Agape Community

by Frank Schweigert

In the spirit of all good (effective and moral) social change efforts, this hits at the heart of the current power commitments. An effective oil boycott would be: 1) easily associated with Iraq and the unjust war there 2) environmentally positive 3) easily made visible 4) easily done with some (but not great) sacrifice.

It occurs to me that we are talking about both a political demonstration and a practical experiment. The same action has two objectives. Both objectives are important, but are measurable in different ways. It would be interesting to think these through in terms of the ?yes? and ?no? analysis. Maybe there is a yes and no in both objectives.

The practical experiment to reduce dependence on oil is part of a long-term, life-long endeavor to live more simply, with a smaller ?footprint? on the planet. If I don?t drive my car to work, I take the bus; that is still oil-dependent, but a step in the right direction. So the experiment moves ahead. We grow more of our own food and consume less food that is transported in; the experiment moves ahead. Multiply that by many households, and it can make a difference.

Individually, I can track the changes and hold myself accountable for taking progressively more effective steps?assisted by technologies of conservation and by support from others engaged in the same experiment. Progress can also be tracked collectively in terms of auto emissions, acres of urban gardens, bus ridership.
The urgency of the present moment?the continuing war for oil?calls for something more than this practical experiment. To use the refusal of oil as a political demonstration requires an organized, publicized, staged event. Early events can be small and experimental, to test out what appeals to the public; but ultimately, we want to build to something very noticeable that can register a confrontation with the national war policy.

Like most political demonstrations, this effort would seek allies among those others opposing the war, even if they did not want to link their opposition to oil. It seems to me that we need to act as quickly as we can, to link the Iraq war to the on-going oil war policy?so that the re-deployment of troops does not derail our ability to influence (change) the long-term policy of oil assurance at all costs.
Good to be in conversation. Blessings to all of you

All of those interested in joining with Frank from St. Paul MN and Agape in discussing the future of a national oil boycott please contact Agape.

?Jesus Falls the Third Time?

by Pat Ferrone

This station was presented at the annual Agape Stations of the Cross in Boston

The word is out that Jesus has been seen once again on the way to his crucifixion, stumbling bare-footed along the dusty, rock-strewn road, even falling several times - the burden of the cross apparently heavier than ever, and surely more than should be borne. They tell me that the route is different this year ? more arduous because longer, and through regions new and perilous. He is exhausted and threatened on all sides by the frenzied crowds, who, like wild dogs penned in too long, seem ready to pounce.

My dear friends, you who have known much pain, and you who have not, we have been asked (some suggest that it is Jesus himself who makes the request) to join him this year, though the hour is late. It has not gone unnoticed that you have been preparing for just such a call for years. God knows that your hearts have been broken again and again as you?ve allowed them to take in the pain of the world.

In ways that count, you have allowed yourselves to be disarmed, you have practiced love, and work at forgiveness. The details are somewhat unclear as to how long this journey will last, but I have been given a glimpse of what might be in store and how you are to prepare, should you agree to walk one of the roads that Jesus has traveled for more years than can be counted.

It is suggested that you dress lightly, and rid yourselves as best you can of the encumbrances that weigh you down ? your belongings, of course, undue attachments, and perhaps more importantly, your pride and the self-image you have worked so hard to construct. Some of you have already taken up crosses that remind you of the harsh demands of love, but you may be asked to carry one of even denser weight, or assist a brother or sister with one of theirs.

I mean no harshness, but I must remind you that what you are about to undertake is dangerous and leads to darkness that may be too much for some of you to bear. I have been told, however, that somewhere, sometime, after this journey is over and you have been beaten down and persecuted, and can entertain no hope of rising again, you WILL rise. You will come to know without a doubt that what has been asked of you has, in some small way, served God?s purpose, and is, indeed, a necessary step toward wholeness and healing ? for you, and for the world.

In order to encourage you, I might suggest that you hold in mind and heart some of the beauty of this world and the grace of the loved ones in your life. Remember some particulars ? the way the sun glints off droplets of water on the red rose, for instance; a few lines of poetry; or the psalm that says, ?Forever I will put my trust in You; and as I abandon myself to You in love, I am assured of peace.?

In this way, though the road prove rough, you will feel some comfort and be able to offer the same to one another. As you set out you will meet many others, your friends of the Spirit, who are also on their way to Golgotha. I understand that there are contingents from Iraq and Palestine and also from Darfur. There are others meeting on the streets of Boston and New York who will walk alongside one another. The crosses are ready. And let me remind you - if one of you should fall, or if you reach Jesus and realize he?s in need, please, offer a hand.

Pat Ferrone, artist, teacher and peacemaker, has been involved with Agape and many other avenues of peace and art for more than the 25 years.

One of the elders said: Either fly as far as you can from men, or else, laughing at the world and the men who are in it, make yourself a fool in many things.

Following Brayton up the hill…he light bearer and water carrier - Prometheus and Aquarius - to the hermit’s four walls. Is there a Zen parable that will grant two days equal to a lifetime of solitude?
The first gift is an old addiction that I had become smug about resisting for the last several years - but now I wanted a cigarette. Absolutely now. No Native American spiritual practice in disguise, but the craving pure and simple. Temptations must always have an element of known desire…the simpering spirit in the desert doesn’t offer generic fantasies to Jesus - they must speak to real desires that have haunted him. There would be no test in rejecting what is not yearned for. Are there smokers within walking distance? Down from the mountaintop the disciple comes - in search of an unfiltered Camel. Bathos would be a poor call upon charity. I stay put.

Merton’s instructions in contemplation set too unbearable a standard. I abandon the book some forty pages in. Nothing to be done, which may be his point.
A switch has been thrown in the planetarium - an artificial night with electric stars - but I refuse the darkness, my hand lamp held alight against my chest. Did Pascal ever consider that the difficulty of being alone in one’s room has something to do with fear, and not just impatience?
The war is here. I know it.
A walk without a path, at least initially. But I find my way to the marked road where a car with Connecticut plates sits. I never meet the other hikers, but instead pile cairns of stone along the trail that they will find upon their return. A little magic for them.
Standing where Dave Dellinger’s ashes are buried, the tree planted to mark the place now a budding stick, like Saint Joseph’s staff.

Carried a new rosary with me, along with a printed sheet denoting the several mysteries and the words of the Mary Prayer which my memory fumbled with. There are Lenten recollections which come attached - in a darkness, the relic of the true cross…a twisted gold frame…a purple stone (amethyst?) that we bowed to kiss…the priest beneath a canopy on poles nodding with the weight in his hands…more darkness. My mother was living then.

The beads I had brought - now that I investigated them - marked with the seal of the Knights of Columbus - not a comfortable association (Pius XII has a mural size portrait in their New Haven museum; John XXIII a miniature). Can such instruments of prayer carry a taint? I wonder what other attendant symbols rosaries have been made to bear…for Bavarian Catholics in the Second World War, Italian -Americans in Vietnam? I decide to leave these hanging in a tree, a pilgrim’s memento cleansed by the spring.

A hundred miles from this place a friend is dying.
It is as if the woods had been silenced by a gunshot - the second, too painful, gift. Is there any sanctuary that is not an escape? Is this preparation for a gospel fool?
A copy of an Easter poem, written by a far more graced hand than mine, an occasion for prayer…

Outside in the cobbled alleys
hooded penitents shuffle
like a human centipede
bearing a juggernaut –
a dolorous Virgin doll
whose congealed tears of wax
glister on porcelain cheeks.
They parade to an empty tomb,
white with lilies and linen –
Calvary left abandoned.

I will leave it behind, a gift to the ghosts for whom I had swept the floors, and picked the path clean of fallen twigs, a laughable thread of order around the rocks.
Seeing the lights of the house below, I remember to think of how the lit window of the hermitage would appear to those there. Is this oil lamp to me a sanctuary candle to them? Perhaps what others imagined was happening here would mean more - in the end - than what I actually managed. Illumination in spite of myself. Grace’s definition.

Stephen Vincent Kobasa Maundy Thursday, 2006

Stephen, long time friend of Agape, was recently fired from his job as an English teacher at Kolbe Cathedral High School, Bridgeport, CT, since 1999, because he did not want to display an American flag in his Catholic school classroom given his deep-seated religious beliefs: "Christ speaks of compassion without boundaries. Flags are about separation, assertions of superiority and aggression. The whole notion that loyalty to country is connected to one’s religious faith is totally bizarre and unjustified." Joseph McAleer, a spokesman for the Diocese of Bridgeport, said it is diocesan policy not to comment on personnel matters.