The Comma

Our Middle School Mission Trip to the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolence was the sixth trip we have taken with our youth to Ground Zero.  We worked for three days at the end of June building a house and clearing trails.  A house that will be used for education about nonviolence and the reality of nuclear weapons.  Trails through this simple wooded plot that will be walked by may praying for peace. 

I came across an article I wrote for the Other Side magazine in 2000 about my first experience at Ground Zero, what draws me back, and why I find it such an important place to take our kids – a place where real faith meets real life, isolation meets community, harsh reality meets abundant hope. 

Beyond Fear

It all started because I wanted to support Anne. 

Anne Hall, co-pastor at University Baptist Church was speaking at the Center for Contemplation and Nonviolence, an ecumenical outreach ministry in Seattle.  Over the past thirteen years, she has been arrested eleven times for acts of civil resistance against nuclear weapons.  I went to hear her story and show my support.

Anne talked about one of the first times she was arrested.  When she and others refused to walk to the paddy wagon, the police pressed on the glands on either side of her neck to force her to comply.  She talked about being led off to jail past here ten-year-old son, her husband, and her friends.  She talked about being put into the paddy wagon, being fingerprinted, and hearing the metal doors of her jail cell slam shut behind her.

Anne also talked about the last time she was arrested, and the possibility of facing, for the first time, a thousand-dollar fine and three months in the county jail.

At the end of her talk, we were asked how we felt after hearing her.  “Great,” one man said.  “This is exactly what we need to do.”  “Inspiried,” a woman responded.  “I’ve been thinking about putting my faith, into action this way for a long time.  After hearing Anne, I feel empowered to follow her lead.”

I sat at the back of the room.  I did not feel “great” or “inspired” or “empowered”.  I felt utterly terrified!  Instead of words that encouraged, I heard police dogs barking.  I felt the grip of hard hands pulling mine behind my back, the cold metal of handcuffs on my wrists.  I imagined prison doors clanging shut.

Anne’s story had brought to the surface some of my greatest fears: having pain inflicted on me, feeling powerless, being controlled by others, going to prison.  Her story also laid bare my doubts, my lack of trust.  I prayed that God would never ask me to witness as she had.  I prayed that I would not be called into such pain, such anxiety, such isolation.  My faith was not strong enough, I thought, to meet my fear and empower me to follow such a call.

For me, God’s call has always felt at first like utter terror: a call to ministry that I hid for three years; a call to a forbidden love; a call to a job that I was terrified to take on.  But eventually I answered those calls. And because of that, ministry came, and coming out came, and work in a psychiatric hospital came.  But none of that assuaged the initial fears.

After hearing Anne’s talk, I knew that once again I could not run away from my fear.  I had to enter into it.  I had to find out what was on the other side.

So, a few weeks later, I went to the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, a presence of nonviolent resistance at the Bangor Naval Base in Poulsbo, Washington, where nuclear weapons are stored.  I did not – could not – go alone.  I went as part of a group sponsored by the Center for Contemplation and Nonviolence.  I went accompanied by Anne, by Randall Mullins, whose ministry at the Center is to lead people prayerfully and gently into such places of fear, and by Ruth Evans, an eighty-something-year-old member of my church.

Ruth hadn’t intended to come.  But when no one responded to the notice I’d put in our church newsletter asking for people to accompany me on this day of reflection and prayer, she volunteered.  At Ground Zero she told us, “I’m too old for this stuff.  I haven’t gotten up at five-thirty in the morning for years.  But I came today because I was afraid for Peter.  I knew I didn’t need to be frightened for him, and I had no idea that he was afraid.  But I didn’t want him to come here alone.”

We walked through the wet grass around the Ground Zero house.  We saw where two sailors had burned down the pagoda that some Buddhist monks were constructing.  We peered through the fence at a spot a quarter-mile away where 1,600 nuclear warheads are stored, knowing that more would be coming – making this the largest assembly of nuclear weapons in the world.

We were silent together. We prayed together.  And we talked about fear.  Anne talked about the fear she has known being arrested and the fear surrounding her upcoming trial.  I talked about the fear that brought me there that day.

We also talked about faith.  Ruth said, “I’m not afraid.  I have been here before.  I know that if God calls us, we don’t have to be afraid.  We will be watched over, we will be accompanied, we will be all right – no matter what happens.”  Her faith embraced us all.

None of us went alone that day.  We went accompanied by the strength and presence of others.  For me, Anne and Randall and Ruth made real again the love Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 13, a love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.    

At the end of the day, Ruth asked me if I was still afraid.  “No,” I said, “I’m not afraid anymore.”

I don’t know where or how God may call me to say no to such evils as nuclear weapons or the School of the Americas or the violence within ourselves.  But I do know that my faith was renewed that day.  Thanks to the experience with Anne and Randall and Ruth, I trust again that if God calls me, God will go with me, and I don’t need to be afraid.  I can begin to listen to the empty place in my heart, now that fear hasn’t crowded everything out.

I have a vision for the church: that we may all let ourselves be accompanied into the places of fear in our lives; that we may all do our part to accompany others into their places of fear.  We are called to attend to the brokenness, the anguish of the world.  It’s a frightening prospect, but my experience at Ground Zero convinces me that, as Ruth put it, “We will be watched over, we will be accompanied, we will be all right – no matter what happens.” 

For more information on Ground Zero see www.gzcenter .org