Prophetic Voices of Peace Making

Anne Barstow Helps Presbyterian Peace Fellowship Celebrate Anniversary

One of the privileges of my position is to represent FOR in many gatherings that call us to our needed work through the voices of those who have lead the way, some still hard at work, others who have now passed on. The past few weeks have been rich with such people.

The Presbyterian Peace Fellowship has been hosting a luncheon with peace makers periodically since its move to Stony Point Center last year. Anne Barstow was the featured guest in September. She provided a biographical story that began when her then boyfriend (later fiancée and husband), Tom Driver, invited her to a reception with FOR Journey of Freedom riders in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. For a 17-year-old Southern white girl to attend a biracial gathering was nearly unthinkable in 1947, but she went and had her introduction to nonviolence through the lens of the civil rights movement.

That was followed by a World Federalist trip to Europe to see the devastation caused by World War II, and a return in 1952 for a honeymoon trip with Tom Driver that was a work camp in reconstructing Holland. On the basis of these experiences Anne joined FOR in 1952, enrolled at Union Theological Seminary, in the years that followed was engaged in draft resistance work during Viet Nam, continual resistance to nuclear weapons development grounded in visits to Hiroshima, and from the 1980s led frequent trips and work in South America, especially in Nicaruagua and Colombia, first with Witness for Peace and then with the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship’s work. It was clear that her life has been and continues to be one a direct action for peace.

Methodists Host 2nd Annual Peace Conference at Lake Junaluska

The interfaith event at Camp Junaluska, North Carolina, attracted over 400 participants to engage in dialogue with a panel that included Father Elias Chacour of Israel, Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, Dr. Lisa Schirch of Eastern Mennonite University and 3D Security, and Dr. Sayyid Syeed of the Islamic Society of North America.

The conference was marked by a flow of interfaith worship which included reflections on the end of Ramadan (Eid el Fitr) and the beginning of Rosh Hashana, and included a strong use of visual and musical arts to create a context of sharing and learning. Jewish and Muslim speakers spent a good measure of time instructing the largely Christian audience on the peace witness of their faiths.

Father Chacour was clearly the connection that brought many to the conference. His entire career which includes a continuity from the founding of the State of Israel to the present, has been one of giving voice to the belief in a reconciled relationship among Christians, Muslims and Jews in Israel and Palestine. His latest book’s title demonstrates that he has not waivered in this belief, Hope Against Despair. He continues to offer his biography as a Palestinian Arab Christian Israeli citizen as proof that an interfaith mosaic is sustainable in the Middle East. He calls himself "a beggar for friendship and solidarity" offering friendship for all. He embodied the theme of the conference, People of Faith Building Partnerships for Peace.

Paul Kindred Deats, October 1, 1918 – July 12, 2009

Over 100 friends and admirers gathered on Sunday at the United Parish of Auburndale in Massachusetts to celebrate the life of Paul Kindred Deats. His career was lived largely as a theologian and scholar at the Boston Theological Seminary of Boston College, but his life was woven through the pacifist traditions and issues of his lifetime. A Texan from a conservative family he engaged in interracial fellowship and civil rights work, first through the campus institution of the Wesley Foundation, later as a scholar and practitioner with interests and sabbaticals in Africa.

He was interested in and instrumental to the introduction of Thich Nhat Hanh’s engaged Buddhism to North America and the world, and he was an important leader of FOR, including service as the chair of the National Council from 1974-1978. In brief remarks at the service I was pleased to lift up the efforts of his grandson, Nick Jehlen, whose campaign called Enough Fear, has been endorsed by FOR. The campaign includes spontaneous telephone calls from the public square to homes in Iran for conversations promoting peace and friendship.

Milton Meltzer, author of “Ain’t Gonna Study War No More”

Milton Meltzer, author or more than 100 books, many of them for children and five of which were National Book Award finalists, died on Saturday, September 16th at 95 years of age in his home in Manhattan. A self-educated historian with a strong belief that we should know the darker side of our history, concentrated on social injustice, but in a way that lifted up progress and solutions and that actively engaged students in learning truths often ignored in mainstream texts.