Agape Community

By Suzanne Belote Shanley:

One of Two Parts

In his recent United Nations speech, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela referred to George Bush as a devil, promptly unleashing a momentary global furor with his castigation: "The Devil came here yesterday?acting as if he owned the world." Despite the histrionics, Chavez’s chastising of the United States for its "scheme of domination, imperial hypocrisy" and reliance on "bombings, invasions, and cannon shot" not to mention, hegemony, is, nonetheless, charged with biblical, personal, and societal relevance.

The archetype of "Devil" or "Demon" and exorcisms by Jesus and his subsequent healing of those inhabited by them is prevalent throughout Scripture. Jesus repeatedly offers stark admonitions about "unclean spirits" (Luke 11:24), which may go "out of a man/woman" after Jesus’ healing of them, to find a "place to rest," resulting in their multiplication. Jesus warns, particularly in the Gospel of John, about the consequences of remaining in the Darkness, the psychic, emotional underworld of deceit and lies that can bind a person to diseases of body and mind: "On these grounds is sentence pronounced: that though the light has come into the world men/women have shown they prefer darkness to the light because their deeds were evil." (John 3:19-21)

Chavez’s depiction of George Bush as a Devil, the locus of the hegemonic power of the U.S. and incarnation of evil, was roundly criticized by some as egocentric grandstanding. Histrionics aside, Chavez fueled my imagination to weigh dichotomies of light and dark in Scripture, challenging me personally to ask: Do I really believe that Christ’s love can exorcise the prowling fiend of American empire and its emperor? Do we have the faith as Christians to unleash a healing force equal to Christ’s command to "testify" on his behalf, not looking "to one another for approval," but rather to the "approval that comes from the one God." (John 5:31-47)

Sadly, at this point in time, it does not seem, that this "force more powerful" of nonviolent, Christ-like love, has yet been unleashed with sufficient impact to counterbalance the destruction and death of the dominative power of the U.S. Such observations give credence biblically and politically to Chavez’s prophetic words. The power of nonviolence, the countervailing force of healing, unconditional enemy love, which could banish the demons of America’s addiction to war in its House Divided, has not yet manifested in its full potential of a sustained non-cooperation campaign, not yet overflowed in hearts, minds and spirits of American Christians on a scale similar to the Civil Rights Movement or the United Farm Workers Grape Boycotts in the 1960s.

Jesus is clear about the present day state policy of using demons to cast out demons. It doesn’t work. "Every kingdom divided against itself is heading for ruin, and a household divided against itself collapses. So too with Satan: if he is divided against himself, how can his Kingdom stand?" (Luke 14-22). In reminding his critics that it is not by Beelzebul that he casts out devils, but by "the finger of God," Jesus offers the finger of God, as compass and guide. The sacred history of nonviolent discipleship is replete with sisters and brothers who have set their sites on this moral compass, Cesar Chavez among them. Cesar Chavez, in his great nonviolent campaigns on behalf of migrant farm workers, renounced the use of force, never justifying its use in any form, never tempted by the myth of "redemptive violence" or "my violence is better than yours." George Bush and a majority of Americans who call themselves Christian believe that America’s violence is "good" violence.

Cesar Chavez follows the "finger of God" as an uncompromising disciple of Jesus in his adherence to nonviolent principles ("He who is not with me is against me; and he who does not gather, scatters." (Luke 11:23) Known for his gathering up of "nonviolent means," insisting that one must "sit down with the ‘enemy’, Cesar Chavez advocated talking with the President of California Grape, to discuss the safeguards necessary to keep our historical struggle free of violence." (The Universe Bends Toward Justice, p. 211) Demon violence is kept at bay, can be exorcised by communication and the practice of enemy love.

Nonviolence, or non-retaliatory enemy love as Jesus preached it, was a politically dangerous threat in Jesus’ day and could be an equally potent force today if it became evident to the Washington powerbrokers that a national nonviolent movement, in addition to exposing the lies of the state, would spiritually concentrate on healing the catastrophic divisions resulting from the pursuit of the lie of war. Nonviolence sheds light on the ruling powers and the LIE of violence while simultaneously uncovering the places of untruth in our own hearts.

Thomas Merton maintains: "Christian Nonviolence is nothing if not first of all a formal profession of faith in the Gospel message that the Kingdom of God has been established and that The Lord of Truth is indeed risen and reigning over the Kingdom." Jesus offers a forceful parallel between his language of redeeming forgiveness and mercy and the choice, by some, of the language of lies because "the devil is your father. ?He was a murderer from the start; he was never grounded in the truth; there is not truth in him at all: he is a liar, the father of lies." (John 8:44) The choice is before us. The work is painstaking. How do we exorcise the demon of lies, the biggest of which is war, the killing, maiming and desecration of the children of God, in the morass of despair and powerless in our divided country?
Part II. In Pursuit of Unity: Exorcizing the Demon of War

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Bibliography:

The Universe Bends Toward Justice: A Reader on Christian Nonviolence in the U.S. ed. by Angie O’Gorman (New Society Publishers, Philadelphia, PA, 1990).

John L. McKenzie S.J., The Power and the Wisdom: An Interpretation of the New Testament (The Bruce Publishing Co., Milwaukee, WI, 1965).

Eileen Egan, Peace Be With You: Justified Warfare Or the Way of Nonviolence (Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY,: Orbis Books, 1999).

By: Arlette Saenz
Date: October 25, 2006

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Chopping wood, hauling water, lifting manure, community prayer three times a day: This is not your typical summer internship. Casey Stanton, a senior in Notre Dame?s Program of Liberal Studies with a peace studies minor, spent this past summer in rural Massachusetts, waking up early each morning to complete these daily tasks.

Stanton interned at Agape Community, a small residential community in Ware, Mass. Founded in 1982 in the city of Brockton, the project was established to bring awareness to non-violence and the idea of simplistic living.

?We took vows when we became married to live in a community and to live non-violence from a Christian perspective, to live in voluntary simplicity, and to live the Gospel in our daily life, not just to squeeze it in on the side,? said Brayton Shanley, one of the community?s founders.

And that is just what Stanton got to do. She lived, worked and prayed with the Shanley family, other interns, and numerous retreatants and visitors. Agape consists of two homes - the Francis House and St. Brigid House, which is a straw bale building that has solar energy, a compost toilet, and wood cooking and heating stoves. The 32-acre compound includes an organic garden, which provides food to the residents of Agape and the surrounding community.

Each day?s ordinary tasks included working in the garden, maintaining the grounds, studying non-violence, and praying as a community.

"The mundane and simple, that’s so much of what life is; yet somehow praying together allows the stuff of every day to be transformed," Stanton said.

Such close proximity to, and the dependence on, nature enhanced Stanton?s experience at Agape.

?I grew up in the suburbs, never been out in the country,? she said. ?All of the sudden I?m out in the dirt shoveling manure. Toads were singing at night, crazy bugs flying everywhere.

?For me, it has become a very important aspect of what it means to live out my faith in the world and a need to connect back to my natural environment and not necessarily this conditioned environment that we?ve brought up around us.?

At one point over the summer, the community engaged in a three-day energy fast. Shutting off all electricity, they wanted to draw attention to the use of fossil fuels in everyday life.

?At night, we had candles, and it was hard work when we needed water,? Stanton said. ?The pump at the Brigid house was run off solar power, so we had to haul water and couldn?t flush the toilets.?

The energy fast took place at the beginning of the conflict in Israel and Lebanon, adding another dimension to the endeavor.

?I know one aspect for me, because life at Agape is so very much connected to spirituality, there was an intentionality in the energy fast ? we?re choosing to do this but there are a lot of people who don?t have this choice,? Stanton said. ?So many people in parts of the world, especially in conflict zones, but not exclusively, have to go without these things we take for granted everyday. There are deeper spiritual ramifications for all this, and now is the time to reassess our lifestyles and try to move forward while we still have oil.?

Stanton hopes to establish Agape as a permanent summer service site for Notre Dame students.

?It?s like summer camp, but richer,? she said. ?You live in a strong intellectual community that challenges your ideas and helps you in the process of clarification of thought, which is so important as a 20-year-old. It is a place to discern what being Catholic is and what it means to me, and it is a safe place to build that spiritual wisdom and intellectual understanding to then go out in the world.?

And Stanton plans to take her lessons learned at Agape and incorporate them in her studies here at Notre Dame.

?My thesis has come out of a lot of the actual experiences of Agape, and I am reinvigorated back at school to get down and dirty to do the hard academic work,? she said.

As Agape co-founder Suzanne Belote Shanley described it: ?All interns come with this thirsting for something real, for something truthful, something really different.?

After a summer at Agape, Stanton?s thirst has been quenched and she is prepared to go out in the world to help satiate the thirst of others.