A Fruitful Community

by Peter Ediger

Located in California’s San Joaquin Valley, the city of Reedley, surrounded by vineyards and orange groves, boasts itself as being the “Fruit Basket of the Nation.”  In a Mennonite church near the center of the city, fruit of another kind is being cultivated. While in no way claiming to be “Peace Center of the Nation” the Reedley Peace Center nevertheless calls to mind Margaret Mead’s dictum “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

The Reedley Peace Center’s group of “thoughtful, committed citizens” meets weekly for pot-lucks and programs and planning for nonviolence witness and actions. Their Mission Statement welcomes “people of all faiths, religions, creeds to join us in our search for peaceful solutions to local, national, and international conflicts and dilemmas. We believe that nonviolence is a viable and necessary response to the conflicts that occur at all levels of society, from personal to global.”

In further pursuit of this mission, the Peace  Center invited Pace e Bene’s Vanessa Gomez Brake and Peter Ediger to co-facilitate a workshop on “Nonviolence: Engaging Conflicts Creatively.”  An energetic group of 35 people worked and played and prayed together the November 5-7 weekend, seeking the Spirit’s wisdom in deepening our understanding and practice of active nonviolence.         In a variety of exercises and role-plays along with presentations, we explored some of the different ways we see violence and nonviolence operative in our lives and in our world, the contrasts between the beatitudes and the attitudes of a domination system, the awareness that we all have pieces of the truth, and the importance of both deep listening and honest confrontation in the face of conflict.

During the course of the weekend, Georgia Linscheid, one of the participants, shared about her involvement with “Friends of Jesse Morrow Mountain.”  This is an effort to prevent mining on the mountain.  There are cultural concerns (Native American spirituality), historical, biological and scenic (the mountain is a gateway to the National Parks). After careful listening and discerning, members of the group committed themselves to support Georgia and the Friends of Jesse Morrow Mountain.  (By the way, Georgia, together with the Raging Grannies, has produced a CD with protest lyrics and familiar tunes.  To order, call 559-488-2157)

I came away from the weekend with a deep sense of gratitude for this community of peace cultivators.  The Reedley Peace Center is a model which could be followed in churches across the country. 

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