da | Nonviolence Festival (1)

Later, a conversational post about today. Right now my brain's too fried. Today was good.

Here's the text of my talk at the nonviolence festival.

[The paragraphs aren't correct for reading. Also, the phrasing is weird for reading, better for speaking aloud. It came in at 9 minutes long, just right for a 10-minute slot.]

How does a person work for nonviolence today?

There are many ways to answer this question.

My answer, as a Quaker today, is based on stories of four people who have successfully turned their belief into practice. These four have belonged to a non-violent religion that has a basis in a personal connection with God, and doesn't seperate itself from the world at large, but instead is called to work for change in the wider world.

The story begins 360 years ago.

In rural England, a man named George Fox was set with questions about religion and faith. None of the preachers he spoke to were able to satisfy his questions about spirituality.

Eventually, standing atop Pendle Hill in Lancashire England, he had a vision which led him to found a religion of like-minded seekers. These men and women believed that God speaks to us directly, if we are willing to listen. So they sat in silence and listened, speaking when they felt called to by the Spirit.

George Fox said of his spiritual insights, "This I knew experimentally to be true."

They didn't need ministers to filter truth for them, they got the word straight from the source. Further, they believed that the word of God was contained in the Bible, but it was also ongoing and available to those who would listen.

Quakers believed in "That of God in every person" Every person has the ability to connect to the Inward Light of God, which can guide an individual, or a group. As a group, they would be led to make decisions by coming to Unity with what they believed God wanted them to do.

Quakers also believe that since all people have That of God within, nonviolent confrontation of evil, and peaceful reconciliation are always superior to violent measures. This is known as the Peace Testimony. There are other Testimonies, such as Simplicity, Integrity or Truth-telling, and Equality, which have been part of the Quaker experience since the beginning. They are all sort of connected together. But in order to keep these stories short, I will concentrate on the peace testimony.

Moving forward almost 100 years:

John Woolman was a Quaker who lived in the American Colonies.

He publicly spoke about everyday injustices, with gentle words but strong moral conviction.

He travelled widely speaking against wars, including within Native American lands at war with white people.

At that time, the 1740s, slave-ownership was accepted by nearly every white person, including the Quakers.

As a young man, Woolman was employed as a clerk in a store in New Jersey and was asked to make up a bill of sale for a black woman.

His conscience made him almost refuse; but knowing the purchaser to be a kind man who would treat the slave well, he did write up the bill of sale.

But as a result of the questions he asked himself, he began a lifelong crusade against slavery. He visited Quakers throughout America traveling by horse and on foot.

Within 20 years of the start of his preaching against slavery, Quakers in America had nearly universally developed prohibitions against slavery.

Then, many of these Quakers in the US and Britian went on to become early abolitionists.

just one man with a conviction, was able to bring about major reform within his community, which then supported this conviction in order to help reform the wider world.

I have two more people I want to talk about.

Bayard Rustin was a black, gay, Quaker who lived from 1912-1987.
As a young man he had a moral convication to help with reconciliation between black and white people in the US.

In the 1940s he travelled to India and learned about peacemaking and nonviolent resistance from the followers of Gandhi.

Based on what he learned there, in 1947 helped plan the first freedom ride in the American South, to protest segregation, which then became the pattern for the mid-50s freedom rides.

In the 1950s he became involved with teaching nonviolent resistance methods to MLK jr.
And in 1963 he was MLK jr's right-hand man, in organizing the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Again, one person with a clear and set conscience, following a path which allowed him to be true to his conscience.

Lastly, Ursula Franklin. She was born in 1921 in Germany. She emigrated to Toronto during World War Two. She is a Quaker, a scientist, and a feminist.

In the 1960s, she investigated levels of strontium 90- a radioactive isotope in fallout from nuclear weapons testing- in children's teeth. Her research was instrumental in ending atmospheric weapons testing worldwide.

She worked on bridging the gap between the East and the West during the Cold War; through delegations to meet women of the Soviet Union and North Vietnam.

On nonviolence, she has this to say: "Peace is not so much the absence of war but the presence of justice. Peace is the absence of fear."

Peace can only be achieved through "the persistent application of social truth and justice and the strong and intelligent application of love."

She has just published a book titled, "Pacifism as a Map" and continues to write on pacifism, techology, and feminism.

These are just a few of the many paths people have taken to work against war and injustice.

They followed their consciences.

They found a community of support, sometimes building that community themselves when necessary.

They noticed injustices and dug until they found what seemed to be the cause of the injustices.

WIth the help of their community and their faith, they took steps forward. Because even if there doesn't seem to be an answer to the bigger problem, they were able to take a small step, which leads to another step, and another step.

And finally, they didn't let go.