wild Goose Festival in North Carolina in the weeks to come. They are traveling by bus in the States, each with a simple backpack. And she's pregnant!

On Thursday night, the four of us attended an Alternative Seminary event entitled WADING THROUGH DEEP WATERS: Experimental theater, collaborative Biblical study, and a call to action to heal God’s Earth. Tevyn East and Jay Beck describe themselves as

local artists who are collaborating on a series of experimental theater pieces that utilize the powerful archetypes of the four elements (earth, air, fire, water) and stitch them together with storytelling, dance, and live music to connect the message of the Biblical prophets to the current environmental crisis. We hope that these pieces will help to reawaken our senses to the pain of Creation and push us into a greater awareness of the deep truth that our spiritual tradition has always been on the side of the oppressed, including the Earth herself.

This prophetic team of artists is really talented and very effective with the proclamation of their message that the citizen's of the Earth must repent from our using and abusing ways. And those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus must take seriously the biblical call towards love, care and stewardship of Mother Earth. Beck portrayed a splashing John the Baptist and Tevyn played the part of a singing-and-dancing Miriam (see Exodus 15:1-2). Here's a taste of the action:

Tevyn and Jay will be spearheading the Carnival de Resistance this Fall in Virginia.

We met Will O'Brien, the director of the Alternative Seminary, and his partner Dee Dee Risher, the editor of Conspire Magazine:

Will and Dee Dee started The Alternative Seminary 20 years ago to ignite the traditions of radical discipleship in a community of kindred spirits. The classes are 4-6 weeks and very affordable (about $60, including the textbook). The very first course he offered was a reading of the Hebrew Bible through the work of Walter Brueggemann's The Prophetic Imagination. He then transitioned to the New Testament and used some of Ched Myers' works (Sabbath Economics and Say To This Mountain). The courses are creatively and collaboratively designed and they fill up instantly.

We connected with Will on Friday morning for a cup of hot java at L'Aube Cafe, just a couple blocks from Project Home, where Will is the special projects coordinator. PH is the brain child of Sister Mary Scullion, a leader named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the world a few years ago. They have 600 units of housing, focusing all of their efforts on what they name as a very tangible goal: ending chronic street homelessness.

Our good friend and former house church participant Jeff Craw rode the bus in from NYC to join us for the day.

Will took us on a tour of the facilities, greeting every resident by name and introducing us to many. Will is passionate about creating spaces where there is not an ounce of difference between residents, workers and donors. This is truly a picture of the egalitarian Reign of God taught and lived by Jesus.

Here's the thrift store boutique where residents get job skill training:

Not to worry, we dedicated about 30 minutes of the 100-degree afternoon to some historic sight-seeing. Here we are at Independence Hall, the sight of the signing of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

We ended our time in North Philly with a potluck with the good folks from The Simple Way. We packed into their corner housing unit for food and conversation:

The Simple Way is a community started by Shane Claiborne and friends in North Philly. They are committed to creatively caring for poor and marginalized folks in the neighborhood where they live with them in solidarity. Art and gardening are two obvious aspects of their work, but they are also focusing on after-school programs and ending gun violence:

They constructed an aquaponics project, an ecological laboratory connecting fish and plants without soil. This creates a symbiotic environment where fish provide nutrients for the plants and the plants clean water for the fish. The only thing required of humans is to feed the fish:

Before we set our sights on Baltimore, we drove an hour north to the 3rd largest city in PA: Allentown. We met up with Steve Kriss, a Mennonite leader who was introduced to us by Sheldon Good. Steve coordinated and facilitated a lunch with some of the members of a couple Mennonite communities (including Ripple Allentown) whose vision, identity and mission all overlap. These leaders gather frequently for shared meals, prayer and discussion and some of them are living together in intentional community. We were deeply touched by their obvious love for each other and the neighborhood they live in (not to mention their thoughtful and heartfelt prayer for our own discerning process at the end, even though we had only spent two hours with them!). An inspired community and genuine embodiment of God's healing presence in Allentown, indeed.

Holy Rebels In Rochester

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.
Frederick Douglass

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
Susan B. Anthony

When Frederick Douglass ran away from slavery, dressed up as a sailor and boarded a train for freedom with fake papers (undocumented!!!) exactly 145 years before my birthday (September 3), it took him 24 hours to get from Baltimore to home base in Rochester. That's a radical road trip. We got to Rochester by car, just a 3-hour trip from Toronto (actually about 3 hours and 15 minutes after stopping for slurpees). Not so radical.

Douglass was the only African-American to speak at the women's rights conference at Seneca Falls in 1948, calling for an absolutely revolutionary proposal: full voting rights for all American women. As always, he spoke passionately and clearly:

In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world.

He saved his most radical words, however, for a speech delivered to--get this(!)--the Rochester Anti-Slavery Sewing Society on July 5, 1852:

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

Douglass lived in Rochester on and off until 1872 when his house was scorched by arson. He left for D.C.

When Susan B. Anthony turned 29, she moved her family to Rochester in 1849. She focused on the women's and temperance movements and in 1872, she and some of her fellow female troublemakers voted illegally. Today the 1872 Cafe serves up fresh, fair-trade brew at this very spot in downtown Rochester.

The 1872 Cafe is actually a non-profit ministry of Spiritus Christi Church, a Roman Catholic Church which has been pushing the "dangerous" limits of full inclusion for the past few decades. In the Spirit of Douglass and Anthony, these radicals have ordained women, preached in advocacy and solidarity to bring full dignity and equality for sexual minorities (LGBTQTTI) and have committed themselves to serving the eucharist to everyone, regardless of religious affiliation.

We got the opportunity to sit down with their priest Mary Rammerman, who moved to Rochester from California with her husband and children in the early 1980s to join the beautifully rebellious Fr. Jim Callan and the Corpus Christi Church, which created ministries based on Matthew 25's call to care for the least of these (the hungry, naked, imprisoned, etc). Mary's journey to priesthood has hit numerous snags and roadblocks along the way, including a Vatican takeover of Corpus, eventually leading to the creation of Spiritus in the late 90s.

We were severely blessed by the hospitality of Mike and Lynne Boucher, a couple who moved to Rochester after meeting at Fairfield University and getting married in 1991.

They were compelled by the mission of Corpus Christi and were right in the thick of the drama of the Vatican's power moves just a few years later. As a result, Mike (a 5 on the enneagram) started working as a therapist and supervisor at the St. Joseph's Neighborhood Center, a non-profit organization providing medical, dental and mental health services to those who lack health insurance. In addition, Mike is still deeply involved in the ministry of Spiritus Christi. In fact, he just got done leading a 2-day retreat based on Walter Brueggemann's classic The Prophetic Imagination and then preaching three services on Sunday.

In addition to his work at the clinic, at church and at home, Mike is the Chairman of the Board for Word & World, "an experiment in alternative theological education, bridging the gap between the seminary, the sanctuary and the streets." Over the past dozen years, W&W has organized week-long retreats focused on specific issues like immigration, ecological justice, sexuality and racial reconciliation. They seek to gather legends of biblical scholarship and social activism (ie, folks actually doing the work) and bring them together with younger leaders in cities like Detroit, Greensboro, Tucson and Rochester.

Lynne (a 3 on the enneagram) is the spiritual director at Nazareth College. She is absolutely perfect for her job. She is a fully-trained yoga instructor and leads all sorts of classes on campus, ranging from the general student population to specific sessions for many of the athletic teams. She has a tremendous heart for her students and seeks to honor the faith tradition of each student she counsels and mentors, not to mention the fact that she possesses more energy in 3 minutes than I do for a whole day. On Tuesday, she led Lindsay through an hour-long yoga session in the Boucher living room.

And the grand finale:

The Bouchers have two children (twins!), Jonah and Kateri, who just graduated from high school and are on their way to Hamilton University in upstate NY. Mike and Lynne look far too young to be empty-nesters.

We hit the road for Lancaster County, PA:

And got to Tom Longenecker's family farm just before dinner:

We spent the night talking with Tom, a therapist and pastor at New Hope Community Mennonite Church in Harrisburg, his mom Peggy and Valentina Satvedi, a coordinator for the Mennonite Central Committee doing compelling work in regards to postcolonial faith and action.