Ghost Ranch 2007 Week of Peace

Ghost Ranch 2007
Week of Peace, Global Justice and Creation

We've just posted a few photos from the
Ghost Ranch Week of Peace.
We'll add more, and we welcome your contributions.
Just send them with a note to dougking2@aol.com

[8-30-07]

What went on in the Seminars?

Starting today, we'll be bringing you brief reports of the seven different seminars that ran through the "Week of Peace," each of them written by a person who took part in that seminar.

We begin today with a report from the seminar on "Earth-honoring Faith," which was led by Larry Rasmussen and John Preston.
[8-20-07]

Here are the reports from the last three of the Ghost Ranch seminars:
[8-28-07]

Building a Culture of Peace

Sara Lisherness, until recently director of the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, and Jay Rock, Coordinator for Interfaith Relations of the PC(USA), led this group in exploring some of the many forms that peacemaking can take, and the ways the peacemaking journey can shape our personal lives.

The Israel/Palestine Conflict

Marthame and Elizabeth Sanders served in mission from 2000 through 2003 in the northern West Bank town of Zababdeh. Out of that experience and their continuing involvement in that area, they helped the seminar group in building skills to respond to comments and "hard questions" about the Israel/Palestine situation and other difficult issues in the church and the society today.

Advocating for Peace and Justice

The Rev. Dr. Chris Iosso, Coordinator of the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, helped this group gain a sense of how the church is currently thinking about issues such as the Iraq war, the New Social Creed which is now being drafted, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and much more.

For a separate page of earlier reports >>

Two more seminar reports from the Ghost Ranch "Week of Peace" [8-23-07]

Joel Hanisek, the PC(USA) Presbyterian representative to the UN, reports on the seminar he led: Discover the Vision: The Presbyterian Church and the United Nations

John Preston, one of the Seminar leaders of the seminar on Earth-honoring Faith, adds this comment to our earlier report on that seminar, specifically about the importance of worship in an "earth-honoring faith"

More seminar reports from the Ghost Ranch "Week of Peace" [8-21-07]

Mike Bennefiel offers a very thorough and helpful summary of the seminar entitled "Peacemaking 401," which was led by Rick Ufford-Chase, Executive Director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship.

Speaking Truth to the Powerful and the Not So Powerful, led by the Rev. Carol Wickersham considered these questions: How do we speak the truth about injustice to those in power and to our next-door neighbors? What are we called to witness to and to whom, and who do we mean when we use the collective pronoun "we?" Barbara Quintiliano shares some of the insights the group gained from wrestling with these questions -- along with a good list of resources on political activism in general, and resistance to torture in particular.

Looking back on the Week for Peace at Ghost Ranch

by Doug King, your WebWeaver [8-16-07]

We’ve posted a number of specific items from our week at Ghost Ranch from July 30^th to August 5^th. But now that a couple weeks have passed, I’d like to look back briefly at the week, asking what made it so good for many of the people there, and what impact it may have in the longer term.

Rick Ufford-Chase, now serving as the Executive Director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, called it a "cowboy camp meeting" for peace, justice and care for creation. That it was. According to Jim Baird, Director of Programs at Ghost Ranch, it was the largest single group seminar ever at Ghost Ranch, with some 125 people registered.

Progressive Presbyterians often gather around shared concerns for peace and justice and stewardship of the creation, but this event was unusual in the variety of groups that were represented, both by their active participation in planning the event, and in their members who came to it. Three advocacy groups – Presbyterians for Restoring Creation, the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, and the Witherspoon Society – have since 1999 co-sponsored a seminar at Ghost Ranch focusing on the connections between the economy, ecology and militarism.

The Witherspoon Society sponsored the first of these seminars, at the initiative of Witherspoon leader Jane Hanna, who has continued to guide it (brilliantly!) ever since. In 2001, Anne Barstow joined in planning the seminars on behalf of the Peace Fellowship. In 2003, Presbyterians for Restoring Creation joined in sponsorship and the three groups have continued lending their names to the seminars. Our warm gratitude goes to Jane for her leadership over these years – but she quickly notes how this year’s seminar was helped by the leadership of Rick Ufford-Chase, Jim Baird of the Ghost Ranch staff, and the Peacemaking Program.

This year the the three groups were joined by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program as a co-sponsor of the event; thus for the first time a denominational agency played a co-sponsoring role. In addition, leadership was provided by the recently formed group No2Torture, the group for Israel/Palestine concerns, along with the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, and the Presbyterian Office at the UN.

With all the pressure from some groups on the right to keep the denomination unsullied by "special interest groups" working for such strange things as peace and justice and the care of God’s creation, this level of cooperation was deeply appreciated by many of us.

So this was an impressive event, partly because of the cooperation of a new constellation of groups both official and unofficial. But even more impressive to me was the sharing and connection-building that went on in the seminars, around dining hall tables, and probably along a number of trails up one mesa or another. I’ve seldom been in a group where so many were so busy exchanging names and addresses, ideas and resources.

The seminars, while tied together with the general theme, covered a wide range of issues with a variety of styles; some were more focused on the content being offered by one or two leaders, while others were designed for maximum participation by all the members. Some focused on issues (for example the seminar I joined, on "Advocating for Justice and Peace"), while others invited participants into deep reflection on their own lives, their stories and their life-styles.

We will provide reports from each of the seminars as quickly as we’re able – each report prepared by someone who participated in that group. I hope to post them all here, and to publish them in the forthcoming issue of Network News.

For the first time, all seminar participants joined together for an hour (and more) of worship every evening. Leaders were Roberto Jordan and Larry Rasmussen, each speaking out of his deep personal involvements. Jordan, from Argentina, took part in the drafting of the Accra Confession of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, which affirms God’s call to the church in the 21^st Century, as seen primarily through the experiences of Reformed church people in the "third" or Southern World. Rasmussen, as an environmental theologian, spoke poetically and passionately about the significance of water in our lives – beginning with baptism, and encompassing the whole globe and its survival. The worship was planned by a very able team headed by Tom Driver, with Sarah Henken (who led the singing), Eric Choate (who played piano), Andrea Leonard and John Preston.

Also for the first time, the newly dedicated Agape Worship Center was fully put to use, as the participants filled the place each evening – with their bodies, their voices, their spirits. It was a lively and enlivening place.

So ... what will it all amount to? I heard many people toward the end of the week expressing their appreciation for the experience. The old networking thing was happening all over the place. Of course some of those connections will bear fruit and others may fade, but the possibilities created by the event were great. Some people were quite specific in looking toward creating overtures for the 2008 General Assembly; time will tell what fruit those efforts may bear.

The real test of the event will be this: Where will we all be and what will we be doing 6 months or a year from now? Will we – as individuals and as groups – be doing anything new? Doing things together in new ways? Acting with more energy, intelligence, imagination ... and love – for the care of God’s wondrous creation, for greater justice among God’s children, and for peace in this war-torn world?

I’ve asked myself whether any clear theme ran through the whole week. Probably each participant would have a different answer – if they could come up with any answer at all after such a multifaceted week. But my own conclusion is that we spent six days together gaining new awareness of the world in which we live, with all its wonder and the complexity. And we became aware more deeply than ever of how so much power is held by so few, where those few pose such threats to human life and to the infinite web of nature in which we exist. I came home with a new sense of calling to join others in resisting the powers of Empire, and in creating new visions for the kind of world that God wants for all of us, if we’re to believe the witness of Scripture and our Reformed heritage. I carry with me a renewed sense of hope that together we may even give our church and our society a few little nudges toward realizing that kind of world.

A song that we sang together each evening caught this for me. "Canticle of the Turning," [scroll down to pages 2 and 3] by Rory Cooney, ends each verse with the chorus: "My heart will sing of the day you [God] bring. Let the fires of your justice burn. Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn!" There is hope – that justice will be done, that peace will come, and that change will come to our world. And the "Week for Peace" may have equipped and emboldened some of us to work harder and more effectively (and more together!) for that turning of the world.

And about next year ...

Planning is already under way for a similar cooperative seminar next summer, with an added attraction: The Creative Arts seminars that have normally been held at the same time but on a schedule of their own, will be coordinated with the seminar on peace and justice. The planners describe their hope that "working together, the Creative Arts and Peacemaking seminars will inform, embrace, advocate, demonstrate ways our lives may be instrumental in achieving a world of peace and justice." Plans are also being made for a high school track for the teenagers and peace themes for the Children's Activities.

The camp-ground community that was planned this year by Rick Ufford-Chase will be carried on again next year. (That was partly an effort to help reduce costs for people wanting to attend the seminar, and partly to add a dimension of intentional, cooperative community to the whole experience.)

The planning for next year has already begun, but it will be a while, says Jane Hanna, before all the leaders and topics will be finalized and announced.

Were you there?

If you have impressions or comments to offer, please send a note, to be shared here.

"A Week for Peace, Global Justice and Creation"

Moon over Chimney Rock
at dawn

[8-1-07]

from Doug King

I arrived at Ghost Ranch Monday evening to find green grass, water in lakes and streams -- something I've never seen here before. And there were over 100 people gathering for a week of seminars, worship, conversation -- and struggling with issues of peace and justice and caring for creation.

Monday evening saw all the week’s participants gathering for orientation (with the reminder that at an elevation of 6,500 feet, everyone needs to take time to adjust, drink lots of water, and all the other eternal verities of Ghost Ranch). A couple hours later, trudging up the long hill to my cabin at the tippy-top of the Mesa, I realized that those verities are still true.

The seminar really got under way Tuesday morning, with some 120 participants splitting into sever different seminars, each with its own angle of vision into the interwoven issues of justice, stewardship of creation, and peacemaking. I’m trying to recruit one participant from each of the seminars to give us some kind of report or reflection on their work, and I’ll post them as soon as I can.

Remembering Hiroshima at Ghost Ranch

[8-4-07]

The Ghost Ranch Week of Peace is drawing toward its close this evening, and today in various ways we remembered the anniversary of the dropping of the first atom bomb on Hiroshima, on August 6, 1945.

The evening worship was a commemoration and a time of new resolve, on which I’ll report more as soon as I can (along with many other things).

But for now -- one moving moment came when the Rev. James E. Atwood, retired PC(USA) missionary to Japan, shared reflections from his visit to Japan in 2005 for the 60th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (For an earlier and longer version >>)

I spent nine years as a missionary in Japan (1965-1974). In August, 2005, I returned, on a peace pilgrimage, attending 60th-anniversary memorials of the two bombs that, in the words of Albert Einstein, "Changed everything except the way we think." In their wake, Einstein added, "We drift toward unparalleled catastrophes."

I love the Japanese people. I salute the courage of the United Church of Christ in Japan as it continues to repent its complicity with Japanese militarism in World War II. I grieve over the use of atomic weapons on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I am impressed that the Japanese people love their "Peace Constitution."

I had to add my voice for peace in a day when the whole world is threatened with nuclear extinction — yet few really want to talk about it.

I was privileged to represent the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship in an eight-member delegation from the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), a group formed to support those in Japan and the United States who resist calls for the repeal of Article IX of the Japanese constitution.

That provision, written by representatives of American Occupation Forces in the early days of Japan’s post-war reconstruction, reads:

1. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.

2. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.Our own country is still deeply divided over the use of these horrible weapons.

As doves circled over the assemblies in Hiroshima in 2005, I was glad to be standing with thousands of others and making the vow: "No more Hiroshimas. No More Nagasakis. No more nuclear weapons. No more war."

Dear Lord, let it be so.

Procession moves down a Los Alamos street

Praying at Los Alamos

Earlier in the day, about 30 seminar participants traveled from Ghost Ranch to Los Alamos, site of the development of those first nuclear bombs. There we joined in an action of prayer and protest which was organized by Paz Christi, as it is each year. (And for how many more years??)

The group, totaling around 150, donned sackcloth (well, old burlap bags) as a sign of penitence, and walked quietly along on of the city’s main streets, until we spread out and each sat down on the ground, where we spent 45 minutes simply being silent and prayerful. The group then walked quietly back to the park where we had gathered, joined in prayer, and then gathered for a rally at which Fr. Roy Bourgeois of SOA Watch was the keynote speaker. We Presbyterians left before the rally began, to be back at Ghost Ranch in time for dinner and the evening worship. For this Presbyterian it was a good, good time. Deeply sad, but good. It was also the first protest march I’ve seen that was blessed as it began by a Native American shaman "smudging" us with sage smoke. May it help to bring an end to the insanity of the nuclear arms race – a race in which one runner has far outdistanced the rest of the field, but no one will ever win.

Worship and the Word [8-6-07]

Each evening the Seminar participants gathered for worship, which was planned by the Rev. Dr. Tom Driver, emeritus professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, and a capable group working with him. The preacher each evening was the Rev. Roberto Jordan of Argentina, who was a strong participant in the team that drafted the Accra Confession of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in 2004; the one exception was the service on Thursday, for which the preacher was the Rev. Dr. Larry Rasmussen, also emeritus professor at Union Seminary.

Because of great interest from many of the seminar participants, we will present these sermons in full as quickly as we can.

Roberto Jordan describes us as “challenged by God,” and called to interpret the signs of our times
[8-6-07]

In his first sermon, Dr. Jordan invited the group to focus on the Exodus as a revelation of the nature of God – and which is “a paradigm for theology in countries from the South; it is a book that refers to sufferings, fears, injustices, dreams, needs, hopes… life. I could not begin our night worship for this week in any other place, because in more than one sense, today we are called to be Exodus people.”

He went on to say that “one of the challenges put before us today is to clearly express who is the God we believe in. The answer is clear: God sees, hears and comes down, not as an ‘observer’ God but as an involved God. Though it would seem many prefer a judging God, a distant God – that is not God. The God we believe is God who delivers and who liberates. God promises change, and is not indifferent to pain and injustice. God feels with passion, from God’s guts. God decides that the situation must change. For this to happen God calls Moses to draw near, not putting people off but rather calling people close up.”

The full sermon >>

Jordan says we are challenged by God to "worship totally" – which for Isaiah means doing justice

[8-6-07]

In his second sermon, Roberto Jordan looked at Isaiah 58, with the insistence to the people who are so diligent in this worship that " ‘You do not worship (=fast), you serve your own interests, you oppress your workers, you quarrel and fight, you strike with wicked fist.’ But who are those who do this? They are the powerful, who oppress. Doesn’t all this seem to bring us back to Exodus 3, and the groaning of the people in Egypt? God heard a cry and came down so as to rescue the people.

Conversion to what the New Testament calls "fullness of life" demands that we ask painful questions about our own society. "Today," he said, "these questions point to structural sin and not only personal sin:

• Who produces such situations?
• Who benefits from such situations?
• Who gains from situations that do not change?
• What do we have to say when faced with these situations?"

The full sermon >>

The third sermon of the week:

The waters of baptism help us understand the "tipping point" in humanity's relationship with nature.

[8-7-07]

Dr. Larry Rasmussen looks through the Christian rite of baptism to help us understand the water that renews and sustains all of human life -- and shows how we are now at a "tipping point" in the relation between human efforts at domination and the realities of "the great economy of creation."

The sermon >>

Speaking of water ...

"Nobody owns water.
Drink some, and try to keep it."

This little thought comes from the poet Alberto Rios, who grew up in Nogales, AZ, on the border between Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. He grew up between between worlds, cultures, languages – which "showed me how to look at everything in more than one way" – and that ability is, he says, what made him a poet. This line is part of his "Words over Water" project around Tempe Town Lake, which consists of bits of thought like this one, inscribed on 600 granite tiles placed in a line six miles long around Tempe Town Lake.

I discovered this tidbit on the PBS News Hour ,with Margaret Warner interviewing the poet.

To read a transcript of the interview >>

From there you can also find sound and video clips.
[8-11-07]

Challenged by God and sharing fearlessly

Roberto Jordan's third sermon of the week focuses on Jesus' feeding of the multitude as a model of the new life into which he calls us -- a life of radical sharing. The full sermon >>
[8-8-07]

Challenged by God and responding differently

Roberto Jordan's final sermon of the Ghost Ranch "Week of Peace" reflects on the radical call of the Letter of James to working for peace -- a commitment that sets us off sharply from the secure world of Empire. The sermon >>
[8-8-07]

Closing worship remembers Hiroshima [8-10-07]

The service of worship on Saturday, August 4^th, was a commemoration of the first use of the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945. At the opening of Jim Atwood -- a retired PC(USA) missionary to Japan, who visited Japan in 2005 for the 60th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- offered a moving prayer of invocation >>