Our Journey for Peace on Capitol Hill

It has already been three weeks since we were led by faith and conscience to the nation’s capital to pray for peace.

It was a profound experience to be numbered among the hundreds of us who prayed in houses of worship across Washington; who huddled amid the Upper Senate Park torrent; and who processed to the Hart Senate Office Building.

We later learned that when the Olive Branch delegation met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s aide, he said that one of the most important things the peace movement could do was civil disobedience. “Keep it up!” he said.

His eyes widened when the delegation let him know that, at that very moment, we were doing just that.

But, in fact, “civil disobedience” does not capture what we were about. We were, instead, bringing the prayer for compassion and justice to one of our country’s centers of power. Prayer delivered in person. With longing. With anguish. With composure. With lilting song. A circle of prayer. A quiet gesture of true obedience, not disobedience.

In the next months, we will be exploring what our next steps will be for our faith-based movement for peace in Iraq. I am thankful for those who witness – and look forward to our future journey of prayer and action.

PEACE ACTIVISTS WORSHIP, PRAY, GET ARRESTED

Forty-Two Arrested for Civil Disobedience in Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, DC, March 7, 2008 -- More than forty religious leaders and faith-based peace activists were arrested in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill late Friday afternoon for their non-violent witness to end the war in Iraq. Hundreds of people assembled earlier in the afternoon for a public demonstration against the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq, and thousands of worshippers gathered at noon Friday for services calling for peace and an end to the war in Iraq.

The arrests came at the end of a day of worship and prayer. Following noon-time services in ten different houses of worship in Washington, worshippers processed in the rain to Upper Senate Park for an interfaith witness near the U.S. Capitol. In the midst of a driving rain, leaders from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Unitarian traditions insisted that people of faith will be relentless in encouraging their political leaders to take bold, unequivocal action for peace.

Multi-faith delegations from the Olive Branch Interfaith Peace Partnership, the organizing coalition of the afternoon’s events, met with high level staffers from both Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s offices. The religious leaders expressed grave concern that there must be both a clear exit strategy from Iraq and a regional, multi-lateral effort at development and diplomacy to bring about genuine security.Participants from across faith boundaries are clearly united in expressing five core convictions:

• The war in Iraq must end and diplomacy must replace the threat of war with Iran.
• We must provide far better support to our returning soldiers.
• We must commit to the long-term work of development in Iraq.
• There can be no equivocation in our renunciation of all use of torture.
• We must commit real resources to justice in our own communities in the U.S.

Among the forty-two people who were arrested were:

• Lois Baker, who is 86 years old, a World War II Veteran, great-grandmother, and committed Presbyterian Peacemaker.
• Joan Nicholson, 73 years old and infamous for her role in the legal decision Nicholson v. United States, which established the right to peaceful demonstrations on Capitol Hill.
• Will Covert, a Vietnam Veteran and member of Veterans for Peace.
• Khristine Hopkins, a strong advocate for housing and the environment, and traveled from Cape Cod for her second year in a row to join Christian Peace Witness for Iraq.
• Eighteen members of St. Luke Presbyterian Church traveled together from Minnesota to participate in the faith-based witness. Seven were arrested as they knelt in the atrium of the Hart Building to pray.
• Six students came from Hastings College in Nebraska, and three chose to risk arrest. Nathan Tramp said that he “came to learn a prayerful attitude toward the work of the peace movement, and to better discern how to make peace building a greater part of my life.”
• The Rev. Steve Shanks, deacon from Birmingham, Alabama and member of the National Executive Committe of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship.