The Sydney crew of Pace e Bene Australia are running the ‘Engage – Exploring Nonviolent Living’ workshops over four Saturdays after the success of last year’s program.
These workshops combine intellectual and experiential learning to help participants take the next steps on the journey towards living nonviolently.
The dates are 26 July, 16 August, 6 September and 27 September, running from 9am to 4:30pm in Epping.
Full details and registration can be found here.
Adelaide: November 6th – 9th 2008
This is an open invitation to be a part of our National Gathering in Adelaide later this year which seeks to bring together people from around the country to network, share experiences and be further equipped for nonviolent life and action.
Costs will be kept to a minimum with scope for some part-scholarships.
This is the second such national gathering – the first was at Pallotti College in Millgrove, Victoria in December 2006 – from which Pace e Bene Australia emerged. Click here for further details and registration.
The Pace e Bene AGM will be held on Nov 10th after the Gathering.
Continue reading “Open Invitation to our National Gathering” →
PACE e BENE AUSTRALIA
From Violence to Wholeness
FACILITATOR CO-LEARNING PROGRAM
In partnership with Catholic Church Solomon Islands and Caritas
Solomon lands
April 7–27, 2008
Day 1 Saturday April 6
Brendan arrived in Brisbane on the ‘red-eye’ at 7am on Saturday morning April 5th, about an hour later than schedule….an auspicious start to this adventure. Carole’s husband Steve was there to greet him and take him to further repose for the rest of the morning…an afternoon of catching-up and planning for the work ahead…followed by a grand feast, packing and early’ish night.
Day 2 Sunday April 7
We were due to depart Brisbane for Honiara at 930am on Sunday April 6th. We arrived at the airport and were told that the flight was delayed until 1pm. All bags checked on (despite last-minute anxieties that we were about 10kgs overweight – the bags we mean!).
So we waited….walked and talked….and waited. Then we were up and away – the adventure begins for real…
t an hour into our 3.5 hour flight, while celebrating our departure and our first PeB Australia venture overseas, we had just been served lunch when it was announced that the plane was returning to Brisbane due to a failure of the radio….and so we arrived back where we started around 4pm. It was quite amazing – there was a remarkable sense of calm around – with everyone on board accepting that this is how it is – just like open space in action – we’ll get there at the right time!
After another hour of waiting around at the airport, we were told that the problem could not be fixed and we’d be put up in a hotel overnight and fly out next day (Monday 7th) at 6pm.
So off we went – into reverse gear – back through Customs, collected our bags and got on a coach that took us to the Siebel hotel in the heart of Brisbane. Just as we got on the coach we heard the guys sitting behind us chatting – and one of them was from Ahoghill in Ireland – a wee village about 20 miles from where Brendan was born….amazing! So we had a good yarn and ended up having a couple of drinks (or so) and dinner with them at the hotel – the Irishman worked with the commercial financing arm of The World Bank and the other, a retired Canadian bank manager, worked as a banking consultant….we had a very interesting dinner conversation…eh!
Other people we ran into during this leisurely, luxurious interlude, were
‘A.D.’ a young surfer from the UK who was going to Gizo to help rebuild village houses after the tsunami last year – his story was inspirational: his friends had been surfing there when the tsunami struck and had escaped with their lives. They had been so touched by the help they had received from the local people that when they got back to England, they couldn’t settle and began to raise funds from their families and friends to take back to help the villagers rebuild their homes. And so AD was on his way to help them….quite a journey for a young man of 20!
Sumaglien – a black South African woman, now living in Sydney, who had great warmth and humour….going to visit her husband who was an engineer in Honiara. Her stories of living in SA during apartheid were deeply moving…
Day 3 Monday April 8
Good sleep, morning walk along the river and filling breakfast of anything we fancied….
Had a meeting to plan our first day’s work, packed our bags and had another hearty meal before the coaches came to pick us up at 3pm
And so off we went again – no Solomons Airlines staff there to greet us, we queued up at the Check-Out and noticed that our flight was now scheduled to depart at 8pm – a further delay of two hours….learning to be patient and nonviolent with what is beyond our control…again!
Eventually we boarded a very recent model Air Vanuatu plane and departed – this time making it all the way to Honiara, arriving at 1245am Tuesday morning to stutter through Customs and eventually be picked up by Adam Elliot and Peter from Caritas and delivered to the King Solomon Hotel….”don’t get too comfortable guys, we’ll pick you up in the morning around 655am for an 8am flight to Gizo”….and then our story really begins…. Continue reading “Solomon Islands Journal” →
Dear friends,
Climate change has become possibly the defining moral issue of our time. One of the biggest problems we face is that Australia is addicted to coal. Coal exports are Australia’s biggest contribution to climate change. The greenhouse pollution from our coal exports exceeds all of our domestic pollution combined – and is set to grow massively.
This July we invite you to join us in taking action to put a stop to this madness.
A major ‘camp for climate action‘ will be happening in Newcastle from 10-15 July. The camp will be six days of inspiring workshops and direct action aimed at shutting down the world’s largest coal port.
We are hoping to gather a group of concerned Christians together to form an action team (or affinity group) for the blockade action. This will probably involve most (but not all) members risking arrest for a minor offence, although details will be decided by the group.
Attached is a FAQ sheet with information on climate change and Christian faith, why coal exports represent an urgent threat, the hows and whys of nonviolent action at the camp, and the history of Christian nonviolent action. We invite you to read the FAQ and consider whether God is calling you to become involved.
You don’t have to be willing to risk arrest to be involved. You don’t have to be available all six days to be involved – some people are just coming Friday to Sunday. You don’t have to be an experienced activist to be involved. You do need to be passionate about climate change and about what God thinks about us trashing the planet.
To help people think through the issues and decide if they want to be involved, Project Green Church and Pace e Bene Australia Nonviolence Service will host a few afternoon workshops over the coming weeks. These will cover details about the camp, the direct action, Christian discipleship and some nonviolent action training. You don’t have to attend one of these workshops to join us at the camp, but it will help. Details of the workshops can be found here.
If you are interested, we would love to hear from you.
Yours in Christ,
Jonathan Moylan, Rising Tide & Newcastle UCATSA
Miriam Pepper , Project Green Church
Wenny Theresia, Australian Student Environment Network
Justin Whelan, Pace e Bene Australia Nonviolence Service
(Note: organisation names are included for information only. We do not claim to represent them.)
Here’s a letter I penned soon after our recent court appearance for disrupting the Talisman Sabre military exercises last year (reflections here), but never sent.
Dear friends,
I’m sitting here having just finished watching Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise, and Robert Redford in Lions For Lambs, and thinking about the despair that pervades the US and so many of us about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And as I think about this in light of events in my own life in the past year, I thought it might be worth sharing these reflections with you about hope, resistance and Christian discipleship in the midst of despair.
Despair is far too easy; more than that, it’s a luxury for those of us in the First World, sitting comfortably in our homes lit by energy saving bulbs watching the horrors unfold in front of us. We can pontificate as to whether we believe this war is about oil, or about democracy; about ridding the world of an evil dictator, or weapons of mass destruction, or about establishing US bases in the Middle East…or maybe all of the above. Conversations about the arrogance of America, or about its greed, or even Australia’s complicity become nauseating. Putting our faith in democracy, or in policy, or in the law to be able to work it all out is futile; worse, it’s idolatry. In the end it all adds up to empire. And really it doesn’t matter which empire – it could be Rome, it could be the United States of America, or (who knows?) in a few years maybe China. It really doesn’t matter. What matters, for those of us who put our faith in Christ, is where we sit in such moments of time. How do we follow Jesus? Where was he found?
Hanging from a cross, it would seem, in the midst of empire, damned by all for the sake of maintaining the status quo. As happens so often in history, having sat with the victims of empire, he became one. And he calls us to do the same; to deny ourselves – our privilege, our position, our power – take up our cross, and follow him.
And so it comes down to this: discipleship is about where we sit. Or as Phil Berrigan once put it, somewhat more crudely (but I think more accurately), “Hope is where your ass is.” Do we sit with the victims of empire, or with its powerbrokers? Do we sit in the prisons, the courtrooms, the homeless shelters, amongst others whom our society have marginalised or rejected? Or do we sit in the imperial courtyards of power, and, like Peter, deny the suffering and tortured Christ because of our presence there?
I am left from our time in court last week with one question; not was this the right thing to do, but (like my good friend and co-defendant Sarah) why not more? How can I go about my daily business with the occasional nod to war resistance when people are being murdered in my name while I sleep? As Dan Berrigan says, “We have assumed the name of peacemakers, but we have been, by and large, unwilling to pay any significant price. And because we want the peace with half a heart and half a life and will, the war, of course, continues, because the waging of war, by its nature, is total–but the waging of peace, by our own cowardice, is partial.” If despair is cheap, resistance in the West is an absolute bargain. Six months’ good behaviour bond is an encouragement to go back for more.
I particularly want to thank those of you who supported us – whether you wrote letters or references, prayed, planted trees or played frisbee with a friend, stranger or enemy; your solidarity made this easier for us, particularly because as Wink says, “history belongs to the intercessors”. May those of us tempted by despair feel ourselves drawn to the invitation to audacious hope that is the good news of Jesus Christ.
Blessings of peace,
Simon
Many thanks to those who expressed their love and support around our trial…I’d encourage you to head over to our website to check out reports on the event and its aftermath, particularly some of the court reports by others and the actions that were taken in solidarity. Your prayers were obviously effective in the way things went, wih everyone in the courtroom (no less ourselves) visibly moved by our arguments. Again, many thanks and I’d encourage you to start thinking now about whether you’d like to be involved in resisting Operation Talisman Sabre 09, being held 6-26 July 2009.
Amazing story here about a woman who has put into practice the kind of radical forgiveness Jesus taught and that other groups such as the Amish have demonstrated. Courageous people such as this show that a world of violence and revenge can give way to a world of forgiveness and love of enemy, even in the midst of what must be excruciating pain.
Some great news from the UK (if a bit delayed): the Campaign Against Arms Trade and The Corner House have won a High Court case forcing the Serious Fraud Squad to re-open a corruption investigation into BAE’s arms exports to Saudi Arabia. The investigation had been closed after pressure from both parties was put on the UK government. The Court called it a “paradigm case” that concerns “the way this country is governed”.
Insipring news for those of us planning to protest the international arrms expo in Adelaide in November!
Continue reading “High Court reopens BAE-Saudi corruption investigation” →
I just got sent a copy of a speech Rev Jon Inkpin gave to the Pax Christi NSW AGM. Some interesting thoughts here – perhaps a good ‘glass half-full’ counterpoint to my pessimistic article Kyrie Eleison from a few weeks ago.
Continue reading “What’s left to do in the Decade to Overcome Violence?” →
For some time now I have been trying to work out how to do liturgy that really honours the courage and sacrifice of people who have fought in war, and at the same time speaks to the gospel call to peacemaking witness.
For me, the obvious starting point is that any remembrance has to be themed around the statement ‘never again!’ – nothing else really gets close to honoring the experiences of the utter depravity that soldiers so consistently report.
Anyway, this Anzac Day I had another go. I decided to structure the service around dual symbolic lists – one a litany for the victims of war, the other a calling forth of the spirit of great peacemaking saints. I welcome your thoughts!
