Friends, Peace and Pine Gap

Miss Eagle has to-day received this letter and these photographs from Dale Hess.

______________
Friends,

I have just received these photos of the Quaker Meeting held at Pine Gap. To learn what is happening at the trial of the Pine Gap 4, click on: http://www.pinegapontrial.blogspot.com/

Best regards,
Dale
______________

From: Jessica Morrison
Sent: Monday, 11 June 2007 9:32 PM
To: Hess Dale
Subject: Quaker Meeting at the Gates of Pine Gap - was it the first?

Dear Dale

I thought Friends may be interested in this,

Jessica
________________________
On Saturday 9th June, 25 people attended a Quaker meeting for worship 20 kms outside Alice Springs. The venue was the front gates of Pine Gap, a US/Australian Joint Defence Facility (also known as a US spy base), and the site of many protests.

While this was the first meeting for worship, this group of activists were able to grasp the process quickly (apart from sitting still for so long!).

Ministry included:

• Hindu mantras;the query relating to seeds of conflict in ourselves;
• stories of civil disobedience by Quakers;
• that prophets went into the desert to find God and
• that we go into the desert to find the truth about our country;
• the nature of silence; and
• the experience to attend the base in listening, rather than broadcasting of our opinions.

We finished with the laying of a peace sign of flowers and holding hands.

Beloved writing

One of the most valued books on Miss Eagle's bookshelves is A Testament of Devotion by Quaker writer, Thomas R Kelly. So well does Miss Eagle regard this work that she puts it right up there beside the oldest book on spirituality in the English language, The Cloud of Unknowing. The slim devotional volume, published posthumously, comprises a biographical memoir of Kelly by his friend Douglas V Steere and five essays. The titles of the essays lead one to consider the integral experience, values and outcomes of the devoted life. They are:

• The Light Within
• Holy Obedience
• The Blessed Community
• The Eternal Now and Social Concern
• The Simplification of Life

At the beginning of the fourth essay are three sentences which might be of interest to readers of this blog.

There is an experience of the Eternal breaking into time, which transforms all life into a miracle of faith and action. Unspeakable, profound, and full of glory as an inward experience, it is the root of concern for all creation, the true ground of social endeavor. This inward Life and the outward Concern are truly one whole.

Sojourners remember Tom Fox

Sojourners produce Sojomail: a weekly email-zine of spirituality, politics and culture.

They have to-day issued a special addition to commemorate Tom Fox.

They introduce it with the following editorial:

The staff of Sojourners extends its deepest condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of Christian Peacemaker Teams member Tom Fox, who was found dead near Baghdad on Thursday.
His three teammates, seen in a video broadcast last week, are believed to be alive but remain captive. As we mourn Tom's death, we focus on his solidarity with the unnamed tens of thousands of Iraqi dead, disappeared, detained, and tortured. Christ is present in their suffering (Matthew 25). Yet, we also recognize that Tom's suffering is special because it was in voluntary obedience to Christ's call to suffer as he did to prove his love for both neighbors and enemies: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it" (Mark 8:34-35). As evidenced by the outpouring of support and sympathy from across religious and national boundaries, Tom's life and death are a testimony to the truth of Jesus' gospel - and a challenge to all who claim to follow it.

Tom Fox, Martyr and Peacemaker, remembered

BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS,

FOR THEY SHALL BE CALLED THE SONS OF GOD

New King James Version Matt 5:9

Tom Fox was remembered at the Northern Suburbs Meeting for Worship of the Religious Society of Friends held at the Neighbourhood House, Garden Street, Brunswick in Melbourne at 10.30am this morning. Tom Fox's name, this First Day, will be, undoubtedly, heard and remembered at every Quaker Meeting around the world and in every Worship Service whose participants hold peace in the name of Christ high on its agenda.

This blog has continued to remember the four Christian Peacemaker hostages. Word is awaited on the welfare of the remaining three CPT hostages - Norman Kember, Harmeet Singh Sooden and James Loney. There is also concern for other CPT workers in Iraq. Please uphold them and all those who are imprisoned because of conflict and violence in Iraq.

REQUIESCAT IN LUMINE

Pursuing Peace

Last night, I attended the launch of Gerard Guiton's book, The Growth and Development of Quaker Testimony 1652-1661 and 1960-1994, Conflict, Non-Violence and Conciliation. OK, I know. He knows. Yes, it's not catchiest title ever dreamed up for a book jacket - but he does have a good excuse. It is the book of the PhD.

Gerry's "first vocation" was teaching - in Australia and the UK. He has gone on since to spend his life immersed in peace and social justice: as Peace/Global Education Officer with World Vision Australia and as National Publications Officer for Oxfam Australia. Gerry is a Quaker with all the activity and concern that goes with the territory. He has been Friend-in-Residence at Woodbrooke, the Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham in the UK and has been the Henry J Cadbury Scholar at Pendle Hill, the Quaker Study Centre in Philadelphia in the USA.

Gerry's book examines the historical and spiritual underpinnings of contemporary Quaker approaches to conflict in third world military settings. Early Quaker Testimony was predicated on conflict on three levels namely inner (in which sin was purged); within the Society of Friends; and from hostile external forces. The Testimony also possessed a tripartite form instanced in the settling of conflicts within and beyond the Society; witnessing for justice and peace; and establishing mutual support systems.

Dale Hess (left) and Dave Bullen (right) who launched Gerry's book.

Contemporary Quaker Testimony, also arising from conflict and in tripartite form, is compared to Early Quaker Testimony to delineate convergences and divergences in theology, language use, approaches to authority, public witness and mutual support systems. Gerry specifically investigates South African Quakerism under Apartheid - between the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 and the all-party elections of 1994. This odyssey makes possible an analysis and discussion of individual and corporate experiences of conflict. Particularly noteworthy is Hendrik W van der Merwe, an international mediator who helped to facilitate the talks leading to the release of Nelson Mandela whom he knew. Quaker mediation is described along with conflict and dispute resolution techniques within the context of mediation-conflict theory.

Gerry expects that this book will benefit individuals and organisations involved in mediation, facilitation and third party interventions. It will also be of interest in the area of community, industrial, school, church and family dispute resolution.

Gerry's book can be accessed either for reference or purchase on

(a) http://www.mellenpress.com/mellenpress.cfm?&pc=8&catkey=48 and

(b)www.allbookstores.com/author/Gerard_Guiton.html

Quaker Peace Testimony

The Quaker Peace Testimony expresses best my own anti-war beliefs.

We utterly deny all outward wars and strife and fighting

with outward weapons for any end or under any pretense whatsoever,

this is our testimony to the whole world...

...The Spirit of Christ by which we are guided is not changeable,

so as once to command us from a thing of evil

and again to move us into it,

and we certainly know and testify to the world

that the Spirit of Christ which leads us into all truth

will never move us to fight and war

against any man with outward weapons,

neither for the Kingdom of Christ

nor for the kingdoms of this world...

therefore we cannot learn war any more

from a Statement by the Quakers to King Charles II (1660)

I told them I knew from when all wars arose...and that I lived in the virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of all wars; and that I was come into the covenant of peace which was before all wars and strife.

George Fox, founder of The Religious Society of Friends (1650)