Remarks at Lifetime Peacemaking and Justice Award

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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.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Should I Stay or Should I Go? : Wrestling With Pax Christi and the Roman Catholic Institution by Steve Clemens. July 16, 2010

It was the article in this morning’s paper that was the straw that broke the camels back. The Vatican announces new restrictions or threats against the scandal of pedophile priests but, in the same breath, announces that the attempts to ordain women as priests is as grave a sin as molesting children. When the hierarchy’s commitment to misogyny and patriarchy is so strong that it risks watering-down its defensive strategy to cover its shameful pedophilia, the entire religious institution must be condemned as woefully corrupt, morally bankrupt and socially insensitive. To identify itself with The Body of Christ is a blasphemy. Roy Bourgeois and Joan Chittister may be today’s Martin Luther but does it also herald another Reformation of the Church that boasts continuity to the time of Jesus?

Pax Christi is the international peace organization within the Roman Catholic Church. Over the decades it has vied for recognition from both the Vatican hierarchy as well as local diocesan leaders, hoping against hope that the church will recognize the moral vacuity of its silence and/or acquiescence (not to mention outright endorsement) of wars and instead embrace the Peace of Christ, a choice to follow the radical nonviolence of Jesus of Nazareth. Because of its desire to be heard on the subject of the morality of war and peace, it has often chosen to remain silent (or less militant) on other controversies surrounding other moral issues the church should address – immigration, the growing gap between the rich and poor, role of women in the church, acceptance of GLBT people, …

But peace can only be the product of justice; peace cannot come at the expense of silencing or marginalizing certain groups over others. We can’t really enjoy “the peace of Christ” if our gay brothers are excluded, if our immigrant sisters are threatened with deportation, if poor families find their homes foreclosed by greedy bankers and hedge fund criminals.

All of this could be a moot point. I’m not even Roman Catholic. I was asked to serve on the local Pax Christi Board as a non-Catholic representative – yet I find that many of my mentors and colleagues in my peacemaking endeavors are Catholics, some of whom are still priests and nuns under the jurisdiction of these Vatican mis-rulers. Several of my fellow Board Members are members of a congregation which has been excommunicated by Rome and now holds its own services without recognition of the Archbishop or the presence of a priest. Another has left the church and now attends a Quaker Meeting. So why should it bother me, a jack-legged Anabaptist to be associated with these other obvious rebels?

The problem, as I see it, is with its association with the institution of the Roman Catholic Church. Some of my friends who have remained within the church tell me that they are really the true church, not the pretenders in Rome or in the Bishop’s garb. But unless I see a wholesale exodus of the faithful from the pews, I can’t pretend that the Vatican doesn’t represent the realities of the institution. To continue with even a modicum of association with the present cabal in Rome and the Bishops it has steadily appointed over the past three decades to undue the reforms of the Vatican II Council is to send a message to the on-going victims that we are not on their side.

Work within or without?

There comes a time when one must chose to work within the system for change or to leave, hoping the shock of disassociation might motivate a change from without. Sometimes the choice is couched as remaining ideologically pure vs being effective. Others see a distinction between a prophetic witness vs coalition building where compromise or “agreeing to disagree” on other issues is central to building strength for the specific movement. When does the need for compromise quell the Spirit? Without the pull of an ideological pole, how does compromise move us closer to the goal of resembling the realm of God here on earth?

I seem to face a similar dilemma with my association with the Democratic Party in the political arena. I admire the courage and tenacity of Dennis Kucinich and Russ Feingold (most of the time) in a similar fashion to my respect for the outspoken leadership of Chittister and Bourgeois, Gumbleton, and Rohr. But I frankly cringe when I hear that Fr. John Dear considers acquiescing to the directive of his pro-nuke Bishop in New Mexico to stay away from prophetic witness at Loa Alamos so he can continue to say Mass for his mostly poor and marginalized parishioners. I no more want to countenance a Catholic Church that restrains a Franciscan priest from prophetic prayer at a nuclear weapons plant than identifying myself (when asked by a pollster) as a Democrat when President Obama and his accomplices in the Congress continue to wage wars of occupation in defense of empire.

Is there really any more hope for reforming the Roman Church than the Democratic Party? How does having one fewer non-Catholic members of Pax Christi help further the work of Jesus? But following one’s conscience is essential for being faithful over the long haul. We can’t be purist but we can be confessional. Some will confess their complicity and chose to remain within; others will hear a call to “come out from among them” – but to whom do we go? The disciples in their fear and uncertainty respond to Jesus, “To whom would we go? You are the one with the words of eternal life!”

To be on the way to discipleship, we need to travel with like-minded travelers. Maybe we don’t have to ask to see what other identity cards each other carries with them and be satisfied that we are journeying toward the same Shalom, the holistic peace-with-justice of the Bible.

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Addendum - July 22, 2010:

Less than 5 days after writing this I was informed that the disease emanating from the Vatican is spreading and metastasizing, infecting even what was formerly healthy within the church. The Maryknoll Order had been quietly supporting Fr. Roy Bourgeois despite his differences with the Church hierarchy. However, they just informed the School of the Americas Watch organization that they would no continue to contribute the $17,000/year for the annual commemoration/protest at the gates of Ft. Benning, GA as they have in the past Novembers. Why? Because of Roy’s outspokenness on the justice of women’s ordination.

So, this once great missionary order will “cut off its nose to spite its face”. There is no better a recruiting tool today for Catholic young people to see the relevance of the church and religious ethics than the movement to close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC. For the past dozen years it has attracted a growing number of both high school and college youth – from primarily Catholic schools – to the 20,000 + people of conscience gathering calling for an end to this school of assassins. There those young people meet seasoned activists in a truly inter-generational gathering that is filled with hope, compassion, and power. Now Maryknoll wants to tell young Catholics that hanging on to a system of patriarchic domination is more important than the call of the Gospel to do justice and stand for the marginalized and oppressed. Good luck with that when they send their missionaries back to Central and South America and have to explain their new-found silence about a military-run school designed to continue their oppression.

The Vatican has its charges scared. Threats of withdraw of pensions goes a long way to keep priests and nuns from leaving their orders (and the Church). Closing schools and parishes due to a combination of dropping attendance and lack of funds due to massive pay-offs to the victims of sexual abuse by priests does not bode well for the future. Instead, a “hunker down” mentality has been adopted, thinking that all these problems arose from the “liberalism” of the Vatican II Council. Fear among so many who have donated their entire lives to the Church is both tragic and sad. Maybe out of this turmoil can another reformation (or revolution) arise.

May it be so.