Just Peace in Jamaica

Not just peace, but JUST peace (as opposed to just war) is the objective and common speak among those gathered at the World Council of Church's International Ecumenical Peace Convocation. In this, and the next few posts I would like to share some of my experinces here at the Convocation in Kingston and begin to brainstorm ways of bringing these experinces, conversations and connections home to benefit the larger Episcopal Church.

This morning all of us, the convocation participants went out into the community of Kingston to visit places that are working for peace. I had the privilege of hearing from Rev. Ian Muirhead about the Grants Pen Community Consultative Committee’s work for peace in the classroom of the “Upper Room Community Church”. Jamaica’s violent murder rates are astounding, but Rev. Muirhead spoke with conviction about the transformative power of prayer and the church’s responsibility to directly affect their surrounding community. He told a story of a prayer walk that literally transformed the community; when it was over to rival gangs came to a peace treaty and crime has significantly decreased. Prayer is not the community’s only approach to working for peace in crime-ridden area; the Upper Room Church provides a place for children to play, study and eat, goes into the community to teach parenting skills, addresses issues of Domestic Violence and the AIDS epidemic as well. Despite its small scale, the overwhelming violence and scarcity of resources the Upper Room Community Church and the Grants Pen Community Consultative Committee is making real progress toward peace in Kingston.

This evening’s opening ceremony and was highlighted by a keynote address by Dr. Paul Oestreicher a peace activist who fled Nazi Germany to New Zealand, is an ordained Anglican Priest and a member of the Religious Society of Friends. His words calling for peace was, as he said himself, were simplified and he recognized that complexities do avail. But for him the truth is as honest and as straightforward as the gospels. He challenged the dominate (eastern and western) culture’s glorification of violence and the hypocrisy of the Pope himself in accepting it with complacency.

I have never been gathered with such a diversity of people. Looking up from lunch I see people of every color, shape and size. I hear languages I can’t understand or even identify. I say ‘Hi’ to folks and realize the assumption of the world meeting me in my language. This convocation is truly ecumenical, but I have heard it hinted at more than once that some members of churches gather with the WCC, participate in these meetings and return complicit to the dominate (and violent) politics of their homes.

I have met other young women who are actively working for peace; a professor creating a Peace Studies program, a Norwegian woman working for the Consultation of Churches, and a German woman who lives in Uganda working with the International Christian Service Team. It is my privilege to call these young women my peers.

As I prepare to travel next week from Kingston to Palestine, I have been considering the ways in which I am called to work for peace. Two of the three above mentioned women have served in Palestine, one with CPT and one with EAPPI. Their own experiences and the impact of the work on their lives and the hope of the Palestinian Christians, has reminded me why I want to spend the last few weeks before Joshua and i are married, walking in solidarity with Christians who are struggling under occupation; Loving our neighbors, friends and enemies alike is the essence of the Christian faith.