Presbyterian Peace Fellowship - breathe. then. push.

‌ breathe. then. push. Hi peace seekers - It is hard to keep up with the amount of violence we are collectively experiencing and witnessing in the world right now. We are just beginning the second month of 2023 and we've already seen ... several people murdered by police in LA, Memphis and Raleigh1 ... 52 mass shootings2 (that's almost 2 per day), including elders in the AAPI    communities of Half Moon Bay and Monterey Park ... the increase of weaponry in Ukraine supplied by the US and the     ongoing attacks on civilians3 ... and the murder of a forest defender and abolitionist protesting the construction of Cop City outside Atlanta.4,5 Before we ask you to take action - we invite you to pause and breathe. Feel for your feet on the ground. Feel for where and how your body is making contact with the earth right now - notice how the earth holds you. And then notice and acknowledge the emotions that are arising in you in these recent days. We honor whatever is present for you. Rage. Despair. Numbness. Hope. "So what do we do now? Remember the wisdom of the midwife: Breathe. Then. Push." ~Valerie Kaur All of these feelings remind us that we are humans. Humans struggling to be free from these cultures of domination that are driving all of this violence. The militarization of police, the escalation of international conflict, the epidemic of gun violence in the US, and the destruction of the environment are all connected.  They are driven by cultures that legitimize the supremacy of one body over another, and by the idea that we can establish control and dominance over another people and a land that is not ours to own. This is why we have embraced abolition as an anchor for our work across PPF. Because we know that we build peace through the abolition of structural violence and by living into alternatives to violence with creativity, intelligence, imagination, and love. Deanna Hollas said in her recent article, “That is the thing about gun violence, the more there is, the more people are afraid and buy guns. The more guns people buy, the more gun violence we have. It is a vicious and violent cycle.” As people of faith one role we have is to disrupt that cycle and reshape the culture. When our policies and peace agreements in the halls of power are failing us, one tactic is to dismantle the weaponry ourselves. To curate spaces where people can take action and begin to heal from the violence that impacts all of us. To begin to practice the very world we dream of. One way we are doing that is to chop up guns. REGISTER Today, the registration for the spring cohort of Guns to Gardens Action Circles opened. This 5-week Action Circle will train you and your congregation to host your first Guns to Gardens event where you will dismantle unwanted guns.   We invite you to move your anger, sadness, despair and hope with purpose – toward the vision of a world where our weapons for conflict are: truth, collective care and love. Standing in grief and strength with you -  Lucy Waechter Webb Manager of Communications & Digital Organizing https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/24/us/politics/pentagon-ukraine-ammunition.html#:~:text=The%20ammunition%20the%20United%20States,million%20rounds%20for%20small%20arms https://www.democracynow.org/2023/1/20/atlanta_cop_city_protester_killed https://bittersoutherner.com/feature/2022/the-forest-for-the-trees-atlanta-prison-farm