Independence Mall Vigil for Peace

Statement

PRAYER VIGILS FOR PEACE IN THE WORLD
PHILADELPHIA, PA

WHO ARE WE?

We are a group of Friends (Quakers) and others who meet weekly, on Sundays from 5 to 6 PM, on Independence Mall, to pray for peace in the world. We started our weekly prayer vigils on April 4, soon after the NATO bombings began in Yugoslavia and the war in Kosovo deepened. As Friends, we believe that God calls us to give faithful testimony to the Spirit of Peace abiding in our hearts, a Spirit that invites us all to live in peace, do justice, and respect Life on earth.

WHY PRAY?

Every moment in life can be a prayer. We easily forget our dependence on God, but times of pain and anguish awaken our need to invoke God's help. We need God's help to change our hearts. We believe only God can open the hearts of men and women everywhere, to stop our mutual destruction and live a life of caring and mutual support. We pray for guidance and strength to purify our hearts and to remove the causes of war from ourselves and the world. Every moment in life can be a prayer. We easily forget our dependence on God, but times of pain and anguish awaken our need to invoke God's help. We need God's help to change our hearts. We believe only God can open the hearts of men and women everywhere, to stop our mutual destruction and live a life of caring and mutual support. We pray for guidance and strength to purify our hearts and to remove the causes of war from ourselves and the world.

WHY KEEP WATCH?
(to maintain a vigil: to keep watch, to stay awake)

Wars ravage the planet, and nations prepare for more war. One violent conflict unfolds after another. These are but signs that our world is ill, and that we are sorrowfully asleep. And they are a painful call to wake up. We need to wake up to our oneness with God, our human family, and everything on earth. We need to wake up to the possibility of a new life, a life renewed in the power of the Spirit that leads us into harmony with each other and with nature, that heals and brings peace to our lives and to the world.

WHY GATHERED?

"One prayer nourishes another," a Friend writes to us. We believe in the power of God to act directly on each of us, but also in God's power to act through us. Quaker tradition upholds the value of community as a means of support and guidance for each other. Being together allows us to share our concerns, our hopes, our visions, to lend each other a needed hand in carrying our individual and collective witness.

WHY IN PUBLIC?

Prayer opens the space for God to act in our midst. We feel that God is calling us to bring that space out to the world, to share with you and with everybody we might reach our concern for peace and our invitation to pray. Imagine more and more people praying (and working) for peace in every town and city around the world, reaching out to God while reaching out to each other ... peace would then be closer to us!

WHY CONTINUE?

Peace agreements have been reached in Yugoslavia and Kosovo. Still, real peace has yet to come to that region. Peace still has to come to the hearts of people, to our communities, to every nation on earth. In many places, injustice, oppression, and waste of precious resources continue to sow strife and violence. We have witnessed the tragedies of Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia and many others in the recent past. Sadly, more seem to be in the making.

For information about the Prayer Vigils for Peace, contact Marcelle Martin or Jorge Aráuz, at cityquake@aol.com.

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I HAVE SET BEFORE YOU LIFE AND DEATH, BLESSINGS AND CURSES. CHOOSE LIFE ... (Deut 30:19)

"They ate, drank, got married, and were given in marriage, until the day Noah boarded the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. That's also the way it was in the days of Lot. Everyone ate, drank, bought, sold, planted and built. But on the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulphur rained down from the sky and destroyed them all. It will be like that on the day the son of Adam is revealed." (Luke 17:27-30)

The son of Adam is revealed to us in every child orphaned by war, every family uprooted from their land, every child shot in our schools or streets, every woman raped, every human being tortured and killed. It seems, however, that we just go on with our lives as usual, oblivious to this pain. Until a terrible crisis explodes, and flood and fire visit us. Then we fret for a while. The crisis seems to go away, and we return to routine. And so we go, on and on. For how long will we be able to?

• More than 43 million people in the US lack health insurance (11 million are children under 18). 34 million children and adults in the US experience moderate to severe hunger. On any given night, 750,000 persons in the US are homeless. Over the course of a year, between 1.3 and 2 million people will experience homelessness.

• The number of malnourished people in Africa has increased from about 100 million in 1960 to 215 million today. Over 262 million people in Africa live on less than $1 per day.

• The world's 225 richest people have a combined wealth of over $1 million million. Four percent of this wealth — $40 billion — would be enough for adequate food, safe water, sanitation, and basic education and healthcare for all the world's people.

• US military-related spending for fiscal year 98 surpassed half a trillion dollars. The US alone spends far more than the combined military budgets of all countries identified as its potential enemies (i.e., Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Cuba). Further, US allies spend more than $250 billion for their own militaries.

• In the last decade, war killed 2 million children, disabled 4-5 million, left homeless 12 million. 200 Iraqis, mostly children, still die every day as a result of economic sanctions.

• 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus were victims of genocide in 1994 in Rwanda. Over 150,000 people in neighboring Burundi have died over the last four years in violent civil strife. Some 1.9 million people have been killed in two decades of civil war in Sudan.

• In many countries the weight of the international debt is crushing the poor and feeding strife. Relatively peaceful Ecuador, in South America, has experienced two serious episodes of popular uprising between March and July, 1999, provoked by the economic policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions.

Sources: Friends National Committee on Legislation Washington Bulletin; War and Peace Digest; The New Internationalist; Newsweek.

...and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah, 6:8)

MAY WE ALL OPEN OURSELVES TO GOD'S LIFE!

Last modified: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:18 AM