Dear EPF Members interested in the EPF Nonviolence Action Group,
Thank you so much for your membership in Episcopal Peace Fellowship and your interest in contributing time and talent to the Nonviolence Action Group.
I invite you to participate in two of our projects and to offer input on others. The two undertakings we have in mind so far are are:
Peacebuilding Online Project.
Radicalization, extremism, violence, and conspiracy theories are connected to personal isolation, social alienation, and feeling disrespected. So, how can we engage people whose views are wildly different from our own, perhaps immoral from our perspective? How can we be true to our own characters and still build relational bridges?
We hope to present a series of online offerings related to this challenge from diverse presenters -- e.g., people from Parker Palmer's Center For Courage & Renewal, from the Episcopal Public Policy Network civil discourse program, broad based community organizers who bring people together across ideological divides to work for pragmatic solutions to community challenges, perhaps experts who can help us understand the radical right without agreeing with it; etc. We will promote this series to dioceses and congregations.
We need a small planning group to meet online to offer input into the content, format, and timing of our program, considering not just what our people need to know but what our dioceses and congregations are apt to actually watch and engage. The questionnaire below is a way to volunteer for the Planning Task Force. Once the program is ready to go, we'll need all of you to help promote it in your dioceses and parishes.
Nonviolent Book Club
The books we read and the conversations we have about them can change consciousness. We'd like to read a few key books together and meet online to discuss them once a month. Examples might include Lederach's The Moral Imagination: The Art & Soul Of Building Peace; Wink's Jesus & Nonviolence: A Third Way; Hochshild's Strangers In Their Own Land: Anger & Mourning On The American Right; Hughes's Who Shall I Fear: Urgent Questions For Christians In An Age Of Violence; Parker Palmer's Healing The Heart Of Democracy, just to name a few possibilities.
People could sign up for one book, then pass on the next, and perhaps come back to read the following one, and so on.
The Ask
Please see the survey below, Nonviolence Working Group Questions, mark your answers, save it as a Word Document (or print and scan it), and send it back so we know how you want to be involved. Note that we welcome your suggestions for other projects and any objections to or concerns about our present plans that you are willing to share.
Thank you again for being part of this effort to inject nonviolent social conscience in a time when it is so desperately needed. With God's help, we can make a difference.
Blessings always,
The Rt. Rev. Dan Edwards (Nevada, Retired)
EPF National Chair
NONVIOLENCE WORKING GROUP QUESTIONS
If you need any help with this, including having a Word version emailed to you, please let Melanie Atha know at epfactnow@gmail.com.
Are you willing and available to work on the Planning Task Force for the Peacebuilding Online Project (POP)?
Yes ____ No _____
If you can work on the Planning Task Force, when are you likely to be available for zoom meetings?
Weekday afternoons _____ Weekend afternoons _____
Weekday evenings _____ Weekend evenings _____
In what time zone do you reside?
Are you interested in participating in our Nonviolent Book Club from book to book?
Yes ____ No _____
If you are interested in the NBC (Nonviolent Book Club), when are you likely to be available for zoom meetings?
Weekday afternoons _____ Weekend afternoons _____
Weekday evenings _____ Weekend evenings _____
In what time zone do you reside?
Do you have book or author suggestions for the NBC?
In addition to the Peacebuilding Online Project and the Nonviolent Book Club, do you have suggestions for other activities or projects for the Nonviolence Working Group?
Do you have objections to or reservations about either of the proposed activities? Please share.
