will focus on human rights defenders who act to end discrimination.
“Discrimination lies at the root of many of the world’s most pressing human rights problems. No country is immune from this scourge. Eliminating discrimination is a duty of thehighest order.” Navi Pillay United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Discrimination: treating a person or particular group of people differently, especially in a worse way from the way in which you treat other people, based on the group, class, or category to which they belong (skin color, religion, sex, etc.) rather than on individual merit: intolerance and prejudice.
videos:
UN Human Rights Chief urges an end to discrimination
SDC/GI-Net and partners are organizing a national call-in day on November 16th for all activists, faith groups and partner organizations. Participants can call 1-800-genocide and follow a recorded script asking Secretary Clinton to appoint a high-level diplomat for Darfur. Please promote the call to your constituents and networks. To learn more or get help promoting the call, please contact Joe Maddens (joe@savedarfur.org).
Friday, November 05, 2010
St Martin of Tours - Feast Day
St Martin of Tours is known as the first conscientious objector and a great peacemaker in the Christian church. His feast day of 11 November (or the nearest Sunday) which is also observed as Remembrance Day for remembering those killed in wars (it was called Armistice Day following the First World War).
Lutherans have had a long history of responding to the gospel call to be peacemakers. One of the initial motivations for the formation of a Lutheran peace movement in the US was the need to support those resisting the draft through conscientious objection to military solutions to conflict. LPF traces its roots to this movement dating back to 1940.
For more contemporary information on current issues relating to the military service, see LPF's resource: Youth and the Military
For further information on St Martin of Tours, here are several links:
We are doing a makeover of the main homepage of the LPF website and want to include pictures of people involved in a variety of peacemaking activities and other images and artwork to illustrate the work of LPF.
Please send us action shots of you and other peacemakers in action and images or artwork of what peacemaking means to you. The best entries will be featured on the LPF website.
Ideas include:
Take action photos of peace related events/activities in your congregation or community.
Sunday school art projects: draw a picture of what peace means to you.
Pick out your favorite peace related bible verse to illustrate.
Download LPF´s Peace Deck and create original artwork based on your favorite quote.
Illustrate the concepts of active nonviolence and conflict resolution in photos or drawings.
Take pictures at your local foodbank or feeding program of people helping people in need.
Please submit entries by email to lutheranpeace@gmail.com (5 mb max per email) along with the author´s name so we can give them credit.
World Food Day
Saturday, October 16th
The theme of this year’s observance is United against hunger, chosen to recognize the efforts made in the fight against world hunger at national, regional and international levels.
The International Day of Peace 2010 and The International Day of Prayer for Peace, are observed widely on Sept. 21 in congregations and at the ELCA Center in Chicago. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has announced that this year’s Peace Day Theme is “Peace, Youth and Development” under the slogan “Peace = Future”. LPF and the ELCA offer a variety of peace prayers and other resources that can be used throughout the year. We have suggestions, a bulletin insert, and other resources and activities below to make this a meaningful and useful experience for all. LPF’s director was one of six Lutheran peace leaders whose reflections on peace day were featured on the home page of the ELCA web site in 2009.
On this day we remember the anniversary of the atomic the bombing of Hiroshima, August 6, 1945. Remarkably, this is the first time in 65 years that the US has sent an official representative to the city for an event that organizers hope will bolster global efforts toward nuclear disarmament. We invite Christians to pray for peace.
Simplicity Day “As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.” -- Henry David Thoreau
Simplicity Day on July 12th celebrates the birthday of Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) who encouraged us to simplify our lives.
Check out the following videos and resources about this remarkable movement:
AFFLUENZA- Soundtrack to VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY The Poetic Alternative to Consumer Culture.
This video clip is a collage of scenes from the documentary posted next below
Watch the entire documentary:
VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY: The Poetic Alternative to Consumer Culture documentary explores the philosophy behind Voluntary Simplicity, what potential or significance it has as a quietly emerging social movement and what its limitations might be.
Global Pandemy in its entirety - a 15-year-old documentary about what began as a trend in the US but now has spread all over the world. We are not considered to be citizens any more, we've been turned into simple consumers, with no other rights than the ones that corporations let us have, if so. There's no space for humanitarian behavior or for critical thinking. The greeding controlling minorities have deceived most of us to believe that we're free to choose a better life, and that the so called better life is measured in terms of properties, of things that we own. No matter if we don't have enough money, that's what Credit's been made for. If other people are suffering, we've been trained to ignore it because «That's not our business». Everything is business, and so, that way, we want to reach happiness. But the fact is that there's no happiness in material belongings. That's why we always are looking for more. And it's never enough. When we have reached to that point, then we are doomed, for we have been infected and controlled by this selfish way of surviving. We are not living anymore, we're just surviving, because we're sick. We suffer AFFLUENZA. And man... we DO SUFFER...
Adventures in Simplicity - A video montage created specifically to accompany an audio Plunderphonics track, created in 2008 on the topic of voluntary simplicity.
(Part II: forthcoming)
Simplicity - When we are connected with the Universe, we realize that the small feelings in life are the ones that have the ability to make us happy.
War Supplemental Expected in the House This Week Supplemental spending for the war in Afghanistan will be voted on later this week, perhaps as early as Wednesday. The Majority Whip sent out a whip question Friday asking Democrats whether they would vote in favor of a) the Afghanistan war money, and b) all the other supplemental funding, a sign that a vote is imminent.
Please contact your Representative, and ask him or her to 1) vote "NO" on the war money 2) co-sponsor the McGovern bill and vote for a corresponding amendment, requiring the President to establish a timetable for military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Call: The Capitol Switchboard is 202-225-3121. Ask to be connected to your Representative's office. Try to get the Foreign Policy Legislative Assistant on the phone; tell whomever you get to speak with that you urge the Representative to vote no on war funding and to co-sponsor McGovern's bill and vote for McGovern's amendment; try to get them to say how the Representative will vote. Please report back to us any result of your query at the following two places: for LPF, please email ggersmehl@hotmail.com and if you can, also send your email to: www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/feingold-mcgovern
Now when they had departed, behold,( an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. (Matthew 2:13-15)
World Refugee Day, observed June 20 each year, is dedicated to raising awareness of the situation of refugees throughout the world.
National and Washington State Religious Campaign Against Torture.
The suggested June action is as follows:
(1) Please try to have a table for action set up for every Sunday in June, publicizing it with something like "Torture Is A Moral Issue"
(2) On the table, have an adequate supply of postcards (provided by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture--how many do you need ?) The message on the card is a request for the International Committee of the Red Cross to be given permission to have access to all prisoners held by USA forces in any country.
(3) Also on the table have a petition to be signed, urging Attorney General Eric Holder to move ahead in appointing a Commission of Inquiry about who ordered/authorized USA forces to use torture and include the option of a prosecutor if crimes have been committed.
(4) Try to arrange the showing of a 20 minute DVD "Ending US-Sponsored Torture Forever." (The DVD is free from NRCAT)
It has been 140 years since Mother's Day first came into being, yet few people know that it was originally conceived as a day for mothers to protest injustice and war. Over the years the activist observance of this holiday became squelched by its commercialization by flower and card companies that turned it into billion-dollar industry. There has been a recent movement to return Mother's Day to its original meaning.
A conscientious objector (CO) is an “individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion.
Many conscientious objectors can find themselves in a very difficult situation, especially in times of war. One of the initial motivations for the formation of a Lutheran peace movement in the US was the need to support those resisting the draft through conscientious objection to military solutions to conflict. Lutheran Peace Fellowship has a long history of supporting conscientious objectors and traces its roots to this movement dating back to 1940.
Ideas for Prayers for Peace/Peace Vigils from Lutheran Peace Fellowship
Individuals and congregations are encouraged to show their support for peace this advent/spring. That support for peace can take form in many ways, from a simple prayer during church services to events requiring more planning.
Here are some ideas:
Asking the pastor if he/she would be interested in building on the peace theme of the service on the Sunday after Easter (which has an exceptional peace text in the lectionary) and offering some of the ideas below or on the LPF web site.
A group of members holding candles in silence in the narthex after a Lenten service, with an announcement in or before the service inviting folks to join. Preparation can be as simple as talking to your pastor to get the OK, and calling a few peace people to invite them to be participants.
A public vigil on the street after the service. This would take the above, plus making a sign saying what it is, calling a few more people, perhaps people in or announcements in neighboring congregations.
Both could benefit from picking a simple prayer to end, having a simple handout for participants and folks who show interest (e.g. with a few sentences on the purpose, ending with a few links to religious resources such as prayers, and perhaps a few sources of more info on Iraq/Afghanistan - see LPF website).
Finally, there could be hosting a separate service such as the prayer service planned at Atonement Lutheran Church, Newport Oregon “Prayers for Peace: An Interfaith Candlelight Vigil” Wednesday, March 24, 7:30 p.m. .
Here is a prayer from Charlotte Gaddis, Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church, Seattle, WA:
We witness daily the chaos and violence that our brothers and sisters are experiencing for over seven years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Families are being torn apart and children see death and suffering all around them. We come together to pray for peace in what ever form [and faith] that might take.
Thanks to our friends at ChristianPeaceWitness.org for the idea.
Anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) is known for his leadership role in the Confessing Church, efforts on behalf of peace and justice, opposition to antisemitism, and writings on theology and ethics that have been influential far beyond his German Lutheran context. He was was hanged by the Nazis on April 6, 1945 in the Flossenburg concentration camp. In addition to the videos below, you can check out our set of quotes by this Lutheran Hero at:
January 30 - April 4, is a national 64-day educational, media, and grassroots campaign dedicated to demonstrating that nonviolence is a powerful way to heal, transform, and empower our lives and our communities. Originally inspired by the memorial anniversaries of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., this campaign honors their vision for an empowered, nonviolent world.
In our culture the word "nonviolence" is loaded down with stereotypes, myths, and misconceptions. It may be among the most misunderstood words in our language. For many, nonviolence is a way of life that is grounded in a deeply held religious or moral conviction. For others it is a strategy, a method of confronting conflict or oppression in a way that seeks to honor life. Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, and Mahatma Gandhi were all pioneers in the philosophy and strategy of non-violence to achieve great things. Check out LPF´s extensive list of resources to learn more about Nonviolence.
Atonement Lutheran Church
Reconciling in Christ team presents:
HOPE, HOMOSEXUALITY, and HOSPITALITY
A Bible study by Bishop Dave Brauer-Rieke, Oregon Synod - ELCA
Wednesday, January 27th 6:00 PM – Potluck and fellowship; 7:00 PM – Bible study, followed by questions and answers. Everyone is welcome! (541) 265-2554 (download the flier)
If you are interested in more information about the Reconciling in Christ process and how to hold such an event in your own congregation, check out the following online websites and resources:
It boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in aninescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Trumpet of Conscience
Now when they had departed, behold,( an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. (Matthew 2:13-15)
National Migration Week, will be held January 3 - 9, 2010 and January 17 is the 96th World Day of Migrants and Refugees and this year's theme is “Minor migrants and refugees”. As a child, Jesus himself experienced migration when he had to seek refuge in Egypt together with Joseph and Mary in order to flee the threats of Herod.
How we treat migrants, refugees, and undocumented people in the USA is a hot topic today. Pressure to migrate due to global economic problems, conflict, and climate change mean this will remain a hot topic. Here are a list of websites and resources for understanding the issue from a Christian perspective:
LPF's Youth Program is a network of high school and college students, college and university groups, youth leaders, churches, and community organizations joined together with a common interest in issues of peace and justice. The youth program hosts workshops in various issues of peace and justice. In addition, we have resources and publish an e-newsletter to help keep the network connected between workshops and events. For more information, e-mail lpfyouth@yahoo.com
