Kings Bay Plowshares action

Photo above (of Ken Jones of Swannanoa) came from Kings Bay Plowshares, as did the writing below. They are fasting in support of the protestors know as the Kings Bay Plowshares.

FAST FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT: DAY 2

A reflection by Beth Brockman

We decided last night that we wanted to vigil earlier, from 9 to 11 am, to avoid the hottest part of the day. We started at 8 am with some of us doing Centering Prayer outside under the huge oak trees draped with Spanish moss, - so prevalent here in Brunswick, and throughout southern, coastal Georgia. Afterwards we slathered ourselves with sunscreen, donned our hats, and packed up our cooler with water and juice. Then we grabbed our signs and banners (now with sticks fastened to them to make them easier to hold!) and hopped into the car. We drove the 4 ½ short miles to the Glynn County Detention Center, where Clare, Liz, Steve, and Mark are being held on federal charges stemming from the plowshares action at Kings Bay Naval Base. We set ourselves up for our two-hour vigil along route 25.

The traffic along Route 25 was loud which made conversation difficult. There were periods of silence, and in the silence, I of course thought about and prayed for our friends. I also extended my thoughts and prayers to the other 400+ prisoners locked up there. Like our friends, they are somebody’s mother, daughter, sister, grandmother, wife, aunt, uncle, brother, grandfather (or soon to be, like our recently released on bail friend, Patrick!), son, or husband. If this jail reflects the overall jail population in the U.S., 70 % of them are being held PRE-TRIAL. This means that they, like our friends, have not been convicted of a crime, only accused. How many days, weeks, even months of their lives will be stolen from them? How many of them will ever know justice from a system that oppresses particularly the poor, people of color and LGBTQ folks?

At the vigil Kathy reminded me that it was Juneteenth, which commemorates the ending of slavery. Juneteenth dates to 1865 when on June 19th Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced that the war had ended and that the slaves were now free, two and a half years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Juneteenth serves as a powerful reminder that freedom and justice has always been delayed for blacks.

A local supporter from Brunswick, Robert, joined us at the vigil and later back at our cozy converted garage for morning prayer. Afterwards, we all trooped back outside to paint rocks that Ken had gathered at the Swannanoa River in Western North Carolina and I had gathered at Lake Superior on our family vacation last year. Celenda, a local supporter in St Marys, just south of Brunswick and the town closest to Kings Bay Naval Base, told me on one of my earlier trips to south Georgia about Painted Rocks of St Marys. This popular project grew out of The Kindness Rock Project, whose goal is “to promote random acts of kindness to unsuspecting recipients by painting and dropping inspirational rocks.” We talked about out how we could help spread the good news of the Kings Bay Plowshares by painting rocks with peace symbols and hiding them in St Marys for “unsuspecting recipients” to find.

Encouraged by Steve Baggarly’s puns (“We’re off to a rocky start,” “Looks like we’ve hit rock bottom,” etc.) we spent a couple of hours painting the rocks with peace symbols and reminders to “love one another,” “end police brutality,” “disarm,” and “put away your Trident.” A neighbor across the street came over and joined us. She told us about her many concerning health issues and her new job, going door to door for A T & T. She showed us a video of her 6-year-old niece, a video that has gone viral. The child pleads for an end to the shooting, for an end to violence. After showing us the video she explained that her other niece, the little girl’s three-year old sister, had been killed in a drive-by shooting in Miami.

In the Gospel reading this morning Jesus says to the disciples, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you….” How can we possibly live out this Gospel in a society that has nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert aimed at our so-called enemies, a society that demonizes and imprisons people of color and poor people at unprecedented rates, a society in which a 3-year-old girl is shot and killed in her own front yard? I don’t exactly know the answer, but I think that Steve pointed me in the right direction when he said in our morning prayer that the bottom line is love.