Prophetic Vision and the Power of Witness

By Dan Coppock Wednesday’s theme of worship was one of hope. As the first full day, the evening of greeting and collection and transition from travel put behind us, we were now presented with the laying out of our hopes for the conference, our anticipation of work to be done, and the beginnings of moving forward. Our morning worship helped lay out something more fundamental: our grounds for hope in the first place. Colin Saxton from Northwest Yearly Meeting, Religious Society of Friends, spoke on the prophet Micah, a "nobody" from "nowhere," who, though he had relatively little influence during his life, led the King Hezzekiah to sponsor a revival of the morality of Israel. Colin Saxton spoke of nonresistance and about the cross. He spoke of breaking through a numbness that our society seems to value and reconnecting to the radical nonviolent message of Jesus Christ, a theme visited the previous night by Ched Meyers. This message was underscored by the reminder immediately after worship that we were building up to a day of action and that members of the gathering were facing arrest even that afternoon in their witness and prayer for the owner of a local gun shop. A panel then followed discussing the various faith bases. Christina Amalia Repoley, an unprogrammed Friend from Atlanta, spoke of the power that comes from worshiping expectantly and that manifested in the corporate waiting is the grounding of faith that produces the fruit of peace work and allows us to "ive in the virtue of life and power that takes away the occasion for all war." Paul Anderson, an Evangelical Friend from Oregon, spoke of a biblical, radical third way that heaps coals on the heads of adversaries and prevents a co-option of truth by presenting a third choice between two undesirable options. Belita D. Mitchell, a Brethren from Harrisburg, Pa., spoke of the transformation in her life experience and how by practicing and living out her faith with her community she has discovered the meaning of sharing the Presence by taking it to the streets. Jordan Blevins, another of the Brethren, shared his commitment to ecojustice and relationship both with the Earth and with each other, seeking in each other and in oneself embodiment of the living Christ. Mimi Copp shared stories of her travels and family to illuminate her experience of the justice side of "peace and justice." She spoke of the women in white of West Africa and her own experience in Shalom House, the Brethren in Christ house in West Philadelphia. In the afternoon she was arrested while praying at a gun shop. Gilberto Flores, a Mennonite minister, spoke of his reluctant participation in an indigenous peace resistance movement in Guatemala, and of his subsequent exile to the United States, the end of his personal peace. The group moved then to small group and individual discussions. The themes for pondering and mindful discussion, drawn from the writings of Martin Luther King Jr. were of hope, of purpose, and of prophetic vision. My workshop had the notable absence of another of those who were arrested. We reconvened in the evening to hear the faith witness of Alexie M. Torres-Fleming, who moved the group gradually from thinking towards acting. We heard of the arrest of those who prayed and the execution of Curtis Moore at the hands of the State of Texas. The group heard Alexie Torres-Fleming speak powerfully of her early life in the poorest Congressional district in the United States, in South Bronx; her wrestling with the myth of escape; and her divinely inspired decision to return to the community in which she was brought up. She spoke of her prophetic dreams, which played a large role in her actions as community worker. She reflected on the struggle for dignity and the incarnational aspect of God's power. She laid out lessons that she had learned along the way, challenging and affirming the group as a whole. She ended her time reflecting on the discomfort and disorientation that came with acting as God's servant but with the invocation to tease the power out of the powerless. The evening closed with reflections on Dr. Howard Thurman surmising that there is no security in this life. The ground is laid for the theme of Thursday’s worship: lamentation and the remorse of a not clearly visible God.

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