"Our Peace Site Today"

Twenty years ago, I was sitting in the parlor of my church in Concord, New Hampshire, patiently listening to a presentation by two representatives of a group called "Beyond War." This organization, which was based out here in the west, sent emissaries to call on Unitarian Universalist ministers all over the country, to enlist our support and start the ripple effect of a freshly energized peace movement. They came with appealing graphics derived from the stunning vision of the earth as seen from the moon - posters, brochures, and that lapel pin I know some of you still wear - and their own winning and positive conviction that they had bold new insights to lead the world to peace.

But first they had to deal with me. I had come of age in the sixties, the era of the Whole Earth Catalog, counterculture movements, and bold new ideas based on visions of all kinds, some of them hallucinatory. I was sure I could spot a re-tread when I saw one.

And I had another problem with the "Beyond War" people. These clean-cut young men - self-declared refugees from corporate America, traveled in pairs, like missionaries. Their vision of democracy and peace, they said, came direct from the "founding fathers" of our country. Their zeal was refreshing, but they had a hard time understanding why I, a staunch feminist, found their message about the "founding fathers" a little off-putting. What about everyone else, I asked. What about everything that has happened to democracy since the days when the "founding fathers" were running things - abolition and suffrage, for example? Democracy – good, patriarchy – bad, is how I would summarize my position. I didn't see how we could get beyond war without a lot of help from the mothers too. In the end, however, I invited the "Beyond War" guys to build a following in my congregation. For I realized that their message would be welcome among people who valued democracy and hoped desperately for peace. And that, despite my reservations, included me.

"Beyond War" and other organizations from that era were racing against the ticking clock of nuclearism, the permanent state of imminent catastrophe that hovered over us since World War II. Anxiety arose from this very real threat, along with the realization that humanity had major corrective work to do. It impelled many of us to mobilize in the hope that we could reverse our grim course together.

Beyond War was only one of many groups seeking to pull us back from the brink. Here in Santa Monica, members of our own congregation were exploring how our church could make a difference too. This is the era that produced our "Peace Site," the dedication of this space to that purpose.

Our congregation had embarked on a year-long study leading up to this decision. In August, 1985, Charles Haskell addressed the topic of nuclearism in a sermon he delivered here. He offered an erudite history of the atomic bomb and its effect on the world after Hiroshima, along with an invitation to study the issue as a congregation. Less than a year later, at the annual meeting in May, the congregation voted this resolution:

"Be it hereby resolved that we, the members of the Unitarian Community Church of Santa Monica, identify our church as a "Peace Site" and that we commit ourselves to being "peacemakers." By virtue of these designations we dedicate ourselves and our church to the pursuit of peace in the nuclear age. This shall include, but not be limited to, learning to live together in peace as individuals, as well as learning to live in peace with all of humankind.

"We do not expect this process to be simple or easy and we make this commitment with the full understanding that our world is diverse and complex. As much as anything, this represents a new commitment to fully understanding the complexities of the nuclear age and to doing our best to use our knowledge and insight for the common good and for the survival of the human race."

A dedication was celebrated here October 5, 1986. "Peace Site" activities at our church included the formation of a Peace Committee, educational programs open to the public, and hospitality to the larger peace community. Many people in Santa Monica came to know our church by these activities, a reputation that still makes us look good. We even have a proclamation from the City of Santa Monica congratulating us on our commitment to peace.

Then times changed. While the nuclear threat did not go away, anxiety about it receded from consciousness. And the anti-nuclear movement made some real progress: in 1985 one group, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, won the Nobel Peace Prize. I don't know what became of "Beyond War." As for us, we are still a Peace Site. And the time has come for us to ask, once again, what that means we should do.

Movements may come and go, but war is still with us. Weapons continue to morph into things we can't imagine. Yet somehow people still find ways to use them.

War has always gone on, every day all over the world, usually fought by people we don't know who hate other people we don't know. But these past few years, war has become personal for us once again. We are all having a hard time with it.

What can a church do about war today? That question is on the agenda to come before the larger Unitarian Universalist faith community, at our General Assembly this summer. The "Peacemaking" study-action proposal calls on us, "a global faith community . . . to redefine ourselves in the world and to discipline our practices of compassionate justice" if we want to be constructive and relevant. It asks us to consider a series of questions, such as whether to become a Peace Church, or to adopt a "just war" policy instead. How much do we know about nonviolence, peacemaking and pacifism, it also asks. What kind of distinctions do we make in our understanding of justice?

These are big questions, not easily rendered into work a congregation can do. But avoiding them will save us nothing. As the Commission on Social Witness asks, "What are the costs and consequences of our indifference to peacemaking?" That is one question every one of us can answer.

So today I invite you, as Charles Haskell invited you some twenty years ago, to explore what it means to be a Peace Site again. Let's pool our energy and our ideas, harness our anxiety and our despair, and see what we can do together. It could be quite a lot.

The chain of events occurring since the terrorist attack of 2001 has unfolded inexorably, war upon war, as more people die and civil liberties are retracted. Much of it has seemed beyond our control. I have marched, I have voted, and I have preached, but I have to liken my efforts to a voice crying in the wilderness. I feel, as I know many of you do, frustration over not being able to do anything to avert what now appears to be a succession of wars. Nor do I know where it will end. Or if it ever will.

There is only one cure for this kind of despair. And it is to get together with one another. We don't have to see politics the same way. We don't have to agree to be pacifists. We just have to be the people of faith that we are, learning how to be peacemakers together.

Peacemaking is a spiritual discipline to learn. In the words of the Commission on Social Witness "Peacemaking" proposal: "We must remember, reclaim, and practice principles of peacemaking from varied spiritual traditions that promote conflict resolution, nonviolent intervention, mediation, tolerance, acceptance, and love to make it possible for us to live at peace."

Peacemaking is also activism. Think of the carpenter in the story I told earlier. He didn't do what he was asked to do. Instead of building a fence between the feuding neighbors, the carpenter built a bridge. If we want to be peacemaker activists, we won't always do what people tell us, or expect us, to do.

Some ideas for us to consider draw on our spiritual AND our activist inclinations in the service of peacemaking. Our young people may face the reinstatement of the draft in coming years. Let's learn how to guide them, using our Unitarian Universalist principles to help them assess their own attitudes and choices. We have here in Los Angeles abundant resources for learning non-violent techniques in resolving conflicts. Let's have a workshop we can apply to our own lives, where peacemaking always begins. We have a lot to learn about power - not only the connection between patriarchy and war, which is as real today as it was twenty years ago when I first met the guys from Beyond War - but power as the Commission on Social Witness described it. Let's learn how to express the power of compassionate justice as we experience it in our relationships, as we find it in our wisdom traditions, and as we nurture it in our own souls. Stopping torture has become a top priority for many groups, such as Amnesty International and the UU Service Committee, not only because torture is dehumanizing and cruel. Torture is also an abuse of power, which we can now see clearly, thanks to Abu Ghraib, and which we must banish forever.

There is much more. Our Peace Committee reconvenes this Wednesday, March 2, to consider what course we should take. You can help. Come to the meeting. And if not that meeting, perhaps another meeting; anywhere that people come together and ask each other what we can do for peace.

Twenty years ago, this group of Unitarian Universalists gathered for their annual meeting and voted unanimouslyto become a Peace Site. It was a thoughtful decision, made after a year of study and dialogue. Like other anti-nuclear groups such as Beyond War and Physicians for Social Responsibility, our Peace Site transformed anxious citizens into committed activists and gave hope to our entire community.

If you think that's saying too much, think about this: we're still here. What we feared more than anything else - a nuclear holocaust - has not come to pass. We're still here.

And so is our Peace Site. It is time to get to work, transforming anxiety into action. Let us make this church a place for peacemaking once again, a place for safety and hope for today.

Information about the UUA Commission on Social Witness can be found at uua.org. Thank you to Rob Briner and Charles Haskell for the archival material about our history. Charles's sermon is titled "Hiroshima & Nagasaki: Forty Years After," preached August 4, 1985.