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Vince Hawkinson Foundation
Honorary Award remarks by Steve Clemens, October 14, 2012
When Eric Hucke called me in
July to inform me about this award, I went to the website to view the listing
of past honorees. I noticed I had been
arrested with at least 10 of the previous honorees.
My friend Marv Davidov had 11 more
years of resistance after receiving his award; John and Marie Braun keep going,
keep going, keep going … like Energizer bunnies for peacemaking.
I see Ralph Hildenberg on the Lake
Street Bridge almost every week; I was just on trial this past May with 3 of
the 4 McDonald sisters. Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer has poured his energies into the
Minnesota Arms Spending Alternatives Project (MN ASAP) and another book since
he and Sara were recognized a couple of years ago.
So when the honorary award is for lifetime achievement
it really is merely an encouragement to keep
on rather than rest on one’s laurels. Have you ever known Polly Mann to
give any indication that she is “retiring” from peacemaking and her passion for
social justice? Ken Masters has slowed down but he and Carol continue in the
work of reminding us to keep agitating for justice.
Vince Hawkinson: I never knew him personally but I heard him
speak a few times after moving to MN in 1990. It is clear to me that his deep faith
inspired and fed his resistance to war. I, too, find my personal faith –coupled
with its public expression in a faith community – has been my primary
inspiration for my work in peacemaking. The Biblical call to be reconciled to
God and to one another is central to my understanding of peacemaking.
However, day-to-day ministries of reconciliation are often ignored
in favor of dramatic arrests. We need to end the hierarchy of peacemaking or
spirituality and instead celebrate all the diverse gifts given to the body. This
Hawkinson Award has recognized many various facets of peacemaking – not just
practitioners of direct action and nonviolent civil resistance. For that, I am
grateful that the Foundation has an expansive view of the ministry of peacemaking.
In this journey, I’ve found that humor is essential. Unless
one can laugh at oneself or the seemingly impossible forces we are up against,
we can too easily succumb to despair. And without accountability and feedback we
will fall victim to our own blind spots. That is why peacemakers who are in it
for the long haul need community.
While there are some Lone Rangers, most peacemakers are supported, nurtured,
encouraged, and corrected by fellow disciples along the way:
There are Teachers
who give the ideas and explain the context. Some preach sermons or give
powerful, moving speeches; others are story-tellers. Many write books or essays
to deepen our understanding or give us a new perspective. Some give us inspiration
– especially for me is the power of song or a piece of art which gets past the
defensive walls that surround my heart at times. For me, listening to the
sermons of Martin Luther King and Clarence Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farm
have inspired me. Books from John Howard Yoder, William Stringfellow, Walter
Wink, and Ched Myers have enlightened my way. The music shared with us by my
friends with Bread for the Journey have given me songs to while away the hours
in jail; and the music from the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa
recorded as “Freedom is Coming” reverberates in my thoughts 30 years after I
first learned them from Henri Nouwen and Jim Wallis during a sit-in at the
Rotunda of the US Capitol in 1983 – especially the lyrics, “It doesn’t matter
if you should jail us – we are freed and kept alive by hope.” And I’d be remiss
if I didn’t mention the insight and passion of my fellow Hawkinson Award
recipient in this category: Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer.
On the journey as a peacemaker, there have been plenty of Mentors who model the practice –
since moving to Minnesota in 1990 I’ve been blessed by learning from the
McDonald Sisters, Char Madigan, Marv Davidov and many, many others – Minnesota
has been an oasis of peace mentors after living in southwest Georgia for 16
years. In Georgia, it seemed we knew most of the peace activists from all over
the state as we’d travel to support each other to the various corners of that
state. But I’m so grateful for a multitude of mentors before moving to
Minnesota. One of my first mentors was a dairy farmer, Walton Hackman, who
lived across the road from the house where I was raised, and had returned to
the farm after his younger brother died suddenly. Ladon Sheats, a former IBM
executive, who radically changed his life and was mentored himself by Clarence
Jordan. Two priests: Larry
Rosebaugh and Roy Bourgeois inspired me and – in fact - most of my mentors were
people I’ve been arrested with – including Dan and Phil Berrigan and Liz McAlister.
Now, I find some of my mentors are younger than me. Kathy Kelly, Dr. Hakim in
Afghanistan, and Ched Myers readily come to mind. I’m encouraged and inspired
by the youth and vigor of the Occupy movement.
One of real pleasures of this journey has been Co-conspirators – con-spire – to
breathe with. People who accompany one on the journey – our Alliant Action
vigil group would be a great example of co-conspirators. Sometimes in the 1980s
I’d vigil by candlelight outside the gates of Ft. Benning or with the model of
an electric chair outside the Sumter County Courthouse in Georgia with only a
handful of folk. Other times, I am astonished to be one of more than 6,000
people risking arrest by crossing the line 15 years later at the same School of
Americas’ witness. I always need to remember that many times there are folks
“back home” – in my neighborhood, my faith community, my many friends
–scattered across the country-side (and now around the world) who are with me
in thoughts, spirit, and prayer as I undertake some of the riskier acts of
nonviolent witness. Many of these co-conspirators have never risked arrest
themselves but write and visit you in prison and share the message of peace and
justice with their co-workers.
I remember how moved I was when the entire group of Resident
Partners from the Koinonia community cancelled their weekly meeting in order to
drive 25 miles to sing outside the jail where I was fasting and being held for
trial after blocking the White Train carrying nuclear warheads to a submarine
base off the Georgia coast in 1985. When the Community of St. Martin takes the
Vow of Nonviolence together each year on the second Sunday in November, I’m
reminded of others on this journey with me. The powerful women of WAMM – and
they let some of us men join them as well – and the Veterans For Peace, who
have also welcomed as Associate Members those of us who have “served” our
nation and fellow humans without weapons; my compatriots in the Pax Christi
movement, Catholics who have welcomed this Anabaptist into their midst, and now
the Muslim Peacemaker Team partnering with our Iraqi & American
Reconciliation Project continues to broaden that circle.
And, of course, there are the Examples and Role Models of others from afar: for example,
Jim and Shelley Douglass and the White Train resistance community they founded
at Ground Zero in Washington State helped inspire our own White Train witness
in Georgia. All of us in the movement of non-violent resistance owe a debt of
gratitude to Gandhi and Martin Luther King, to Sojourner Truth and Susan B.
Anthony, Cesar Chavez and Dorothy Day.
But we cannot forget the Alternatives creators – those who help envision what we
want, not just opposing what we don’t; Back in the ‘70s, Dan Berrigan penned a
powerful poem, “No and Yes and the Whole Damned Thing” describing the dual call
to both nonviolent resistance and the building of alternatives – something we
can say “yes” to. When Dan’s
brother Phil Berrigan came to Koinonia in 1974 with his call to prophetic
criticism of US Militarism, some of the Koinonia members pushed back stating
that creating educational alternatives for pre-schoolers was equally important
if one wished to live in a just and peaceful society. So, to name a few of
these alternatives close to my heart: Common Harvest Farm, Seward/Longfellow
Restorative Justice Program, From Death to Life, Loaves and Fishes, St.
Stephen’s Housing and Street Outreach Ministry, Southside Family Nurturing
Center, Centro Campesino, IARP, …
I confess that I have a lot of fear and trepidation before
many public actions but my faith and the companionship of like-minded folk can
help overcome fear and allow one to act. So I want to acknowledge some of that
companionship today in receiving this award as a community effort
rather than an individualistic accomplishment: For me today: Christine and my sons
Micah and Zach. Thank you for sharing this journey with me. Both of you going
to Death Row with Christine and me to visit Bob Redd. Micah, for standing aside
me as the smoke bomb hit my feet outside Ft. Benning when you were only 4 or 5,
and then traveling with me to El Salvador in 2005 to learn more about the
witness of Oscar Romero. Zach, for
walking with me up to the fence before I crossed at the School of the Americas
vigil and then visiting me when I was taken to the hospital from prison. Christine,
as I now head off to Iraq again, and the many adventures we’ve shared together,
thank you for your love and support for these past 34 years. And especially
thanks to those of you who supported her when I was locked up.
But I also have an extended family of fictive kinship.
Peter Thompson who accompanied me to Iraq in December 2002 just months before
the war started; David Harris who was my support person at the School of the
Americas protest and again at the Republican National Convention. He even joined
me at the Hennepin County Workhouse/Jail this Spring – choosing imprisonment
over community service to be in solidarity with me. The Community of St. Martin
is part of my family. I have a Pax Christi family, and I could go on and on.
For me, my 16 years living in an intentional Christian community in south
Georgia was probably the most significant aspect of my spiritual formation as a
peacemaker. Today I continue to be connected with the many life-long friends I
shared life with at Koinonia during those years. Did not Jesus promise us that
if we left our old securities to follow him, we will be blessed with homes and
families, and friends, one hundred times over? I have found this to be true and
I am grateful.
Peacemaking must always be combined with social justice –
for example, LGBT issues, the rights of immigrants/refugees, the needs and
cares for the homeless, for those in prison – especially those facing the death
penalty, and care and advocacy for the natural environment is an especially
pressing issue for both peace and justice.
So, when I am arrested at the White House protesting the
Keystone XL Pipeline, it is connected with peacemaking. When I stand with my
gay brothers and lesbian sisters demanding their rights to love and marry, it
is connected to peacemaking. When I march with the custodial workers of the
CTUL union in front of K-Mart or Cub Foods, it is connected to peacemaking.
When I attend the march and memorial remembering the homeless who have died in
our state each December, it is connected with peacemaking. On the first Sunday
of each month when I am part of the Interfaith Coalition on Immigration’s
prayer vigil in front of the Ramsey County Detention Center is for me an act of
peacemaking.
So I accept this award on behalf of a broad community of
peacemakers – those here in the Twin Cities today as well as my friends and
mentors who are part of the “great cloud of witnesses” whose lives and message
have help blaze the path which I have tried to follow.
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