You can read it online in PDF format – click here, and jump to page 11 at the bottom of the screen.

For a free copy of the journal, contact Kitty Norton Jones, by phone at (615) 322-4205, or e-mail to kitty.nortonjones@vanderbilt.edu

For our earlier postings from and about Don >>

I have been incarcerated over four months now. I await October 1st when I will be released and free to roam beyond the camp where I am now confined. I cannot leave the camp without serious consequences. They keep track of me with midnight counts, stand-up counts, and "give your number" counts. I am confined in every sense of the word. Confinement, separation, enclosure, withdrawal to a desert — all have been disciplines in the life of faith. Confinement in prison adds another dimension. ....

I have wondered a lot about being more present to the time, the present time. What I pay attention to sharpens my life. If I pay attention to what's in the future, I may miss something right before me. What about this day? This time? Much of the energy of inmates is focused outside the camp either on their appeals, family matters, or girlfriends. Mostly, the energy focuses on wanting to get out. ...

As I reflect upon the time here, I have paid attention to my relationships with inmates, and to finding space for others in my heart. I have paid attention to me, to dispositions, to tiredness, to confusion. I cherish the support and give thanks to my friends, colleagues, and family. ...

Confinement has provided me with an unwanted isolation, but confinement also has brought me the deeper meanings that lie quietly within each of those areas already mentioned. I listen better; let events be my teacher.

And amidst all, I have found a holy presence in my life, filling the spaces with sacredness. Such a gift! Van Gogh said, "I think that everything comes from God." Even here, an awareness of this thought presents itself, especially in the morning and at night when I retire. I realize that I am glad, grateful to be able to reflect theologically on the incredible life given to me, even here. There is majesty in all of this.

Don Beisswenger was arrested for his participation in the November 2003 demonstration again the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia.  He was sent to the Federal Prison in Manchester, Kentucky, where he served a six-month sentence.  He completed his sentence and was released on October 1, 2004.

For background on the SOA action, and more >>

For more on Don's action, arrest, and time in prison >>

Statement prepared for presentation
to the Presbytery of Middle Tennessee
at its meeting at Hillsboro Presbyterian Church on February 26, 2005.

Members of Presbytery, I rise to express gratitude to the many of you who remembered me with prayer and letters while I was in the federal prison in Manchester, Ky. Nearly a year ago, on the second day of Holy Week as we remembered Jesus, journey to Jerusalem and death, I reported to the prison to serve six months as a prisoner of conscience. I engaged in civil disobedience at the US army base at Ft. Benning, Ga, giving witness, along with some 10,000 other US citizens, against atrocities committed by graduates of the School of the Americas when they returned to their Latin American countries.

Prison seemed the right place for my body to be, in faithfulness to the God of all nations.. There is a geography to faith, I believe; where our bodies are is significant.

This year we remember that 25 years ago Oscar Romero was assassinated while serving Holy Communion in El Salvador. We remember that four missionary sisters were raped and murdered, and six priests were killed ... and the village of El Mozote destroyed, except for a mother who saw her children killed. Seven years ago, Bishop Girardi was murdered in Guatemala (where the Marriots now serve as missionaries from this presbytery), after releasing a human rights report to the citizens.

This problem continues. There are 10,000 graduates of this school, now named Western Hemisphere for Security Cooperation, in Colombia, who continue their work there. Three union leaders were brutally murdered in September. Alice Winter, our missionary there, tells of the intimidations and disappearances this past fall. One of her co-workers, a Presbyterian servant and solid citizen, was arrested, and tortured, charges which were then dropped. But the intimidation continues. This week we learned that Luis Eduardo, a witness for human rights in Colombia, was assassinated along with six others, three of whom were children, by the 11^th brigade of the Colombian army. Luis spoke at our gathering at Ft. Benning Vigil in 2002.

Prison is not foreign to our faith. In Hebrews we are called to “remember those in prison as though in prison with them, and as those who are ill treated for you also are of the body.”

So I thank you as you remembered me with prayer and letters. I knew a deep sense of community with the people of God, and peace, even amidst the difficult time,

Grace and Peace to you...

Rev. Don Beisswenger

Don adds this “note to Witherspooners”

A bill will be presented to the House as the present session gets under way, by Rep. James P. McGovern (D - Mass.). The bill will call for the suspension and investigation of the SOA/WHINSEC. You might urge your representative to co-sponsor the bill. We had over 130 sponsors last time, though passage will be difficult. Amnesty International is supporting this bill, which will be helpful. Write about Luis Eduardo as well.

There's more information on the SOA Watch web site

WebWeaver’s note on Luis Eduardo. He was a long-time Colombian human rights activists who was a featured speaker at the November 2002 SOA vigil. He was assassinated by the 11th Brigade of the Colombian Army on February 21^st, along with 6 other civilians, three of them children.

More >>

A special report from Gene TeSelle, Witherspoon's Issues Analyst

[Sent 10-3-04, posted here 10-4-04]

Click here for earlier reports, and some of his letters from prison.

Don Beisswenger, professor emeritus at Vanderbilt Divinity School, was released on Friday, October 1, after six months in prison for civil disobedience at the School of the Americas (SOA).

He was greeted by a group of supporters at the Nashville Peace and Justice Center on Friday afternoon after a four-hour trip from the Federal Correctional Institution in Manchester, KY.

His chief request was that a service of worship be planned, and that it be accessible by the homeless with whom he has worked. This took place on Sunday afternoon at the Downtown Presbyterian Church, where Don has organized the Living Room conversations with the homeless as equal partners. Don shared the reflections he had written in prison and indicated ways he wants to continue his witness for peace and justice.

On the night before (Thursday, September 30), Nashvillians had a chance to hear from the man who started it all - Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch, spoke at Vanderbilt DIvinity School, recalling the way he had become aware of the problems with U.S. military policy in Latin America while ministering to the poor in Bolivia. He was acquainted, through the Maryknoll mission organization, with two of the four church women who were raped and killed in El Salvador by soldiers trained and armed by the U.S. He founded founded SOAWatch in 1990. Since then a vigil has been held every year outside the gates of Fort Benning, GA, on the weekend before Thanksgiving, with steadily increasing numbers of participants.

The 2004 protest will be November 19-21.  For more information go to http://www.soaw.org/.

 Readers will want to look at a recently published book by James Hodge and Linda Cooper, entitled Disturbing the Peace: The Story of Father Roy Bourgeois and the Movement to Close the School of the Americas. As Martin Sheen says in the Foreword, it tells about "the evolution and journey of a soul from conversion to re-conversion, from prayer and contemplation to heroic action, all in a continuous effort to unite the will of the spirit to the work of the flesh."

The 240-page book is available in paperback for $20. It can be ordered from Orbis Books, 1-800-258-5838, or from SOAWatch at http://www.soaw.org/.