Cherith Brook Catholic Worker

Cherith Brook Advent 2011 Newspaper

2011-11-14T21:35:00.000-08:00

Our Advent 2011 paper is now online. Be sure to read it and let us know what you think.

Advent 2011

Waiting...To Celebrate!

Occasionally we are asked, “How successful is your work at Cherith Brook? Are you able to get the homeless off the streets?

For one, we are rarely the reason folks get off the streets. We aren’t lawyers or social workers, we are unqualified to process them through housing programs. We aren’t employment programs, teaching new skills where needed or pointing the unemployed toward jobs. We really value those who have these skills and expertise. And we know it would be wrong to give ourselves much, if any credit for the legal, financial and programmatic resources it takes to secure housing when you have nothing.

Besides, success is a word we don’t use much. It sends the wrong message. For one thing, while some of our friends are able to get housing, few of them escape the precarity of poverty. Consider, for example, those who “live off the government”. The typical Social Security Disability check is somewhere around $650 a month. Food stamps aside, that’s for everything. And then there is the struggle to find affordable housing. There is no wiggle room for what life often throws at us. Give it a try sometime.

Also, we don’t want to contribute to the middle class myth of independence. Such a myth does not take into account that while some start at the bottom, a few start at the top and some of us started somewhere in the middle with family resources and support abounding. Success talk allows us to buy into the idol of autonomy. Not much credit is given to the reality that we all depend on others for something. If we are honest with ourselves, interdependence is more true to human experience and to our call as Christians.

Most important, the Gospels give more value to living truthful, faithful lives than being successful in our efforts. When it comes to being with those in poverty, the story is about companionship with those who live a daily struggle. Yes, we are somewhat hesitant to talk of success.

On the other hand we have had plenty to celebrate. And, it hits me on occasion that we don’t do enough celebrating.

We’ve had plenty partying going on here as of late. Mike Turner, who has lived with us on and off since 2008, was awarded Social Security Disability last month. It was surreal. He applied for disability in April 2010. And then he waited and waited, received an occasional phone call from lawyers, filled out forms, went to appointments, then waited some more. Hurry up and wait. When we went to court on a Friday morning I expected more waiting. But as he came out of the courtroom, I could tell by his smile that the waiting was over.

What did Jesus mean when he said “The poor will always be with you?" I’ll get back to you on that one. But what I do know is that Mike Turner went from the streets to our community and is now living in a house with friends. He will have trying times ahead as he learns to make the $650 stretch over the month. But after three years Mike knows we are in it together.

One of our favorite practices is to visit the houses of these friends for a blessing. Faces glow and eyes water up as we move from living room to bedroom and kitchen (yes, even the bathroom) to bless each space and giving thanks to God in Jesus Christ, who did some time in a stable on the streets and under the stars after all.

Mike is just one of several stories we have celebrated this past year. I’m learning what will power, patience, persistence, humility and faith it takes to transition from homelessness to stability of some kind. We have learned much by traveling this difficult road with friends. And much more to learn and much more to celebrate!

Festival of Shelters Event

2011-09-23T12:54:00.000-07:00

We will be celebrating the Festival of Shelters this year Sunday, October 16 and Monday, October 17. This is a time we as a community spend remembering all who have experienced need and reflecting on the ways in which God has provided. We will set up shelters to represent the various types of homelessness, share in stories with friends and spend time on the streets learning more fully what life is like for the homeless.

We will begin our time together by gathering on Sunday at 4pm to hear the stories of some of our friends and celebrate the ways in which God has provided for us. The program will last until about 5:15pm at which point a group will set out for night on the streets.

Join us for the gathering, and if you are interested in sharing in the experience of time on the streets, we invite you to join us from:
1. Sun 6pm- Mon 6am OR
2. Sun 6pm- Mon 6pm OR
3. Mon 6am-Mon 6pm.

At the end of our time on the streets, we will all gather together at 6pm on Monday to share in a meal and reflect on our time. If you are interested in joining us for time on the streets please let us know by October 10.

Cherith Brook Ordinary Time 2011 Newspaper

2011-08-27T14:53:00.000-07:00

Our Ordinary Time 2011 newspaper is now online. Be sure to read it and let us know what you think.

Ordinary Time 2011

Also, below is an article from that paper.

We're Not Friends, We're Family

This might be hard to fathom, but I have a brother who is thirty-eight and a half years older than me. He is sixty-five and I am twenty-seven. We have become quite close over the last few years. When introducing my older brother, Gary, to others I often refer to him as my friend because of how awkward it might sound to call him my brother. When I do this, Gary quickly puts me in my place, like the older brother that he is, insisting to others and reminding me that, “we are not friends, we are brothers.”

Well, if you haven’t figured it out yet, Gary is not my biological ‘bro’. I have known Gary for about two and a half years. However, he claims that we have known each other for at least five to ten. Sometimes Gary claims that we have known each other even longer saying that I, along with everyone else at Cherith Brook, was the one that got him saved when he was a “no good adolescent rebel wandering the streets looking for trouble.” I try to explain that it couldn’t have been me, but he insists, “yes it was you, Josh…and Jodi, and Micah, and Eric, and Nick, and Elisabeth…” So I just respond, “Well, it’s a good thing you’re not wandering around causing hell like you used to.” He agrees. Gary, my older brother, and I go way back, longer than I can remember.

Living at Cherith Brook has caused me to re-think family. As I have given myself to this place and this community, I have wrestled with the truth that in order to be rooted here, I must let go of some family loyalties. (Don’t worry mom, I’m not divorcing my family). Family is something that Jesus re-defined for us during his public ministry on earth in a time when biological family was the most important institution in society. The Hebrew people had been repeatedly reminded that, “God would bless the entire world through the children, the lineage, of this specific people Israel.” (Rodney Clapp, Families at the Crossroads) It was through the family that the Hebrew people believed they would receive God’s richest blessings. So in the Gospel of Mark when Jesus’ family had become upset at his public activity, thinking that he had gone mad (Mark 3:21), they came to bring him home. “And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, ‘Your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you.’ And he answered them, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and brothers. Whoever does the will of God, he or she is my brother and sister and mother.’” (Mark 3:32-35) Jesus is teaching us something new about family. In the reign of God that has come with Jesus, family means something entirely different for those who “do the will of God.” In the book Jesus and Community, Gerhard Lohfink says,

“Jesus relativized all of this: clan, parents, children, land. It is possible, in some circumstances even necessary, to leave all this behind. This is not done for the sake of renunciation, as if renunciation were something positive in itself, but rather because something new is appearing, the reign of God is arriving. Its arrival changes everything. Those who follow Jesus, who for the sake of the reign of God leave behind everything they have had, become a new family, a family in which, paradoxically, there are again brothers, sisters, mothers, and children.”

We try to remember this “new family of God” that we are a part of at Cherith Brook, in the “Shower House”, in our Thursday Community meals, in our life together. When we come together to share a meal, there are no divisions among us. We are no longer strangers. We are family; brothers and sisters in Christ. This is what the “Shower House” has become: a place of family. Our brothers and sisters from the streets remind us of this, that when we do the will of God together, we become family.

As I have lived at Cherith Brook for more than two years now, I am beginning to know the people here as family, not just figuratively, but literally. People that come to Cherith Brook often ask if Nick and I are brothers, and I am becoming more and more confused about how to answer that question. I’m sure that part of the reason is that we look alike, but I hope that it might also be because we live together like brothers along with the rest of our family here. Paul uses the language of “adoption” into the family of God and in 2 Corinthians he says that we become a new creation. Rodney Clapp says, “Conversion creates a new person, even a new world. It involves nothing short of re-socialization. The biological family, though not at all despised or useless, is no longer the primary source of identity, support and growth.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I love my biological family. But I am coming to the realization that I must do as Jesus said and leave my family to follow Jesus so that I may love them more fully as brothers and sisters in the “new family of God”. Jesus said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:37) If we love our families, we must leave them for our adoption into the family of God. May we always be asking ourselves, “Who are our mother and our brothers and sisters?” Our family is all around us, anyone who does the will of God. And if you forget, my brother Gary will remind you, “We are not friends, we are family!”

Cherith Brook Special Edition Newspaper

2011-06-12T20:41:00.000-07:00

Holy Family and Cherith Brook have teamed up to provide an update on the Faith & Resistance Retreat that was held April 29 - May 2. That publication is now online. Be sure to read it and let us know what you think.

Faith & Resistance Retreat 2011

Also, below is an article from that paper.

Planned Nuke Facility Raises Concerns
by Josh McElwee, National Catholic Reporter

In the wake of sharply focused protests against U.S. nuclear weapons facilities over the past month, weapons analysts appear divided on the intent of U.S. weapons’ policies, raising as many questions as providing answers.

At a time of pressing budget deficits, President Obama last May pledged $80 billion over the next decade for the U.S. nuclear arsenal. That money was the price for winning key Republican support in the U.S. Senate for the ratification of the New START treaty, aimed at reducing the U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons arsenals to 1,550 deployed warheads each.

On the surface, the breach in logic of paying billions — including an estimated $1.2 billion over two decades to build a new weapons production plant in Kansas City, Mo. — while cutting back on the nation’s nuclear arsenal has not escaped the most vociferous weapons’ critics.

Calling attention to that very fact, 53 people were arrested at the construction site for the new Kansas City facility May 2. Holding signs calling for the “transformation” of the complex to green energy use, the group blocked a gate to the site before being taken into custody.

The act of civil disobedience came after a three-day conference that saw 150 gather from as far away as South Dakota to raise awareness of the facility, which will replace an existing one responsible for the production of 85 percent of the nonnuclear parts of each of the weapons in the nuclear arsenal.

In a similar gathering, more than 160 people came together April 16 in Oak Ridge, Tenn., to protest a proposed new uranium facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Activists there marched two miles through the downtown area of the city, hosted a vigil, and placed peace cranes on the fence surrounding the complex.

The new Oak Ridge facility, estimated by the government to cost up to $6.5 billion, is said to be needed by the National Nuclear Security Administration to “support production and surveillance of highly-enriched uranium components.”

A third proposed complex at the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico is set to join the Oak Ridge and Kansas City ones. Called the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility, it is to increase U.S. ability to produce plutonium pits — the “heart” of the nuclear weapon — from approximately 20 to 80 annually.

The actions at the Oak Ridge and Kansas City facilities highlight a series of questions nuclear weapons analysts who spoke to NCR raised about the need, scope and direction of the nation’s nuclear weapons complex.

Much of the U.S. nuclear weapons program remains cloaked in secrecy. Meanwhile, nuclear weapons analysts themselves are divided on whether the U.S. will use the new facilities to upgrade its existing arsenal, or to go forward with the building of a new generation of nuclear weapons.

Within a Catholic moral context, the difference is not a mere matter of semantics. According to the 1983 U.S. bishops’ pastoral letter on war and peace, “The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and Our Response,” U.S. nuclear deterrence is “justifiable only in conjunction with resolute determination to pursue arms control and disarmament.”

While most of the analysts interviewed by NCR agreed that new projects of some scope may be needed to replace aging, World War II-era facilities at the project sites, they disagreed on whether the planned replacements would fundamentally shift the nation’s nuclear weapons posture away from the eventual disarmament promised by Obama in a speech in Prague, Czech Republic, in April 2009.

Two of the key questions raised by analysts:

If the United States is planning to reduce the number of its nuclear warheads following passage of the New START treaty, are the new facilities necessary?

If they are necessary, what impact will their construction — and reinvestment in our nuclear weapons program — have on perceptions abroad about our intent to reduce our nuclear weapons stockpile and eventually disarm?

The key breaking point for agreement between some of the experts is whether the new facilities represent a restarting of the nation’s nuclear weapons production capability.

Speaking to that question, Douglas Shaw, an assistant professor of international affairs at George Washington University in Washington, answered: “That’s a conclusion that I think is hard to avoid.”
Shaw, who also held a position at the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency under President Clinton, said the construction plans at the three facilities fall under a framework outlined by President George W. Bush’s administration, known by the term “responsive infrastructure.”

That framework was put forward in the Bush administration’s 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, an assessment of the roles and missions for U.S. nuclear forces put forward by every president since the end of the Cold War.

Excerpts from the review that were submitted to Congress in December 2001 described the framework as the “ability to respond to large strategic changes” by looking for “new approaches to development and procurement of new capabilities” for the nation’s nuclear weapons force.

Placing the planned new facilities in the context of the nine-year-old review, Shaw said they put a point on the idea that we may need to be able to produce new nuclear weapons to “deal with [an] uncertain future.”

The Obama administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, released in April 2010, makes no mention of the “responsive” nuclear weapons framework.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said that review made clear that “we’re not going to develop new types of nuclear weapons.”

Yet the head of the nonprofit organization admitted there is a “risk” that the new facilities, once completed, could be used to increase the number of weapons in the U.S. arsenal.

“There is a possibility that, yes, a future president could change the existing policy,” Kimball said. “We pay more attention to what [U.S.] policy is. I’m not quite as concerned about that risk if the policy remains that the United States is not going to develop nuclear weapons.”

The question of whether the new facilities would give the U.S. the capability to produce new nuclear weapons raised concerns for other analysts about how they might affect the nation’s compliance with the recently approved New START treaty.

That arms reduction treaty, which entered into force Feb. 5, obligates both the U.S. and Russia to enhance “predictability concerning the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms.”
The planned new U.S. production facilities may undermine that predictability by making cuts to the U.S. nuclear arsenal effectively reversible at any time, said Nickolas Roth, a policy analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“Reductions are accomplished by dismantling warheads,” Roth said. “If the U.S. has the capacity to build far more warheads than it takes apart, what does that mean?”

That unpredictability in whether nuclear weapons reductions may at one point be reversed may have larger implications for the country’s ability to negotiate future arms treaties with other nations who may wish to bolster their arsenals, Roth said.

“If the U.S. has 1,000 warheads, for instance, but has the capability to build 80-125 new ones per year, how is the U.S. going to be able to negotiate with other countries to reduce their total stockpile?”

Report on Witness Against Nuclear Weapons Plant in KC

2011-05-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

On Monday, May 2nd over 150 people gathered at the main entrance of the new nuclear weapons plant currently being built on 150 highway. The witness started with a street theater satirizing the "Religion of the Bomb," bringing to light the trust we place in this weapon of mass destruction for our security. In reality this is a form of civil religion and one of the idols of our time.

All were called to join in lamentation to recognize our common complicity:

We have all been part of darkness,
But we are light in the Lord.
Let us live our lives as Children of Light!
Light produces good fruit, the fruit of goodness, justice and truth.
So come out of the darkness, and expose it to the light.
Wake up sleeper, Rise from death,
and the Lord will Shine on you.

Ephesians 5:8-14

From there we transitioned into an ecumenical worship and sharing that lifted up the hope of Resurrection Living. One of the statements read, entitled "Transformation, Not Annihilation,” stated:

"The spirit of Easter has brought us together in hope--hope for life over death. We are here to call for the conversion of this plant from an instrument of war to an instrument of life... We lament this, the first new nuclear weapons production plant in 32 years, which will continue to make 85% of the non nuclear parts for nuclear weapons. We lament that over $815 million of Kansas City municipal bonds—which should be spent on social uplift--is being spent on building this plant. We lament the health risks posed by this plant to its workers and the people and environment of Kansas City. We have hope for the conversion of this plant--we imagine a rebirth where this site would provide beneficial, peaceful and green jobs, such as solar and wind energy jobs.”

After breaking bread, the crowd moved toward the gates of the complex. Some felt let by their conscience to continue "Gospel Obedience" by refusing to leave the road. In all 53 people were arrested and charged with criminal trespass, a city ordinance. Contrary to what was reported in the KC Star newspaper, the majority of people arrested were local, 32 from the home state of Missouri and 17 of those from KC.

15 min - Video of entire action
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-s329ZW97k

Photos:
http://blog.ericbowersphoto.com/2011/05/nuclear-bomb-parts-plant-protest-monday/
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=joshua.mac&target=ALBUM&id=5602167213622481377&authkey=Gv1sRgCIXnpK2J0tbWcA&feat=email

Cherith Brook Catholic Worker, along with our sister community, Holy Family House Catholic Worker, co-hosted the event. Our theme was, "The Hope of Easter and a Disarmed World." The event began over the weekend and was an inspiring time of worship, clarification of thought and discernment, framed by morning and evening prayers.

At the height of activity over 150 people were present. Though most were from the greater Kansas City area, 20 different Catholic worker communities across the Midwest were also represented.

Art Laffin from the Dorothy Day CW in Washington, DC set the tone for the retreat with his talk that included an inspiring reflection on the Resurrection and Gospel nonviolence, comments on current nuclear policy, and the human and environmental cost of militarism, war and nuclear weapons. It concluded by calling all of us to engage in nonviolent resistance to the Nuclear Empire we live in and to hope for a disarmed world. (see the link for the text to Art's speech)

http://groups.google.com/group/National-CW-E-mail-List/browse_thread/thread/ac9b863e3b529715

On Sunday morning, a contingent of 20 retreat-ants held a prayer service at the entrance of the site next to the bill board that read, "Future home of NNSA - National Nuclear Security Administration Campus." Upon our return, we had an ecumenical worship service including Scripture reading, personal responses and Eucharist.

One of the Scriptural themes for the retreat comes from Acts 5:29, when the local powers try to silence the apostles for proclaiming the hope and truth of the resurrection. Peter responds by saying, "We must obey God rather than human authority.” We all consider the power of the resurrection to lay a greater claim on our lives than the false sense of security and idolatry of nuclear weapons.

It is noteworthy that among those arrested include strong representation from the host communities: Rachael Hoffman, Mark Bartholomew, Gina Cook, Robyn Haas, Br. Louis Rodemann, Sr. Theresa Maly, Sr. Mary Cecile Breen of Holy Family House and their extended community.

And Josh Armfield, Eric Garbison, Jodi Garbison, Nick Pickrell, Micah Waters, Elisabeth Rutschman, Sharon Hannah, and Christian Soulliere of Cherith Brook and our extended community.

We encourage each of you to discern ways to become more involved as people of faith in this local effort. How can you help?

Financial gifts are needed to help defray the cost of our legal fees.
Become more informed about the issue and then share what you’ve learned with your neighbor.
Challenge your religious leaders to get involved, become familiar with your church’s teaching on nuclear weapons and bring it before your faith community.
Get involved in KC Peace Planters, the local grassroots coalition, http://www.peaceworkskc.org/kcplant
If you’re a KCMO registered voter, participate in the vote on November 8 that will prohibit the production of nuclear weapons components at the new plant.
And pray, pray, pray…"for the prayers of the faithful availeth much."

In witness to the Resurrection,
Cherith Brook Catholic Worker

National Catholic Reporter news report:
http://ncronline.org/news/peace/over-50-arrested-protesting-nuclear-weapons-plant

Second Saturday Workday & Haircuts

2011-05-11T13:33:00.001-07:00

Hello Friends,

This Saturday, May 14th, we will be having our usual second Saturday Work day at Cherith Brook. We will begin at 9 and finish with lunch at noon. Please let us know if you are going to be able to make so we can plan ahead for work projects. This Saturday we will be doing the following:

A lot of Work in the Garden

Tuck pointing

Painting

Sorting of clothing

Spreading mulch

and other fun things you will just have to come to experience!

We look foward to seeing you all this weekend!

The Hope of Easter and A Disarmed World

2011-04-23T18:07:00.000-07:00

FAITH & RESISTANCE RETREAT

We are calling for people of faith to practice Gospel Obedience and to resist the construction of a new Nuclear Weapons Plant at 150 Hwy and Botts Rd in south Kansas City. On the weekend of April 29-May 2, Holy Family House and Cherith Brook Catholic Workers will be hosting the Midwest Catholic Worker Faith and Resistance Retreat here in Kansas City. Catholic Workers from all over the Midwest will be coming together to put our faith into action by resisting Nuclear Weapons. Along with those coming from out of town, we greatly need participation from local Kansas City residents. The weekend will consist of a focus speaker, roundtable discussions, opportunities for spiritual reflection and prayer, Nonviolence training, and we will conclude the weekend with a nonviolent action on Monday May 2nd.

An urgent need has grown in Kansas City to resist the production of Nuclear Weapons. The Kansas City government has subsidized a new federal Nuclear Weapons Production Plant with $815 million in municipal bonds, over and above the National Nuclear Security Association’s (NNSA) annual budget. The new Plant’s selected 180-acre site at 150 Hwy and Botts Road was mostly used for soybean farming. However, the Kansas City government declared that area “blighted” so that it could use bond authority under Missouri state law designed to fight urban blight to give NNSA a new bomb plant. Taxpayers will pay an estimated $4.5 billion over 20 years for the new Kansas City Plant, which the City will own until private developers pay the bonds back through a lease-to-purchase scheme backed up by a virtually certain revenue stream from the federal government. This new Plant will replace an old Nuclear Weapons Plant, also in Kansas City; which has significant environmental and worker health concerns. We want to ensure that these matters are handled promptly and comprehensively.

We are deeply saddened by this act of planned violent destruction of human life, the misuse of funds intended for our blighted neighborhoods in which we live, the disregard for the health of workers and the pollution of our streams, fields, and air. We need your help to stop the future production of parts for nuclear weapons. We need you to pray with us, act with us, and be with us the weekend of April 29-May 2, 2011.

We encourage you to discern and pray about how God might be calling you to participate in these events. Here are some options:

1) You may come to the scheduled round-tables and listen to the speaker,
2) You may participate in the nonviolent action on Monday morning,
3) You may also choose to practice gospel obedience by risking arrest at the action, and
4) we hope that you are able to participate in all three of these. If you choose to risk arrest on Monday, we request that you at least participate in the nonviolence training that we are offering on Sunday afternoon. A schedule of the weekend is below.

---
The Midwest Catholic Worker Faith & Resistance Retreat:
The Hope of Easter and a Disarmed World
April 29—May 2, 2011

@ De La Salle Education Center
3740 Forest Avenue, Kansas City, MO 64109

Please consider:

Civil disobedience
Talk to your community, family & work place about committing civil disobedience with us on May 2, 2011

Coming early to create Art, Puppets & props
Come to Kansas City the week of April 22 to help us with preparations. We especially need artists and experienced builders. 10 people are welcome to stay at Cherith Brook and Holy Family House. Please call if interested!

Your Hosts:
Cherith Brook Catholic Worker
816.241.8047 cherithbrookkcmo@gmail.com

Holy Family House Catholic Worker
816.753.2677 holyfamilycw@gmail.com

If you need special sleeping arrangements, please let us know in advance!

Cherith Brook Easter 2011 Newspaper

2011-04-04T17:29:00.000-07:00

Our Easter 2011 newspaper is now online. Be sure to read it and let us know what you think.

Easter 2011

Also, below is an article from that paper.

Word on the Streets

We began our work on foot. In hopes of giving airtime to street voices, we walked “The Avenue” (Independence Ave) and we hung out behind Dairy Queen. Later we frequented the “Alley House,” “Indian Hill,” “The Haunted House” and “The Wall.” We hiked into campsites behind Super Flea and the I-29 ramp off The Paseo Ave. We slid gingerly through broken windows and muddied our knees crawling under fences. We had coffee at Hope Faith, ate lunch at “Sally’s” (Salvation Army), and dinner at “Monday Night Church” (Micah Ministries).

We had our own ideas, of course. And we brought with us rich past experiences from prior work in Atlanta and Davenport. But we wanted street voices to speak into our calling. It is essential for anyone to speak to their own needs and wants. So, when people began to ask us if they could come to the house to do a load of laundry or take a shower, they helped create “The Shower House” (Cherith Brook).

We still take our weekly pilgrimage but with a different mandate. For one thing, we move around a lot less. In fact, we usually make a beeline to Fast Stop or Bronceados on the Avenue—both places are notorious for high drug sales and prostitution. And we no longer take food or toiletries. Aside from our prayers, we go empty handed.

So why the change? Our experiences over the past few years called to us for a new approach, in fact they screamed bloody murder. One afternoon we dragged a bleeding man into our living room from a drive-by shooting. Enrique was shot and killed in our alley after chasing armed robbers from his Aborrotes. Keith came over with bruises on his face and ribs after young men jumped him for the meager change earned panhandling. I visited Wes at Truman Medical Center after he suffered a shotgun blast to his ankle due to a “misunderstanding.” The Bigger Jigger bar down the street has had two fatal bar brawls in the past year. Recently, Yuri Ives, a real estate agent and a respected neighborhood leader, was shot in his own home with his own gun by a 17 year old intruder.

Then there is the amount of violence concentrated toward women, mirroring the way our culture persecutes women, consuming them for sexual satisfaction and as release for rage. Once I met a young lady on the streets who had her earlobe bitten off and her kneecap broken by the swing of a hammer held by her “date.” Last summer a friend showed up bleeding after being attacked by a serial rapist who was targeting prostitutes in the area. He had bitten her and stabbed her with a screwdriver before she fought him off.

These troubling experiences on the streets and stories at showers continue to collide with our understanding of Jesus and his gospel of peace. Though taunted by a culture of death, is our community not also a Christ haunted landscape? Is Jesus not already here in some form and if so where do we encounter him? When we don’t, how can we extend his presence by our own? How will we be received if we have nothing to offer but ourselves? Can our willingness to be there open up new possibilities or will it escalate the conflict? How can such spaces be redeemed for God’s conspiracy of goodness in a broken world?

Yes, we proclaim and witness to the fact that Jesus is there, exorcising the darkness and rescuing all things for God. Yes, we are a people of hope. As Colossians 1:20 says, “Through Christ God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

Christians speaking about peace often give way to a two-fold temptation: On the one hand, we avoid affirming the transformative power of the gospel. Do we believe that we have weapons of the Spirit at our disposal? Do we believe that our commitment to peace is backed by a force even more powerful than the violence we face? If we proclaim that resurrection overcomes death, do we believe that includes the streets also?

One day while on our peace-walk, a man we didn’t know approached us talking excitedly. I remember his body gestures were strong. He spoke quickly but his words were tangled. We strained to make sense of what he was saying. We asked questions to get clarity, but it soon became clear that he was either strung out or crazy or both.

At some point I got a creeping feeling. His gestures were becoming forceful. His eyes became as wide as they were red. Was he angry or only getting animated? Whatever it was, my discomfort was rising. He called himself Gabriel but I was convinced he was no angel. When his hand went into his pocket I became cold. I suddenly realized we were alone; the other men had vanished. I almost stumbled backward. I remember trying to figure out how to get the attention of the others without worsening the situation. When he ripped his hand out of his pocket, my fear was realized. He had a knife. But then he did something I did not expect. Without pause, he turned and threw the knife across the street. We stood there frozen as we watched it skip across the concrete.

For weeks we tried to process this experience. At first we second-guessed ourselves. Had we created this problem, instigated something or pissed someone off? Was our approach too confrontational? Then our processing turned to panic: What are we doing? Who do we think we are anyway? I’m scared! We should just forget it.

Evaluation is essential. And all of these responses were natural. We have no death wish and we’re not going to throw caution to the wind. And yet, over time we became aware that we were so focused on our fear we had ignored the outcome—Gabriel threw away his knife! We were fixated on the causes for the danger and not what caused Gabriel to disarm.

I have learned to retell that story now in its entirety. I believe it was a miracle of nonviolence. That is to say, an event that points to Jesus’ victory over death. It exposes the chimera of violence and calls us to greater trust in the truth of Christ’s peace. I have no other way to make sense of it. And as I think back over the past four years, there are a dozen such occurrences.

Do we recognize the weapons of the Spirit at our disposal? Do we believe that our commitment to facing danger without harming others is backed by a force more powerful than evils surrounding us? Do we affirm the Resurrection we profess is stronger than the death we face? It is a great temptation not to. We have been disciplined by a belief in the need for force that overshadows the possibilities present in this age of resurrection.

This story highlights the other temptation. We are enticed to think God would not call us into work that might involve risk or even harm. Ron Sider once wrote of practicing Christian nonviolence, “Making peace is as costly as waging war. Unless we are prepared to pay the cost of peacemaking, we have no right to claim the label or preach the message.” Will we only affirm ministry that can guarantee our safety and security? Do we support those called to this kind of work or write them off as naïve or foolish?

We are well aware that there are no assurances that that things will always end up in our favor or that we will not be harmed. Glamorizing nonviolent living is no more truthful than glamorizing war. In all honesty, this work has exposed our own willingness to give into these temptations as well as our own fears, our own brokenness, even the violence within. We want to take seriously that as followers of Jesus we are set apart - made holy for the ways of peace - even if our vessels are humble, broken and vulnerable.

The sign and source of peace in the Colossians passage quoted above is the cross. It is, ironically, a symbol of violence. But it does not symbolize our means of power nor a weapon we might use against an enemy. In fact, in I Corinthians 1 & 2 Paul admits that others will see this symbol as a stupid or an irrational choice. They will see it as an indication that we are weak or passive. But we believe it was meant to symbolize that the power of peace is not an issue of might, force or coercion--all forms of human strength to which we often turn.

The cross is a revelation of the way God’s power plays out in the world. It was intended to jog our memory. It was Jesus’ humility, patience, willingness to endure suffering, and refusal to do harm that won the day. A contradiction to some and an insult to others, it is, nevertheless, to be our means, our strength and our comfort. “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly” (I Peter 21-23).

Second Saturday Workday & Discernment Meeting

2011-04-03T20:29:00.001-07:00

Our second Saturday work day is quickly approaching so we wanted to remind you to put it on your calendars for next Saturday April 9th. We will start at 9, work until 12 and finish our time with lunch and a tour (if you want one). We will be working on the following projects:

Tuck Pointing

Garden

Stump Removal

Mulch Spreading

Mortar Work

Spring Cleaning

and few other things as well.

If you plan to come please RSVP via email or you can call and let us know how many are coming with you.

Also, for those discerning whether or not to risk arrest at the Faith and Resistance Retreat April 29-May 1, we will be meeting this Sunday April 3rd at 4 PM here at Cherith Brook to discuss where we are feeling called to do in response to the Nuclear Weapons Parts plant that is being built in KC. All are welcome to attend and hopefully we can all learn together. Again, please RSVP if you plan to come.

Thanks and Peace,

New Email and Second Saturday Workday/Haircuts

2011-02-07T21:06:00.000-08:00

We have changed our email to gmail, cherithbrookkcmo@gmail.com to match our updated blog so please add us to your safe list.

Also, Saturday Februrary 12th we will be having our work day. The projects we will work on include:

Constructing a hoop house

Finish a deck

Cleaning

Tiling

Organizing clothes

Mortar Work

Spreading mulch

We will work from about 9am - 12pm, and finish our day with lunch. Also, we will be offering free haircuts to folks experiencing homelessness from 9am - 11am so come if you can cut hair (no need for certification...people liking the haircuts you have given in the past is good enough!). Hope to see you Saturday!

War and Peace and Nuclear Weapons ~ Class at Cherith Brook

2011-02-07T21:00:00.001-08:00

During the month of February we will be talking about the new nuclear weapons plant in Kansas City and how our faith in Jesus informs our response to weapons of mass destruction.

So all are welcome to come to Cherith Brook Catholic Worker every Tuesday in the month of February at 7 PM, to learn and deepen our faith.

Classes will include discussion of scripture as it relates to war and nuclear weapons, a documentary on nukes, information about the current state of the nuclear weapons plant in Kansas City, and we will conclude the class with a time to discuss ways we can act on what we have learned durning the class.

We hope to see you tomorrow!

Cherith Brook Advent Newspaper Now Online

2010-12-15T12:08:00.000-08:00

We recently released our Advent 2010 newspaper. Be sure to read it and let us know what you think.

Advent 2010

Also, below is an article from that paper.

The New Kansas City Nuclear Weapons Plant

Contrary to President Obama’s rhetoric about a future nuclear weapons-free world, the U.S. is rebuilding the nuclear weapons complex of the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous agency the National Nuclear Security Administration. This includes a new facility for expanded production of plutonium pits (the nuclear weapons cores or “primaries”) at Los Alamos, NM; a new facility at Oak Ridge, TN to manufacture highly enriched uranium thermonuclear “secondaries”; and a new Kansas City Plant that will manufacture and/or procure the thousands of nonnuclear components that transform nuclear weapons into deliverable weapons of mass destruction.

Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies (FM&T) LLC manages and operates the Kansas City Plant for the NNSA. Out of the eight U.S. nuclear weapons complex sites, the Kansas City Plant (KCP) is the most productive, producing and/or procuring 85% of all nuclear weapons components both by type and quantity. It specializes in a wide range of nonnuclear components, such as radars, guidance systems, arming, firing and fusing sets and reservoirs for tritium (a radioactive isotope of gaseous hydrogen used to boost the destructive power of nuclear weapons). KCP boasts that it ships 5,000 nuclear weapons components per month. Honeywell FM&T has said that the Plant’s workload is the heaviest it has been in 20 years, expected to last until 2015. This is astonishing given that a little over 20 years ago was the height of the Cold War nuclear weapons build-up under President Reagan.

KCP was originally built to manufacture Pratt and Whitney fighter planes engines during WWII. In 1949 the Atomic Energy Commission commissioned the Bendix Corporation to build non-nuclear weapons components at KCP with Plant ownership formally transferred to the federal government. Through a series of subsequent mergers and hostile takeovers the Bendix Corporation became AlliedSignal in 1983 and eventually Honeywell in 1999. Since then the Plant has been managed and operated by Honeywell FM&T, whose contract NNSA just extended for five years without competitive bid.

The new plutonium and HEU facilities mentioned above are now estimated to cost U.S. taxpayers up to $5 billion each. The new KCP is different since it is being built and operated by the private developer CenterPoint Zimmer (CPZ) LLC eight miles south of the existing Plant in the NW quadrant of Hwy 150 and Botts Road (groundbreaking occurred this last September 8). This limited liability corporation is composed of the Kansas City magnate Zimmer Real Estate Services and Chicago-based CenterPoint Property Trust. Zimmer just “happened” to own the 165 acres that the federal government chose as the site for new Plant.

In a very convoluted financing scheme, CPZ sold the site’s land to the KCMO’s Planned Industrial Expansion Authority (PIEA) for $5 million. But in July 2008 the PIEA declared that the 165-acre site was “blighted,” despite the fact that it was being actively farmed for soybean production. Still, this didn’t prevent CPZ from selling the land to the City for an estimated $26,000 an acre, when regional farmland typically sells for $2,000 to $4,000 an acre, one very tidy profit for “blighted” land!

The PIEA declared the site “blighted” so that construction of this new federal nuclear weapons production plant could be subsidized by KCMO municipal bonds. The Missouri state government created Planned Industrial Expansion Authorities to counter urban/industrial blight and spur economic development. The PIEAs’ charter is to recommend to city councils whether or not tax abatements and/or bonds should be implemented to fight blight. The enabling legislation that created the PIEAs declares that Missouri municipal governments can act positively on a PIEA recommendation only when “the development of such area or areas is necessary in the interest of the public health, safety, morals or welfare of the residents of such city.”

KCMO is closing many hospitals and schools and laying off workers, but nevertheless managed to issue nearly $700 million in municipal bonds to subsidize a new federal nuclear weapons production plant. [$10.6 million is being used to improve utilities and the Hwy 150/Botts Road intersection, which will also benefit CenterPoint Zimmer’s NAFTA intermodal transportation center on the other side of Hwy 150 at the former Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base.] The KCMO Council approved municipal bonds in the name of saving 2,100 jobs in the local nuclear weapons industry (with one admirable dissenting vote-of-conscience by Councilman Ed Ford). The nuclear weapons industry is arguably immoral, with for example the Vatican declaring, “Nuclear weapons are incompatible with the peace we seek for the 21st century. They cannot be justified. They deserve condemnation.” Further, the nuclear weapons industry has adversely affected the health of hundreds of workers at the old Plant.

Local Kansas City citizens should ask why the KCMO municipal government is not prioritizing sustainable green jobs, instead of subsidizing a hopefully shrinking industry whose purpose is to produce weapons of mass destruction? With respect to the public health of Kansas City citizens, according to U.S. Dept. of Labor statistics, 1,993 former KCP workers or their survivors have filed health claims seeking compensation, of which only 211 have been paid to date.

The KCMO municipal government will own the new KCP after construction. As far as I know this is globally unprecedented to have a city own a federal nuclear weapons production plant. The PIEA will then lease it to a CenterPoint Zimmer Holding LLC, who as sub-landlord, will lease it to the private developers CenterPoint Zimmer LLC. CPZ will then sub-sublease the new Plant to the federal General Services Administration (GSA), who acts as landlord for numerous federal properties (including the old KCP in the Banister Federal Complex). GSA will then sub-sub-sublease this new federal nuclear weapons production plant to the NNSA. Got that? It’s way convoluted.

Because the new KCP is being built and operated by “private developers” who stand to profit many time times over, this new federal nuclear weapons components production plant is not included in the NNSA’s annual Congressional Budget Requests. It is therefore outside of typical Congressional review and appropriations, and perhaps would have been rejected. It is a very sweet deal for Centerpoint Zimmer, who first sold the land to the PIEA; then is subsidized by municipal bonds sales to build the Plant; is granted a 20-year lease-to-purchase by the PIEA in which it pays the bonds back with guaranteed income from the NNSA; and after that owns the Plant outright.

During this 20-year term the NNSA will pay $1.2 billion in lease costs, not a good deal for the American taxpayer. Leaving aside the question whether the new Plant is needed to begin with, the NNSA has repeatedly justified it by claiming it will save $100 million in operational costs compared to the old Plant. But a report by the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that lowering security requirements at the Kansas City Plant to reflect the simple fact that it does not have large inventories of nuclear materials would save $37 million annually. A new Plant is not needed for that.

Moreover, after a first round of bidding by private developers for the project went bust, according to one report “Based in part on specific cost-cutting advice from CenterPoint, the solicitation was restructured.” This perhaps means that the contract was hallowed out in order to make a second round of bidding successful. In any event, CPZ was awarded the contract, but NNSA started asking Congress for around $100 million in “transition costs” for moving to the new Plant in each fiscal year 2009-2015, despite earlier claims by NNSA that the new KCP would not cost the federal government any up front money.

Finally, leasing is more costly over the long term than constructing and owning a facility outright. The GAO found that the break-even point of construction costs vs. lease costs for the new KCP is 22 years. However, the new Plant could be operational for 40-60 years, and therefore the federal government could pay another $1.2 to $2.4 billion in lease costs to the private developers. Life Extension Programs for existing nuclear weapons are already scheduled to last until at least 2042, for which the Kansas City Plant is the main supplier of components.

The NNSA wrote in its recent Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan that “because the new facility will be leased, there will be no capital investment and NNSA will not be burdened by costs for legacy disposition should the mission ever be discontinued.” The “legacy” of the old Plant is one of serious contamination with cancer-causing volatile organic compounds (mostly industrial solvents) and PCBs, for which NNSA has formulated no comprehensive cleanup plan. NNSA plans to be fully operating in the new Plant in a couple of years while in effect abandoning the old Plant. The Kansas City municipal government is counting on reusing the existing Plant for local economic development, which probably cannot take place without comprehensive cleanup costing more than $250 million. Kansas City subsidies for a new nuclear weapons production plant reward the federal government even as the federal government ignores its moral responsibility to protect its citizens and their future economic prosperity through full environmental restoration of the old Plant. The federal government should be cleaning up its nuclear weapons complex, not building it up!

For much more information, visit http://kcnukeswatch.wordpress.com/ and http://www.nukewatch.org/KCNukePlant/index.html
See NukeWatch NM’s interactive map on the nuclear weapons complex at http://www.nukewatch.org/activemap/index.html
Please support these local organizations working on Kansas City Plant (KCP) issues: Physicians for Social Responsibility-Kansas City, PeaceWorks Kansas City and the Cherith Brooks Catholic Workers House.

Jay Coghlan
Executive Director
Nuclear Watch New Mexico
www.nukewatch.org

December Work Day & Other Appeals

2010-12-15T11:55:00.000-08:00

Our Second Saturday work day is already upon us so put it on your calenders for December the 11th, from 9-1 pm, and we will eat together to finish our day.

We will be working on the following projects:

Deck Work

Insulation

Mortar Work

Electrical projects

Tiling projects

and of course there will always be work to do in the clothing closet!

Hope to see you all here!

Few other requests......

We are looking to get a wood stove to help heat the shower space for our friends who come to showers. If you have one you would like to donate, please let us know.

As many of you know, a prized possession for those who come to showers is a hooded sweatshirt. So, for the up coming Christmas, we are hoping to make 40 gift bags for our shower friends,which will include a hooded sweatshirt. We would like to be able to get new, sturdy hoodies, and hope to get some that are fair trade. If you have new hooded sweatshirts you would like to donate, or if you would like to send money for the purchase of fair trade sweatshirts, we and our showers friends would be very grateful. Thank you very much.

Festival of Shelters Sept 26 & 27

2010-09-05T16:52:00.000-07:00

Cherith Brook Catholic Worker
invites you to join us in our 3rd annual
Festival of Shelters

Sunday, September 26 at 5pm ~
Celebration of shelter and blessing for the homeless

Monday, September 27 at 5pm ~
Celebration of the Harvest of God’s provision
(shared dinner together)

WHAT IS THE FESTIVAL OF SHELTERS?
The Festival of Shelters comes to us from Leviticus 23:42 where the People of God are instructed to build simple shelters and to live in them for seven days remembering a lifetime of days spent homeless, wandering the wilderness, in search of food and water, hoping for a promised place. The Festival also became a harvest celebration where the people remembered what it was like to be hungry and thirsty and to show gratitude for God’s provision of food.

WHY DO WE DO IT?
Our Festival of Shelters is intended to be a challenge to resist and celebration of rejoicing:

 We who have plenty are reminded that we have all experienced need and , that it is God who provides our needs;

 we are challenged to move away from greed and pride of wealth and accumulation toward a more just society where affordable housing is a right;

 to remember that the stranger, the wanderer, the homeless and the hungry are specially loved and cared for by God.

HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE!
On Sunday afternoon, September 26 we will begin setting up structures that represent the different kinds of homeless suffering in our city: Those on the streets, the refugee experience, the undocumented immigrant, and the sexually exploited woman.

At 5pm we will have a liturgy that speaks to the different experiences of those without shelter in our society and calls us to greater justice.

Three groups will be sent out this year to spend time on the streets. They will be blessed and sent out after the liturgy. Monday evening we will share a dinner and a time of sharing reflections on homelessness. Please let us know by Tuesday, September 21 if you are interested in spending the night on the streets and which group you are interested in. There will be limited spaces to keep the groups small.

Group 1: Leaves Sunday night and returns Monday morning

Group 2: Leaves Sunday Night and returns Monday for 5pm dinner

Group 3: Leaves Monday morning and returns Monday for 5pm dinner.

Call if you have questions: 816-241-8047.

2nd Saturday Work Day - September 11 @ 9am to 1pm

2010-09-05T15:58:00.000-07:00

Please join us to help with the following projects:

small electrical projects
caulking and painting
gardening
cleaning
sorting clothes
cutting down trees (need chainsaws)
basic repair projects

October 22nd Clarification Meeting

2010-08-17T13:29:00.000-07:00

Dr. Ed Chasteen asks, What do we win? The answer is, FRIENDS! Will Rogers is famous for having said, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” Dr. Chasteen has always wondered if he would have said, “I never liked a man I didn’t meet.”

Five friends will join us on October 22nd for a Clarification Meeting on Race and Religious Relations from 7 to 8:30pm. Our panel discussion will be led by the following folks:

Bassam Helwani - a businessman from Syria who lives in Lawrence, he attended KU.
Ed Chasteen - likes to meet every person he can and expects to like every person he meets.
Samuel Shareef - a Kansas City businessman who heads a non-profit to help young black males.
Taalib-ud-Din Al Ansare - a Muslim chaplain at Research Hospital.
Yahya Furqan - a Vietnam vet, a Muslim Imam and a father of 11 beautiful children.

Dr. Chasteen says, We five are friends. We meet together nearly every week to plan and dream. Four of us are Muslim. One is Christian. One was born in Syria. Three trace their roots to Africa; one to Europe. We go by invitation anywhere in the Kansas City area to talk to folks about the ordinary, everyday things that give meaning to all our lives: our parents, our brothers and sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunts; our home town, our wives, our children, our schooling, our jobs, our neighborhoods, our favorite foods, our leisure time activities, our hobbies. Friendships need not be limited by race or religion. We all are part of humanity. We all are weak and fragile, easily made fearful of the future and of each other. Life at its longest is short. Friends help us make it through the day. That’s what by our presence we demonstrate. Invite us and we will come. Join us and we will win.

Please study the verse Galatians 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." and be prepared with questions you may have for our panel.

Kansas City WMDs - Not on our watch!

2010-08-17T13:26:00.000-07:00

From our friend Frank Burgh:

Kansas City WMDs - Not on our watch!

Over 75 protesters, ranging in age from 8 to nearly 80 and hailing from 12 states, descended upon the construction site of a future Nuclear Bomb manufacturing plant this morning, blocking power equipment and bringing construction activities to a halt for nearly 2 hours. KC police eventually arrested 14 protesters, all of whom were released this afternoon. The plant will be the first new USA nuclear weapons manufacturing facility in 32 years, despite President Obama's continued message of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.

The Kansas City government is actively seeking to subsidize this new federal nuclear weapons production plant with $815 million in municipal bonds outside of NNSA's annual budget. Taxpayers will pay an estimated $4.5 billion over 20 years for the new Kansas City Plant, which is intended to replace the current KC Plant. The existing plant has been in operation since 1949, manufacturing 85% of the non-nuclear components of the USA's nuclear arsenal, despite documented reports of health and environmental hazards resulting in employee illnesses and ecosystem contamination.
Please see the following:

http://www.nbcactionnews.com/dpp/news/local_news/groups-to-protest-site-of-new-weapons-plant-in-southern-kansas-city
http://blog.ericbowersphoto.com/2010/08/kansas-city-nuclear-plant-protest/
http://www.nukewatch.org/KCNukePlant/
http://kcnukeswatch.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/statement-of-resistance-to-nuclear-weapons-production-in-kansas-city-mo-aug-16/
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/16/2153596/kc-police-arrest-nuclear-protesters.html
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/16/2154151/police-arrest-14-at-honeywell.html
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/activists-gather-kansas-city-resist-nuclear-weapons-plant
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=2010kc-nukes
http://iplextra.indiatimes.com/article/0bH28WB8qH95f?q=Kansas+City
http://www.allvoices.com/news/6533244-kc-police-arrest-nuclear-protesters-at-honeywell-construction-site
Resources:
http://groups.google.com/group/kcnukewatch?pli=1

Green Jobs, Not Mean Jobs.
Clean it. Close it. Don't Repeat it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

And from our friend Ron Faust:

I wonder if most people understand the complexity, secrecy and seriousness of the KC plant. It is a key component of the nuclear weapons strategy with Los Alamos NM and Oak Ridge TN, but we are what makes it work. Purported to be $685 million but rising into the billions, the city has collaborated with tax abatements over the next 20 years, leased from Zimmer for 5.4 million and justifying their role in offering jobs. Although we have some confusion about a Jim Cross ? owning this land. Yet, this seems to be the mantra for building weapons without wondering what will be the result. The protestors spread over the field and shut down the bulldozers scouring over the soy bean field declared as a blighted area. They planted seeds and raised sun flower replicas. Police tried to issue orders of trespassing and to move from the area, but it was like herding too many cats. Fourteen were arrested, many who have a faith based reason to engage in civil disobedience and raise the question of what we are trying to do to ourselves. The inertia to extract this cancer seems terminal once the lump of nuclear weapons is created. Allerting the public continues.

Peace, Ron

-------------------------------------------------------------------

And from friend Frank Cordaro:

Aug. 17, 2010
National Catholic Reporter

"Catholic activists arrested at Kansas City nuclear weapons facility"

By Joshua J. McElwee - NCR staff writer jmcelwee@ncronline.org

http://ncronline.org/news/peace/catholic-activists-arrested-kansas-city-nuclear-weapons-facility

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Singing choruses of “we shall not be moved” while
scattering sunflower seeds, 14 activists were arrested here Aug. 16
after blocking an earth moving vehicle on the site of a proposed
nuclear weapons manufacturing facility.

The acts of civil disobedience came at the end of a three-day
conference which drew peace activists here from around the nation. The
efforts were aimed at building awareness of and resistance to the
construction of the weapons plant, which will replace an existing
plant here.

The new plant, which will make non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons,
is set to be the nation’s first new major nuclear weapons production
facility in 32 years.

Before their arrest the protestors walked onto a soybean field being
plowed by several earth moving vehicles as part of the plant building
preparation effort. The group, walking in a single file, held hands;
some carried large signs. They approached and surrounded one of the
vehicles, forcing the driver to stop her work, and eventually leading
20 other vehicles to halt theirs as well.

After about a 45 minute shut down, police arrived, announcing the
protesters had two minutes to leave the privately-owned grounds. The
flurry of activity stopped all work at the site for over an hour.

In a statement to the press before they began their action, the
activists called the new facility a “crime against peace” and a “crime
against humanity.”

This is the second time that people have been arrested for civil
disobedience to the plant in two months. On Aug. 6 a local activist,
Jane Stoever, was sentenced to eight hours of community service for
having blocked the entrance to the current facility, known simply as
the Kansas City Plant. Her action took place in June.

Currently a part of the Bannister Federal Complex, located about 13
miles south of the city’s downtown area, the Kansas City Plant is
responsible for the production and assembly of approximately 85
percent of the non-nuclear components for the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
The plant is due to be relocated in 2012 to the “more modern
facility.”

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a division of the
U.S. Department of Energy, has said the new facility will carry an
estimated price tag of $673 million for construction and $1.2 billion
over the next 20 years

Coming from 15 states and three countries by bus, train, airplane, and
caravan, anti-nuclear activists gathered here to attend the weekend
conference leading up to the civil disobedience in a local Methodist
church.

Recalling her 30 years working at the current site of the nuclear
weapons facility, Barbara Rice told those in attendance that she had
lost count of how many of her colleagues had died of cancer after 110
passed away from various kinds of the illnesses.

While she said she couldn’t prove that the deaths were related to
chemical exposure at the current facility, Rice remembered one
instance when a pipe burst at the plant and her supervisors told her
to “go home immediately and destroy her clothes.”

At the same event, Jay Coghlan, executive director of the watchdog
group Nuclear Watch New Mexico, said the new plant in Kansas City is
only one of several projects underway to increase U.S. nuclear weapons
production capability.

Coghlan said that while the international community thinks the U.S. is
working towards nuclear disarmament, "the reality is that we’re
building 3 new sites: one to process uranium, one to process
plutonium, and one to create the non-nuclear parts of the weapons such
as triggers and fuses.”

The three sites Coghlan referred to are the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory in Tennessee, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New
Mexico and the new Kansas City Plant.

While the new facility in Kansas City is expected to continue
production of non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons, the Chemistry and
Metallurgy Research Replacement Project at Los Alamos plans to
increase U.S. capability to produce plutonium pits, the core of a
nuclear weapon, according to Coghlan. Meanwhile, the facility at Oak
Ridge plans to reinvest in its capability to produce uranium
components for the weapons.

In the original proposal for the Kansas City project, CenterPoint
Zimmer LLC — the company which won the bidding process to design and
build the plant for the NNSA — said the new facility would simply
modernize operations for nuclear weapons parts production while
ensuring the continued employment of “a minimum of 2,100 workers at
the campus in good ‘quality jobs.’ ”

The day before the arrests the activists visited the two Kansas City
Plant sites for prayer and reflection.

After walking with the rest of the activists on the side of a busy
street where the current plant is located, Japanese native-born
Mercedarian Sr. Filo Hirota told those gathered that she envisioned a
new world order in which the “principle of nonviolence is translated
into the way how the world is organized.”

Hirota, who is the international relations officer for the Catholic
Council for Justice and Peace of the Episcopal Conference of Japan,
asked in a prayer following her brief talk for an economy “that
creates communion in equal and just relationships.”

Arriving in a caravan at the field where the new facility for the
nuclear weapons plant is under construction, activists came together
there near idle bulldozers where they blessed the land and asked
forgiveness in view of its future use.

Tom Kascoli, a Native American of Apache and Navajo background,
blessed each of the assembled, waving an eagle’s feather over a
burning sage stick while chanting a prayer in his native tongue.

Editor's Note: For more photographs from the event Aug. 16 take a look
at the slideshow in below link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/joshua.mac/KansasCityPlantConferenceWeekend?feat=flashalbum#5506406936781327026

----------------------------

14 protesters who got arrested. Ed Bloomer c/o DMCW IA,Felice Cohen-Joppa Nulcear Resister - Tucson AZ, Steve Jacobs Columbia MO CW, Frank Cordaro holding banner DMCW IA, Fr Jerry Zawada ofm Tucson AZ, Rachael Hoffman
Holy Family CW KC MO, Gina Cook Holy Family CW KC MO, Robby Jones
Columbia MO CW, Brian Terrell Maloy IA CW, Josh Armfield
Cherith Brook CW KC MO, Donna Constantineau KC MO, Beth Seberger
KC MO, Eric Garbison
Cherith Brook CW KC MO and Steve Clemens
Minneapolis MN

-------------------------------

Local NBC KC TV News Report:
http://www.nbcactionnews.com/dpp/news/local_news/groups-to-protest-site-of-new-weapons-plant-in-southern-kansas-city

"KC police arrest nuclear protesters at Honeywell construction site"
KC Star News Paper
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/16/2153596/kc-police-arrest-nuclear-protesters.html#ixzz0wsuwzXAN

Cherith Brook Community
3308 E 12th St
Kansas City, MO 64127
816-241-8047
cherithbrookkcmo@yahoo.com
cherithbrookkc.blogspot.com

“Close It! Clean It! Don’t Repeat It!”

2010-08-02T04:52:00.000-07:00

Peace people from KC & around the country will gather Aug. 13-16
for the KC Nuclear Weapons Plant Conference

“Close It! Clean It! Don’t Repeat It!”

The four-day gathering begins Fri, Aug. 13, at 6:45 pm with the KC premiere of "Countdown to Zero" at the Tivoli, 4050 Pennsylvania, followed by a
panel discussion on the costs and consequences of nuclear weapons
production and the new START treaty.

Saturday, Aug. 14 at 10 a.m. we'll meet at Linwood United Church, 3151
Olive, for a conference featuring nuke-related nonviolence training,
science and spirituality.

At 7 p.m. Aug. 14, come to All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church at
4501 Walnut, KC, Mo., for peace-related scientific and spiritual
reflections/discussions, and at 9 p.m. enjoy entertainers

The Recipe

On Sun., Aug. 15, we'll visit the current and future sites of the KC Plant!

On Mon., Aug. 16, at 10 a.m., the gathering shifts to civil resistance!

Please R.S.V.P if you plan to attend, and let us know if you will need
housing (either sleeping bag room or a real bed).
Needed: folks to hold signs, folks to march, local folks to house out-
of-town protesters, and folks to cook for hungry peacemakers.
To register for the gathering and to offer housing or food, contact
PeaceWorks member Jane Stoever at janepstoever@yahoo.com or
913-206-4088. Thanks! Be peace!

“Close It! Clean It! Don’t Repeat It!”

2010-08-02T04:51:00.000-07:00

Peace people from KC & around the country will gather Aug. 13-16
for the KC Nuclear Weapons Plant Conference

“Close It! Clean It! Don’t Repeat It!”

What’s that all about?

Well, the city of Kansas City, Missouri has sold $687 million dollars
of municipal bonds, backed by the feds, and groundbreaking has begun
for a new mind-boggling $4.8 billion dollar KC Plant, the first new
U.S. nuclear weapons plant to be built in over 30 years! It is a
complex public-private scheme that uses "urban blight" funds to
develop a soy bean field on the southern border of the city.

The current KC Plant is the primary producer of non-fissile nuclear
bomb parts - mechanical, electronic- and engineered materials.
KC makes the Bomb work! The Plant is contaminated 50 feet
underground with hundreds of hazardous chemicals and radioactive
materials, as well as the underlying water aquifer and rivers that run
nearby. Hundreds of workers have cancers and other serious illnesses,
and many have already died.

The new plant, to be built north of the former Richards Gebaur base,
is the first of three new U.S. nuclear weapons plants. The other two
are proposed for New Mexico (plutonium pits) and Tennessee (uranium
secondaries). This would expand our nuclear bomb production
capability and increase spending for nuclear weapons to the tune of
$80 billion dollars over the next 10 years!

June 16-19 KC peace & resistance conference

2010-05-22T20:35:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends of Cherith Brook,

Please consider attending a peace & resistance conference in KC.

On June 16-19, come to Juneteenth Celebration: Abolition of Slavery! Abolition of Nukes!–sponsored by PeaceWorks, Physicians for Social Responsibility-KC, and East Meets West of Troost. The conference aims to raise consciousness about the Kansas City Plant, which makes parts for nuclear weapons, and to witness for peace. Here’s a description of the conference events, all free and open to the public.

On June 16, 5-9 p.m., take nonviolence training after potluck at St. Mark Union Church, 11th & Euclid.

On June 17, at noon, hear “If You Love This Planet—Medical Consequences of Nuclear Weapons Production/Nuclear Energy Production,” a talk by Helen Caldicott, M.D., Australian pediatrician and author, at KU Medical Center (room TBA) at 39th and Rainbow. Stay for lunch.

On June 17, 3-6 pm, join “Grassroots Nuclear Abolition”—workshops & potluck at St. Mark Union Church. The one-hour workshops will be intense, covering these topics: workers’ illnesses from work at the Kansas City Plant; going from nuke-maker/military to urban farmer; weapons economy vs. a wiser, greener planet; dialogue for nuclear disarmament; environmental consequences of nuclear war; overview of the entire nuclear weapons complex; KC’s nuclear bomb plant; and nonviolent resistance.

On June 17, 7-10 pm, attend “Grassroots Nuclear Abolition: Solutions for Health, the Environment & Economic Justice”—speakers and concert at All Souls UU Church, 4501 Walnut. Speakers include Caldicott, author of If You Love This Planet and Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer; Bill Wickersham, coauthor of Confronting Nuclear War: The Role of Education, Religion and the Community; Steven Starr, PSR senior scientist, expert in environmental consequences of nuclear war; Jay Coghlan, head of NukeWatch New Mexico; Sasteh Mosley, head of East Meets West of Troost, employing at-risk youth.

On June 18, witness for peace through civil resistance to the KC Plant.

On June 19, come to 18th & Highland for Juneteenth activities re urban farming, recycling, green jobs.

For more info, contact Jane Stoever at 913-206-4088 or janepstoever@yahoo.com, or see kcnukeswatch.wordpress.com. Thanks to all of you friends of Cherith Brook for your mighty witness for hospitality and joyful peace!

Please join us for the following May & June opportunities to connect!

2010-05-22T19:33:00.000-07:00

Women's Day May 26 from 11:30am to 2pm
We need women volunteers who are able to
cut & color hair, give massages, pedicures & manicures, foot baths,
apply makeup, engage in conversation over lunch, etc.

2nd Saturday Work Day June 12 from 9am to 1pm
Plan to get your hands dirty with us completing some of the following projects:
insulation/weatherization,
fencing, planting, tending the garden,
small electrical projects,
framing and drywall,
sorting clothes,
some painting, etc.

2nd Saturday Haircuts June 12 from 9am to 11am
Can you cut men's and women's hair? Then we need you!

Please let us know if you are available for any of these dates. Thank you!

Please join us for the following April & May opportunities to connect!

2010-04-26T12:07:00.000-07:00

Women's Day April 28 from 11:30am to 2pm
We need women volunteers who are able to
cut & color hair, give massages, pedicures & manicures, foot baths,
apply makeup, engage in conversation over lunch, etc.

Clarification Meeting May 7th at 7pm
Dr. Rodney Reeves, professor of Biblical Studies
at Southwest Baptist University, Bolivar, Missouri
presents "Worship as Warfare".

2nd Saturday Work Day May 8 from 9am to 1pm
Plan to get your hands dirty with us completing some of the following projects:
insulation/weatherization,
fencing, planting, tending the garden,
small electrical projects,
framing and drywall,
sorting clothes,
some painting, etc.

2nd Saturday Haircuts May 8 from 9am to 11am
Can you cut men's and women's hair? Then we need you!

Please let us know if you are available for any of these dates. Thank you!

URGENT needs list - Winter 2009

2009-11-02T21:58:00.000-08:00

Coats
Hats
Gloves
Long Underwear
Blankets

Laundry Soap - he (high efficiency)
Dish Soap
Razors
Mens underwear - small sizes
Womens underwear - small sizes

Fri Nov 6 @ 7pm: Rethinking Christmas Clarification

2009-11-02T21:55:00.000-08:00

For our November 6 meeting, we will be Rethinking Christmas! Prior to our gathering, we hope you'll review Luke 1-2 and Matthew 1-2 so that these stories will be fresh on your minds. We will discuss Advent, the Christmas story, our values, the way of Culture and the way of Christ. We want to discover ways we as individuals and as communities can more deeply engage the way of Christ this year.

This Clarification Meeting is kid-friendly! As adults review Christmas ideas of how to simplify giving and spreading holiday cheer, children will be working on some handmade crafts that they might enjoy giving as gifts this year. So please, bring your family and friends to this fun-filled evening!

Dec 4 & 5: Nonviolent Communication Mtg & Training

2009-10-18T20:07:00.000-07:00

Please attend Clarification Meetings at Cherith Brook on the first Friday of each month, from 7 to 8:30pm, at our storefront next door to the house. Enjoy coffee, conversation, fellowship and deep thinking; a chance to get clear on important issues.

For our December 4th/5th Clarification Meeting and Training we will be discussing the topic of Nonviolent Communication, and learning how to put the idea into practice. We hope that many of our volunteers, and others in the community, will be interested in participating in this two-part event, although we invite you to attend either one or both.

The Clarification Meeting will be held on Friday night, December 4th from 7 to 8:30pm. A training session will be held on Saturday morning, December 5th from 8:30am to Noon, led by Jeff Matascik, a violence prevention specialist for Synergy Services. In preparation, we hope you'll read Marshall B. Rosenberg's book, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life.

We encourage you to come prepared with references, your questions, and personal stories on any of the topics of discussion during our Clarification Meetings. We hope to deepen our understanding of each issue, based on Biblical teachings as well as facts presented by those in attendance at each gathering.

Cherith Brook Community
3308 E 12th St
Kansas City, MO 64127
816-241-8047
cherithbrookkcmo@yahoo.com
cherithbrookkc.blogspot.com

Clarification Meeting topic for November 6th: Counter-Cultural Holiday Celebrations

Health Care Clarification Mtg - Fri Oct 2 @ 7pm

2009-09-25T18:41:00.000-07:00

The Health Care debate is something that has invoked lots of dialogue, debate, and sometimes misinformation. Join us as we hear from fellow Catholic Worker, Mona Shaw, about the current state of the US Health Care system. There will also be plenty of time to dialogue about what it means for us as Christians if we agree that we are our brother's/sister's keeper.

Please come prepared with your own stories and experiences to help the conversation be more fruitful. See you soon!

Date:
Friday, October 2, 2009
Time:
7:00pm - 8:30pm
Location:
Cherith Brook Catholic Worker
Street:
3226 E 12th St.
City/Town:
Kansas City, MO

FESTIVAL OF SHELTERS ~ Oct 4 & 5

2009-09-08T13:27:00.000-07:00

Festival of Shelters

Sunday, October 4 at 6pm ~ Celebration of shelter and blessing for the homeless (coffee and desert will follow)

Monday, October 5 at 5pm ~ Celebration of the Harvest of God’s provision (shared dinner together)

WHAT IS THE FESTIVAL OF SHELTERS?

The Festival of Shelters comes to us from Leviticus 23:42 where the People of God are instructed to build simple shelters and to live in them for seven days remembering a lifetime of days spent homeless, wandering the wilderness, in search of food and water, hoping for a promised place. The Festival also became a harvest celebration where the people remembered what it was like to be hungry and thirsty and to show gratitude for God’s provision of food.

WHY DO WE DO IT?

Our Festival of Shelters is intended to be a challenge to resist and celebration of rejoicing:

· We who have plenty are reminded that we have all experienced need and, that it is God who provides our needs;

· We are challenged to move away from greed and pride of wealth and accumulation;

· And to remember and that the stranger, the wanderer, the homeless and the hungry are specially loved and cared for by God.

HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE!

On Sunday afternoon, October 4 we will begin setting up structures that represent the different kinds of homeless suffering in our city: those on the streets, the refugee experience, the undocumented immigrant, and the battered woman.

At 5pm we will have a liturgy that speaks to the different experiences of those without shelter in our society and calls us to greater justice.

Two groups will depart for a night spent out on the streets. They will be blessed and sent out after the liturgy. One group will return back Monday morning at 8:00am. The other group will return Monday evening for dinnertime at 5:00pm. We will share dinner and a time of sharing reflections on homelessness. Please let us know in advance if you are interested in spending the night on the streets. We want to keep the groups small, so there will be limited spaces.

Call if you have questions: 816-241-8047.

Sept 4 Clarification Mtg: The Death Penalty - An Eye for an Eye?

2009-08-21T05:31:00.000-07:00

Please attend Clarification Meetings at Cherith Brook on the first Friday of each month, from 7 to 8:30pm, at our storefront next door to the house. Enjoy coffee, conversation, fellowship and deep thinking; a chance to get clear on important issues.

For our September 4th gathering, we have chosen the topic of the Death Penalty. Our guest speaker, Darryl Burton, will lead a discussion on this issue. In September 2008, Darryl was released from 24 years of captivity after a judge ruled that his 1984 murder trial was constitutionally flawed. He hopes his case will convince the public that this country is jailing innocent people. Please come and hear Darryl's compelling story.

We encourage you to come prepared with references, your questions, and personal stories on any of the topics of discussion during our Clarification Meetings. We hope to deepen our understanding of each issue, based on Biblical teachings as well as facts presented by those in attendance at each gathering.

"We must find an alternative to violence. The eye-for-an-eye philosophy leaves everyone blind."--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
-----------------------------------------------

Dates & Topics for future Clarification Meetings at Cherith Brook include:

October 2nd – Health Care
November 6th – Non-Violence Training
December 4th – Alternative Holiday Celebrations

-----------------------------------------------

Cherith Brook NEEDS volunteers to help offer Showers & Meals from 8am to Noon on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays & Fridays. Please let us know when YOU are available!

Apocalypse Kansas City! Clarification: Friday August 7 @ 7pm

2009-08-05T12:42:00.000-07:00

On the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we will give attention to the continued arrogance of Nuclear proliferation as experienced locally with the efforts to relocate and rebuilt the Honeywell Complex in Grandview, MO. Honeywell is responsible for building 85% of non-nuclear components for Nuclear weapons. Without the triggers and navigational devises, the massive US arsenal could not deploy.

Eric Garbison will begin with a study on the apocalyptic text of Mark 13:14-23, as it speaks to the times in which we live with the continued proliferation and threat of nuclear war against God's reign on earth through Jesus the Christ.

Ann Sullentrop, with Greater Kansas City Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, will speak to us of the recent efforts to rebuild the Honeywell plant in Kansas City and ways people can speak out and resist.

STEP UP2date

2009-07-15T08:03:00.000-07:00

Friends of the STEP Alliance: Thought you should know about an upcoming event, 2 recent news stories, and 2 opportunities for email-advocacy. Please take action! And check out the new research links and discussion board stuff on our facebook page . . .

UPCOMING EVENT:

Veronica's Voice is leading a Street Outreach training THIS SATURDAY, July 18th from 10am-noon at Cherith Brook. (3226 E 12th Street, KC MO 64127) All are welcome! Email safecenter@veronicasvoice.org to RSVP, or just come Saturday.

NEWS STORIES:

The County passed a resolution about drug and prostitution activity in the Northeast (6/29) that excluded mention of SOAP/SODA, and adding "restorative solutions" (see news article here: http://northeastnews.net/countysupport.html )

The KC Star had an article Saturday about SOAP/SODA, which was pretty in favor of it and neglected to mention the STEP Alliance or our alternatives. (see here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/story/1318816.html )

EMAIL ADVOCACY OPPORTUNITIES:

Write to Lynn Horsley, the author of the KC Star article (lhorsley@kcstar.com). Let her know that there are people in KC who are opposed to SOAP/SODA! There's an example of what you could write in the email here: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dhtmjn6d_51f8rqstc5. Feel free to CUT and PASTE, but it's better if you personalize it some. Let us know if you write her!

Write to the City Prosecutor's office (Beth_Murano@kcmo.org, Megan_Pfannenstiel@kcmo.org) if you can't make it to tomorrow's meeting. Let them know that you are in support of the KC STEP Alliance, and hope that our alternatives will be considered. There's an example of what you could write here: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dhtmjn6d_52fmf4f3ct. Again feel free to cut and paste. Let us know if you write them!

Thanks for your support. . .we'll keep you posted!

CB Statement on SOAP/SODA initiative in the Historic Northeast neighborhoods of KCMO

2009-05-07T14:40:00.000-07:00

We request postponement of voting on resolution 090304, nicknamed SOAP/SODA (Stay Out of Areas of Prostitution and Stay Out of Drug Areas), which would allow municipal judges to impose geographical boundaries on any drug or prostitution offender, thereby making it illegal for many to be seen on certain streets or in certain neighborhoods in the Historic Northeast. I moved to the Historic Northeast neighborhood to befriend and serve those struggling with joblessness, homelessness, and inadequate wages.

We live at Cherith Brook Catholic Worker House, a house of hospitality that welcomes these persons. We, along with Veronica's Voice and other organizations who serve persons affected by this resolution, would like the opportunity to sit down and dialogue with other concerned community stakeholders, in hopes of revising the current resolution.

We are deeply concerned about this resolution for these reasons:

• It promotes neighborhood vigilantism, which tears communities apart by pitting neighbor against neighbor, therefore weakening our community.

• It further criminalizes victims, while still leaving our community open to the real criminals, which include pimps, traffickers, drug dealers and certainly the customers whose demand for sex fuels the sex industry and perpetually creates more victims.

• It further isolates victims, keeping them out of their own communities, places they've grown up in, and places where they currently live.

• It will only displace any drug and prostitution issues, forcing them underground (creating more violence) or simply move them to another area--all without addressing root causes.

• It attempts to control the whereabouts of already-victimized American citizens, and as such, its constitutionality may even be questionable.

We urge the City Council to postpone approving these strong measures that drive the true victims from the Historic Northeast, where many have grown up, have families, homes, jobs and church activities. Rather than wasting time and energy on compounding the problems of our fellow citizens, we urge folks to get involved with neighborhood faith and community based agencies such as what is offered at Cherith Brook, Veronica’s Voice, and many area churches. We are stakeholders that want to be involved with other community members who are interested in working together to explore ways that address these issues, instead of simply relocating them.

Photos, photos, and more photos!

2009-04-28T19:28:00.000-07:00

Follow these links for photos from this past weekend we spent in Stockton & Mt. Carroll, Illinois and Dubuque, Iowa.

Midwest Catholic Worker Faith & Resistance Retreat

New Hope Catholic Worker Farm

The Action at Blackwater

4/28 @ 5:30pm - vigil for CB death row friend, Mark Mize

2009-04-22T17:51:00.000-07:00

It is with great sadness and heavy hearts that we invite you to vigil with us at Cherith Brook as we pray for the life of our friend, Mark Mize, who has spent more than 14 years on death row in Jackson, GA. Beginning at 5:30pm we will hold a candle light vigil, offer prayers, and meditate silently through the time of his scheduled execution: April 28 at 6pm (central time zone).

If you are unable to attend, due to time or distance constraints, please hold your own vigil wherever you may be. The photos here are of Mark, his sister and mother. Jodi describes him as a gentle soul. She has visited and corresponded with him over the past several years. She will be with him and his mother in Georgia for a couple of days this weekend.

May Day Event @ Holy Family House

2009-04-07T07:44:00.000-07:00

HFH Friends and Family,

Holy Family is Proud to Present the 1st Annual

MAY DAY ART & TALENT EVENING!

Friday, May 1, 2009

7-9 p.m.

@ Holy Family House (912 E. 31st)

PLEASE JOIN US ON THE 76TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CATHOLIC WORKER FOR A NIGHT OF ART, PERFORMANCE, MUSIC AND MORE! EVERYONE IS INVITED TO ATTEND OR PARTICIPATE!

*IF YOU SING, ACT, DRAW, BAKE, DANCE, SEW, PLAY MUSIC, SCULPT, WRITE POEMS, OR ...... PLEASE CONSIDER SHOWING YOUR ART OR PERFORMING!

*submissions due to Holy Family by 7:30 p.m. April 30, call 816-753-2677 with Qs

April 18 - Rock Out & Reach Out event!

2009-03-29T11:06:00.000-07:00

Cherith Brook Community is honored to have been invited to participate in the following event as one of about a dozen local organizations working in the areas of justice & sustainability! We hope to see YOU there!

Rock Out & Reach Out

Saturday, April 18, 2009, Crosstown Station

6:30 p.m. – 1:00 a.m., (music begins at 7:30 p.m.)

Rock Out – The Center for Justice and Sustainability at William Jewell College sponsors a concert at Crosstown Station www.crosstownstation.com including a series of popular local bands, such as namelessnumberheadman, Abracadabras, and Pet Comfort. Along with the live music, there will be food and drink to purchase.

Reach Out- There will be an exhibit upstairs featuring a select group of Kansas City nonprofit organizations. The nonprofit partners for this event will share all cover charge proceeds (designated by audience members). They will also gain exposure and volunteers by exhibiting their work throughout the event. Nonprofit partners will also have opportunities to benefit from the concert’s exposure, ranging from advertisements to concert t-shirts.

People attending the concert will:

***Designate their cover charge to a local nonprofit organization of their choice (from among those nonprofits present)
***Visit the exhibition area where they can learn about local organizations
***Sign up for volunteer opportunities with organizations present

Visit the Rock Out & Reach Out website for a list of participating organizations!

Artist Needed & Volunteer Opportunities April 25 & 26!

2009-03-29T11:04:00.000-07:00

Cherith Brook Community has been offered a 6' x 6' square in the 2nd Annual Chalk Walk!

So we are looking for an artist willing to create a piece of artwork for us during this event. Please contact us if you are interested, or if know of an artist we should get in touch with about this opportunity. We also need volunteers who are able to attend the event and staff a booth for Cherith Brook, passing out our newsletters and letting folks know about what we are doing in the neighborhood. Let us know if you are available for this opportunity, as well!

When: Saturday, April 25th & Sunday, April 26th, 2009
at the Concourse Park 9:00AM to 5:00PM each day.

Where: 200 South Benton Boulevard, Kansas City, Missouri on The Concourse Park, by the Kennedy Memorial and the historic Kansas City Museum.

This FREE, family-friendly event--in the tradition of European 16th Century street painting–transforms the dull, grey concrete sidewalks of Concourse Park into colorful, pastel pathways. Kids and parents will join local, amateur and practicing artists to create everything from temporary chalk "masterpieces" to some colorful games of Tic-Tac-Toe!

Clarification Mtg April 3rd @ 7pm: Addictions & a Liberating God

2009-03-27T07:16:00.000-07:00

Women's Day

2009-03-19T19:28:00.000-07:00

Cherith Brook has created a Women's Day, on the last Wednesday of each month, when we offer our women friends from the neighborhood the opportunity to have a shower, haircut, pedicure, manicure, massage, lunch, and more! If you are a woman with a special talent to offer or just simply some time to spend in conversation and fellowship with our women friends, please get in contact with us by phone or email so that we can give you all the details. Our next Women's Day is scheduled for Wednesday, March 25th.

Gardening @ Cherith Brook

2009-03-14T03:10:00.000-07:00

We will be gardening every other Friday through the summer from 2pm on (starting this Friday, March 13th).

We also have a work day the next two Saturdays (March 14 & 21) that will include gardening, so please join us if you are interested and available. Presently, we will be working on building planters in back yard, finishing touches on water containers, front rock terrace, and building the long bed across the back parking lot.

Some folks could also move the pantry and hang the lights in the basement.

If anyone has access to a truck for Saturdays, it would be great if we could get one soon.

We look forward to seeing you if and when you're able to come by!

Should Christians Pay for the War?

2009-02-26T20:05:00.000-08:00

Clarification Mtgs: Feb 6 (Sustainability) & Mar 6 (War Tax Resistance)

2009-01-27T04:13:00.000-08:00

Please attend Clarification Meetings at Cherith Brook on both Fridays, February 6 and March 6, from 7 to 8:30pm at our storefront next door to the house.

We have chosen the topic of Sustainable Living for our Feb 6 gathering. Our friend and local farmer, Steve Mann, will lead a serious discussion of the facts and the realities of where we're headed if we don't DO some of the things he suggests as remedies. Entitled "New Heaven, New Earth: A Biblical Vision for Sustainability", you may wish to read Isaiah 65:17-25 in preparation, as we will begin with a meditation on this scripture.

For our March 6 gathering, we have chosen the topic of War Tax Resistance. We will employ a panel discussion including several folks who have personal experience with this issue, "The things that are Caesars and the things that are God's: Christians Resisting Caesar, Resisting War Taxes." We will begin with a meditation on Matthew 22:15-22, which you may want to review prior to that evening.

We encourage you to come prepared with other references, your questions, and personal stories on any of the topics of discussion during our Clarification Meetings. We hope to deepen our understanding of each issue, based on Biblical teachings as well as facts presented by those in attendance at each gathering.

We look forward to seeing YOU soon!

Fri Jan 9 @ 7pm - "Remember the Tortured" - Panel Discussion on recent SOA Vigil

2009-01-06T10:10:00.000-08:00

Please attend a Clarification and Panel Discussion at Cherith Brook on Friday, January 9 from 7 to 8:30pm at our storefront next door to the house. Several folks who attended the SOA (School of the Americas http://www.soaw.org/) Vigil at Ft. Benning near Columbus, GA will speak to us about their experience, allowing questions and discussion to follow.

We have chosen the title "Remember the Tortured" for this Clarification meeting, and will begin with a meditation on Hebrews 13:1-6. You may wish to read this passage prior to attending Friday evening's gathering.

We look forward to seeing YOU soon!

Cherith Brook Community
3308 E 12th St
Kansas City, MO 64127
816-241-8047
cherithbrookkcmo@yahoo.com

WINTER donations NEEDED asap!

2008-11-05T21:59:00.000-08:00

Winter is on our heals and we are in need of winter items for women and men. The weather fluctuation has already brought and increase in numbers as people are seeking a way to get warmed up from the night’s air.

In particular we need winter coats, hats and gloves. Long underwear can also come in handy. Please check your closets for any coats extra hats and gloves you are no longer using. If you have a neighbor in need of it, give it to her or him first. Cherith Brook would ask for what is left over.

Let us redistribute our resources, not in the name of socialism, or capitalism, but in the name of the homeless Jesus who had no place to lay his head and yet came offering life abundant. May the Church be that sign of God's presence we have been called to be!

PTSD discussion Friday June 20 @ 7pm

2008-06-17T14:57:00.000-07:00

Friends of Cherith Brook

This Friday evening, June 20 we will be having our June CLARIFICATION meeting a 7PM at Kafe Kiskeya (the store front next door to Cherith Brook, 3308 E. 12th St., 64127).

Sally Hass, Ph.D., who works for the Veterans Medical Center in Leavenworth, KS will be speaking to us about POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD).

There are many traumas folks experience that result in PTSD: Perhaps you know a returning military personel or past veteran who suffers from trauma of war. Perhaps you have family member or neighbor who has suffered a life trauma that has left them emotionally wounded by PTSD. As those who work extensively with veterans, those facing daily street violence, prolonged homelessness, forced prostitution, domestic violence and the like, we desire to know more about PTSD so Cherith Brook can be a place of healing welcome. This is a topic important for all.

Hope to see you there.

Blessings,
Cherith Brook Community
http://www.cherithbrookkc.blogspot.com/
Please call if you have any questions or need directions 816 241-8047.

Join Our Extended Community!

2008-05-12T09:05:00.000-07:00

Cook Meals
Sort Clothing & Donations
Host Showers for the Homeless & Poor in our Neighborhood
Offer Haircuts
Launder Shower Clothing
Garden
Do Electrical Work
Assemble Sack Dinners
Remove Asphalt & Concrete
Build Library Shelving
Redo Kitchen Cabinets
Mail Newsletter
House Cleaning
General House Maintenance

(What special gifts & talents do you have to offer? Call us @ 816-241-8047 and let us know how you would like to participate in community life with us!)

"Jerry"

2008-05-12T08:49:00.000-07:00

The sun beats down on me
The sweat drips down my face
My back is tired my feet worn out
The heat it burns me to the core
No fan can ease my pain
No place to run no place to hide
Just one more pound just one more can
Just one more can my day is done
50 cents for every pound
Now I can go and walk away
No fan can ease my pain
No place to run no place to hide
Back to my house my things are gone
The window's shattered on my bed
Just clean it off and I am done
I need a place to rest my head
No fan can ease my pain
No place to run no place to hide
I cannot sleep I need a fix
Just down the block that's where she sleeps
You say the "system" has me down
But it has ahold of you
No fan can ease my pain
No place to run no place to hide
I live in your backyard
Won't you please come outside?

This song about our friend Jerry Davis was written by 2007 Summer Intern Trey Thompson.

Resting with God

2008-05-12T08:36:00.000-07:00

~Prayer, solitude & resting with God;
~Living the Gospel;
~Breathing the Gospel;
~Looking & finding the Christ in each other;
~Remember that Christ's love & hope lives in ALL creation;
~Asking God's forgiveness for all the wars we create each day by our collective & personal violence, hate & injustices;
~Remember to practice giving forgiveness each moment of the day;
~Remember to practice humility more each moment of the day;
~Remember to practice mercy more each moment of the day;
~Remember to pray, practice solitude, rest with God each moment of the day;
~We start with prayer & come full circle at the end of the day resting with God.

~Steve Sheridan

Midwest Catholic Worker Retreat ~ April 26 - 28 (click on image to enlarge)

2008-03-10T13:11:00.000-07:00

"Priceless" Salvation, by Desiree

2008-02-11T19:22:00.000-08:00

This world is so BEAUTIFUL, yet
Some never STOP to see how ugly they
can make it "look".
It's sad if you ask me ...
Many people on this earth believe
That wealth and power is best ...
Yet poor can have much more than
rich, it's they who pass that test.
You may be criticized
by MAN if you don't
fit in style ...
relax in a field, wade
in the ocean
stay there for awhile
You'll realize what matters most, It's
Not what others say.
It's how you
Treat
what's always yours.
There is no price to pay.

After visiting us for showers one day,
we found Desiree's poem on our desk.
An unexpected gift.

Clarification of Thought Meetings

2007-11-03T18:29:00.000-07:00

We are restarting our Clarification of Thought meetings. This is an age old tradition going back to the sermon on the mount. It is discipleship through dialog and round table discussions. So we are forming ourselves as the Beloved Community by informing ourselves on issues pertinent to following Jesus in today's world.

We will be meeting monthly on Fridays (usually the first Friday) at Kafe Kiskeya, in the storefront next door to Cherith Brook main house. Below is the schedule for the next few months. We invite all to attend.

November 16
Christians & Torture:
Learning about the School of the Americas (WHINSEC) with video & discussion.

December 7
Gospel Birth Stories & Consumerism

January 11
Women suffering Violence:
Veronica’s Voice

February 1
Eating for Life & Justice:
Dr. L. Shannon Jung, St. Paul School of Theology

Cherith Brook ESL & Tutoring

2007-09-08T17:40:00.000-07:00

In addition to offering showers, clothing, meals, and visiting prisoners, we practiced the acts of mercy at Cherith Brook last year by hosting and empowering two Somali refugee families for six months. Our twice-weekly English classes supplemented in-school learning for all four children, and were also available to the two mothers (who took class 4 mornings a week at Don Bosco).

Our English classes ranged from practical survival/job-training skills to Math and/or Social Studies, to fun-educational outings. This low-pressure, 1-on-1 helping was transformative for both the children and mothers.

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Christ's Wisdom

2007-07-18T18:58:00.000-07:00

So I awake from a peace-filled night
How is it that I stumble and fall?
Have I forgotten the wisdom of Christ,
to love with your whole heart, mind and soul,
God and the beauty God has given us,
the beauty of family, friends, strangers, guests.
Christ's wisdom commands us to begin to try
and love our enemies
not seven times
but seven times seventy!
A life full of trying
to love each other as Christ loves us
and to try
and to try
and to try ...
Thank you Jesus Christ, my friend and companion,
for showering our earth
with your wisdom.

~Steve Francis Joseph Sheridan

We are asking for communities & individuals to partner with us to support the apartments.

2007-07-18T18:54:00.000-07:00

Such gifts help us to offer hospitality with the abundance befitting God's love and grace, and create a redistribution of resources that embody God's Beloved Community on earth as in heaven. Families will take the furnishings to start their new home. Presently we need vacuums, tables & chairs, dressers, working bikes & fans.

New Members and New Opportunities!

2007-05-11T21:00:00.000-07:00

Please pray for our community this summer as we grow with new members, new dynamics, and new focus on our work:

Eligio Araya has recently moved into the house with us.
Trey Thompson, our summer intern, will be here next week.
Chris and Katie Brennan-Homiak are moving into the neighborhood in June.
And Eric will be on break from his teaching, and no longer with the church, so he can focus more on the neighborhood.

During our next Friday Night Clarification meeting, May 25th, we plan to watch a DVD on the Lost Boys of Sudan. We hope to learn more about the lives of our new neighbors from Somalia. After May, we will be taking a break from our Clarification Meetings, and will resume in August or September. However, we will continue our Friday Night Sharing throughout the summer months.

We also hope to transition our Community Meal to be a serving meal for homeless and needy families in our area. We are exploring this now, and expect it will mean new opportunities for volunteers!

HOUSE BLESSING Friday May 4th

2007-04-19T14:05:00.000-07:00

Please join us as we bless our new house!
We'll gather at 6pm for some refreshments.
The ceremony will last from 6:30 to 7:30pm.
Cherith Brook is located at 3308 East 12th Street, KCMO 64127.
We would like to ask you to bring a folding lawn chair with you.
And please do pass this invitation along.
We look forward to your RSVP so we'll know how many to expect.

Stations of the Cross on the streets of KC.

2007-04-07T08:09:00.000-07:00

Eric, Jodi, Chris, Steve & Sarah processed from Jurassic Park, to the Court House, to the Federal Building, and finally to the Jackson County Jail sharing reflection and song about The Betrayal (Matthew 26:47-56), Christ on Trial (Matthew 27:11-23), Soldiers Mock Jesus (Matthew 27:27-31), and Father Forgive Them (Luke 23:26-43). Songs included The Cry of the Poor, Keep Your Eyes on the Prize, Down by the Riverside, and Jesus Won't You Come by Here.

ELIJAH BY THE BROOK (1 Kings, Chapter 17)

2007-03-26T19:37:00.000-07:00

17:2 And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, 17:3 Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. 17:4 And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. 17:5 So he went and did according unto the word of the LORD: for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. 17:6 And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook.