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What can peace and justice workers learn from sitcoms?
While assembling the materials for this year's Peace Sunday, I happened to note a distinct parallel between a short devotional Susan wrote and an episode from season three of Family Ties. Susan's devotional concerned why she did not keep a gun in her house and the episode in question had the family purchase a revolver after their house was robbed. Over the course of a half-hour the family learned a gun was not the solution to their security paranoia, and rid themselves of it.
<read more> Otterville by Merrill R. Miller
 "Otterville" is copyrighted and is not to be reproduced in any form without permission. Contact Merrill Miller at <merrill@mph.org>
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Open the gates of the kingdom
~The kingdom of God is justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,
<read more> Come, Lord, open to us the gates of the kingdom.~ On a weekend in April, I headed down the auto route from Strasbourg, France to Taizé, an ecumenical Christian community founded by Brother Roger seventy years ago. Today the community includes 100 brothers of both Protestant and Catholic traditions from more than 30 countries. Over 100,000 youth make a pilgrimage here each year for worship, Bible study and communal work. The Taizé songs, like the lyrics excerpted above, are well-known among Christians around the world. I am attracted to the Taizé music because of its deep, spiritual longing for God's justice and peace.
Prophets arise!
I have spent the last part of April and the beginning of May angry--really angry--with Arizona. I've never been angry with an entire state before, so this was somewhat new territory for me. But there I was. Every time I thought about Arizona, which was often, I found myself getting really worked up. I even told one of our brothers here in the monastery that I was "apoplectic over Arizona." Now that's angry.
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Perhaps it was the rise of the Tea Party (<http://www.teapartypatriots.org/>) and its "Don't Tread on Me" flags, or perhaps it was the riots in Greece where citizens are entitled to retire at full pay at age 55 and where tax evasion is rampant (<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/world/europe/02evasion.html>).
<read more> It may have been the Louisiana fisherman, put out of work because of the BP oil leak saying "We didn't ask for this." Or again, it may have been the sum total of all of these and many other similar incidents that have caused to me think recently about how we are so adept at blaming others for problems that we have had a hand in creating. Then, having affixed blame on others, we can rant against the culprits or crusade for change. advertisement
This month's Prayer for Peace was written by Rachel Miller Jacobs, spiritual director and worship resources coordinator for Leader magazine.
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