Phil's Peace Weekend in DC

I'm back from DC, and I'm full of inspiration and hope from my time there. The round-trip van ride was challenging, weather-wise on the way to DC, and interpersonal relationship-wise on the return to KC. (But most of the latter is covered by confidentiality standards.)

The highlight of my time was being mistaken for Art Gish TWICE in one day! And then getting to meet Art for the first time, and getting to talk to him one-on-one for a few minutes over our sack lunch-dinners on Friday night before the worship service. (Art is Peggy Gish's husband; Peggy is the sister of Tom Neher's mother. Both Art and Peggy are long-time Christian Peacemaker Teams full-timers. And Art and I do resemble each other quite a bit!)

The mime performance by the ten Mennonite youth from Harrisonburg, VA, set to music and portraying Christian Peacemaker Teams "Getting in the Way" followed by Art Gish's short speech was also a high point for me.

Two riders in our van went through five hours of civil disobedience training and decided to be two of the 222 who were ultimately arrested in front of the White House that night. Janie Stein and Marty Bates, leaders of the Salina People for Peace and organizers of our van, experienced their first civil disobedience on a cold, wet and icy night in DC, with Mennonites Jim Sager of Salina and me as their "support" people. Jim and I were each able to provide $100 in cash to Janie and Marty so that they could pay their fines.

I will write more details later.

— Phil Rhoads

• Related Links: See "Christians protest against 'theological justification' of Iraq war."
• And see "Two hundred Christians arrested during protests over Iraq war."
• And see "Parliament Square turned into graveyard on anniversary of Iraq war."

I get daily emails from Ekklesia, which has articles of interest from a religious perspective in the UK.