Faith and Resistance Retreat
for the Feast of the Innocents
December 27-30. 2004
The Massacre Continues.
Our Hands are Full of Blood
There are no innocent bystanders
Grief, it seems, is the order of the day for people of conscience. So, in this "Faith and Resistance" Retreat, we hold up, as hold up we must, the victims of our country's wars. We are mourning as the numbers of wounded, dead and dying continue to mount. We are mourning that there is not only no end in sight but that this nation's commitment to world domination has us on a course of endless war. We are in mourning at the lies and deceit that are the stuff of public discourse. And we are in mourning at the endless victims of war. More than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed by us in the last year and a half. We are in mourning; the blood in on our hands.
So we come together again under this cloud and maybe that is the best thing we can do. We come together to enspirit one another to not give up the vision of a world where violence is met with nonviolent love and truth. We come together to enspirit one another to continue in the way of nonviolence and resistance and community. We come together to act for life and hope and peace.
Those of us preparing for this retreat recognize our deep need for each other (and our deep need for you) and for taking this time together, not only to say a clear and resounding "NO!" to the direction this country has embraced but also to clarify the "YES!" that we say to life in our daily lives.
On Monday evening, after supper, introductions and logistics, Sr. Anne Montgomery will lead us in a reflection on the theme of this retreat: The Massacre Continues; Our Hands are Full of Blood; There are no Innocent Bystanders. Anne's focus will be the biblical/theological roots of today's policies. We will then prepare for our witness at the Pentagon on the Feast of the Massacre of the Innocents and end the evening with prayer together.
On Tuesday we will witness at the Pentagon and then take some quiet time. In the afternoon, we will evaluate the morning's witness and begin to plan for a peace witness the next day.
On Tuesday evening we will hear Richard Heinberg, author of The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies. Heinberg makes clear that our way of life will soon change, as oil production and reserves both begin to decline. The Party's Over shows how oil and war have always been closely related and how competition to control oil supplies is likely to lead to new resource wars.
On Wednesday we will have a discussion with Richard Heinberg, and complete preparations for our nonviolent peace witness and carry it out. Later in the day, we will have an evaluation of that witness. In the evening we will hear from Kathy Boylan about the conditions in Haiti - a direct consequence of U.S. policies and duplicity. (Kathy has been to Haiti three times since the overthrow of Aristide.) Kathy will introduce Kim Lamberty, who was attacked and wounded in Palestine. Kim will share her story and bring us to a deeper understanding of life in that tortured country (another consequence of U.S. duplicity and policy).
On Thursday, we will seek to pull the experience of the retreat together in a concluding liturgy and sharing - focusing on the continuing (escallating) need for solidarity with the victims.
The schedule is in preparation. The members of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker in D.C. and Jonah House in Baltimore are still meeting. But we wanted to give you a sense of what is planned and ask you to consider participation.
It is not an accident that the Feast of the Massacre of the Innocents follows so close upon Christmas: the two are deeply interconnected. The Christ child is only half a story - a full reading confronts us with not only the joy and promise of Christmas, but its cost and its redemptive agony.
CHRISTMAS AND THE FEAST OF THE INNOCENTS ARE A UNITY:
THE CONNECTION BETWEEN BETHLEHEM AND RAMAH IS ESSENTIAL;
THE COST AND THE HOPE OF THE INCARNATION ARE ONE.
We hope to see you beginning 6:00 p.m. supper, Monday, Dec. 27