Agape Community

by Skip Schiel

Occupations by various powers permeate the historic Levant landscape. Currently, Israelis dominate the region, causing great suffering among the Palestinian people. Israelis are fearful about terrorist bombings, a threat some believe could ultimately result in Palestinian expulsion.

For two weeks, Skip Schiel participated in a reality tour of the region. He met peace and justice workers, Palestinian and Israeli, largely in the secular nonviolent tradition. He shared with the Palestinians the closures, curfews, road blocks, and checkpoints that are now part of the second Intifada. He also shared with Israelis the fears spawned by the wave of terrorist bombings.
A participatory photographer, photographing while engaging in struggles for justice, peace right treatment of the environment, and enlightenment, Skip Schiel makes photos for publications, exhibits, slide shows, and individual use.

His main current project is a photographic examination of conditions in Palestine & Israel (Facts on the Ground). Skip believes that "Hope springs from struggle" and that his slide show "will attempt to illuminate the conditions and the struggle." Other projects include retracing the transAtlantic Trade journey (A Spirit People), the earth (Scent of Earth), prisons (Imprisoned Massachusetts with John Schuchardt), and an exploration of the impact of digital technology on photography.

Witness is what the Christian Peacemakers do in Hebron, accompanying children to and from school, monitoring checkpoints, asking soldiers why they are searching a vehicle or home, tracking arrests and detentions, and living in the Palestinian section of the city. In short, Christian Peacemakers place themselves in a hot spot, keep their eyes and ears open, and ask questions, using the authority vested in them by their Christian beliefs, namely, Christ’s admonition to serve the other by doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with one’s Greater Spirit.

I was in Palestine and Israel for two weeks in November 2003, with a delegation sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. We were gifted by a meeting with these Peacemakers, walked with them as they performed their work, ate with them as they explained how they face death, and watched with them from their rooftop the nearness to the Israeli settlements and the ever watchful and intimidating presence of the Israeli army.

Witness is what I try to do with my camera, practicing my trade as a socially engaged photographer, inserting myself into zones of conflict, turmoil, injustice, and sometimes danger to interpret what I slowly come to understand of a situation. The camera helps me observe and comprehend. The simple act of slinging a camera over my shoulder invites my body to become an extension of the camera. And the camera helps me show and tell my experience later, portraying my sense of the reality to a larger audience.

I am much emboldened by many Christian traditions. One–travel–going somewhere, watching and listening, sharing the load, building the community. Two, walking cheerfully over the earth, responding to the deepest in all creation, whether drawn or repelled by those I meet and what I witness. Third, the testimony of simplicity, living a life that allows me to continue this witness, refusing to be overly snared by fear and the demands of the quotidian life. Fourth, and most crucially, following the teachings
and examples of Jesus Christ himself, a man who like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., risked his life for the righteous kingdom.

To continue this witness I rely on my various communities, and am grateful to them, Agape included. I hope to visit congregations around the region with my slide show, "Facts on the Ground, Photographs from Israel and Palestine."

In the fall of 2004 I return to Israel and Palestine to
volunteer my photography to organizations that are
struggling for peace and justice. Although this is pro
bono, I need funds for travel and photographic equipment
and supplies. Please consider making a contribution to my
mission.

To view a sample of my photography and writing, please
visit: www.agapecommunity.org/files/pages/FactsSlideShow.htm

Awake! Awake!
Who now will hear the singing
silent voice call at dawn,
a cry of a true note, a heartbeat
praising day and night?
Where will the earthly poet live
while words are stone-dead and no rhythmic breath
sustains mortal flesh?
How will our hallowed earth have
sunrise and sunset
when no healing poets praise the Grace
of nature’s perennial wisdom?
Faithful, Eternal Poet, do you still live?
Faithful, Eternal Poet, do you still live?
Somewhere, in a forsaken land, does one
dying poet, like a lost child, still seek
for a dream sign, a voice
like a bird wing in flight, a burning blade of grass,
or a falling leaf with a tongue of red fire?
O, green Tree of Life, have you been
silent too long? Have you forgotten how
to sing with your own voice?
Never forget that your ancient blood may
still flow from the first river of creation.
Is there still one awakened faithful poet
on our earth home whose fire will ignite
an eternal flame before death’s call?
Is there still one faithful singer willing to be sacrificed
to the living gods of heaven and hell-
waiting to be resurrected
by greater Ones in the circling seasons
of life and death?
Faithful, Eternal Poet, do you still live?
Faithful, Eternal Poet, do you still live?

Rich is Agape’s long-time non-resident Poet’s poet and member of Agape’s Mission Council.

For arrest at Westover Air Base, March 22, 2003

By Sherrill Hogen
I am charged by the Commonwealth of Mass. for disturbing the peace, even though my actions were intended by me to bring peace by stopping war. I was disturbing the peace of complacency mine and others’–and of cooperation with our government’s military policy. I joined with others to resist nonviolently the momentum of war by blocking the gate at Westover Air Base on March 22, 2003.

I believed I was acting on behalf of millions of Americans who did not want this war, who did not vote for this war, whose congress did not declare war as is required by our constitution. I acted to save our social services and schools from the enormous cost of war. Finally, I acted to stop the loss of human life and environmental health that are gifts from our Creator. The cargo plans leaving Westover that day were carrying not only tanks and jeeps, but men and women, guns, weapons containing depleted uranium (weapons of mass destruction) which will contaminate the water and soil of Iraq for billions of years.

You, the jury, can find me not guilty of "disturbing the peace." It is not a crime to uphold our Constitution and the international agreements to which we are bound. War has not come to the US and killed our young children. Yet, we can know what war does, and my heart knew what the invasion of Iraq was going to mean for the mothers of Iraq and the mothers of the U.S.

Mothers don’t raise their children for the "honor" of being killed, maimed or traumatized in a war. U.S. mothers and Iraqi mothers cried when their sons and daughters left for the war or because their soldier-children are dead or wounded, have lost an arm, a face, a leg, or they have experienced nightmares or depression, or are sick from depleted uranium and other chemicals of war.

Iraqi mothers cried and when bombs and missiles brought death to civilians called by the US– "collateral damage". No mother anywhere calls her child "collateral damage". We all weep with mothers beside the coffins of their dead children–soldiers or infants. Before the war started, I wept and prayed for Iraqi and U.S. mothers. On the third day of the bombing, I blocked one road to one Air Base that was sending death to Iraq to say: "This is not right."

Maybe it was a feeble response, but it was all I could think of to do. I said as loudly as possible: This war should not have happened. My government should not have started a war that violated international laws and treaties that the U.S. has signed. But even worse, my government has wronged the mothers, and the land.

I am accused of violating a law, disrupting the order of my society. I disrupted "order" because I wanted you to hear my conscience and my reasons. I disobeyed a local or state law because I felt obligated to by the highest law according to the U.S. Constitution which puts International Laws and treaties above our local, state and national laws because they say that wars of aggression are illegal.

You and I are the true holders of power. If we decide that our country has violated International Law, our Constitution, our conscience–about what is right, we are the ones who have to speak up. And when we, the majority, vote "No" to wars of aggression, when we vote in elections, or in courtrooms, or in the streets we will bring the peace we all desire.

A jury found the Ahimsa 6, including members of Agape and the Peace Pagoda, guilty of blocking the road and disturbing the peace. After hearing the recommendation of the DA for a $300 fine, which all defendants said they were unable in conscience to pay, Judge Beatty, dismissed the Ahimsa Six on one charge and gave unsupervised probation on another. Both charges have been dropped at subsequent trials.