Olive Branch Interfaith Peace Partnership

If you have clikced on the donation link on the left side of our web site recently, you may have noticed that the donation form was broken! We apologize for this problem, and have now set up an improved donation form where you can easily make an online donation of any size to help sustain our interfaith peacework.

I hope you will consider making a contribution, even if it is just $10, to show that there is a real need for this effort and that there is a strong community backing it up. Thank you for your patience and support!

The need for real dialog, candid debate, and mutual respect among various faith traditions is central to bridging the widening gap between religions at home and aboard. The claim that peace sits at the center of the Abrahamic faiths begins by "walking together" in the quest for justice. For five years, a group of faithful folks have walked together in Philadelphia, PA. On May 18th, they will continue to make the road of hope, peace and justice by walking to a Christian Church, Unitarian gathering place, a mosque, and synagogue. Please join them. For more information go to: www.interfaithpeacewalk.org

Walk together children and don't you get weary.
There is a great camp meeting in the Promised Land
- Negro Spiritual

Join us for Spiritual Activism Training May 23-26

Spend Memorial Day Weekend in DC meeting other spiritual progressives and learning skills and strategies to shift our culture from domination and control to open-heartedness and generosity!

More at: http://www.spiritualprogressives.org/article.php?story=20080227150951162

To see a 4 minute video I did on the Global Marshall Plan, please visit: http://www.youtube.com/nspdavid

On April 9th, 1968, thousands gathered at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA to bid farewell to the American prophet, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A teaming sea of folks from every hue and class came to bear witness to the non-violent preacher killed by an assassin's bullet. In our archives at the Fellowship of Reconciliation, we have the membership card of Dr. King.

Yes, Dr. King was a card carrying member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. FOR supported the work of the civil rights movement. FOR staffer and organizer par excellence Bayard Rustin was dispatched to Montgomery in 1955 to assist in the development of a movement that would combine Gandhian Nonviolence and Black Social Protest. This combination was for Rustin like jazz.

Below please find a brief report from a member of the Network of Spiritual Progressives about last week's events.

The rally was powerful from beginning to end, with all the speakers and then the prayer circle, first outside and ultimately inside the Hart Senate Building. I've participated in several peace rallies but this was the first one I felt really reached some of the key people that need to hear our pleas, our songs and prayers.

Here are some photos from last Thursday and Friday. Most are by me, but other folks can tag their pictures OBIPP in Flickr to be added to thhis slideshow. You can also browse the images here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/obipp/

Here are some articles about last week's events in DC:

• South Bend Tribune: Local peace witnesses headed to Washington
  
• Examiner.com: Baltimoreans go to D.C. to call for end to Iraq war
  
• Richmond Times-Dispatch: Activists fighting for peace
  
• Tennesseean: Vigil calls for prayers to end war in Iraq

This morning I attended a training on nonviolent civil disobedience and got to know a few dozen of the hundreds of other people here for today's Interfaith Peace Witness. It looks like there is a group of about 50 or more who are planning to get arrested this afternoon. I've decided not to join in them in that act, which leaves me all the more impressed with their sacrifice. I will take as many pictures as I can of the action and will post them at http://flickr.com/photos/forpeace

If you want to post your own updates from Washington, DC or your own peace witnesses wherever you are, check out http://olivebranchinterfaith.org/community-updates and follow the instructions there.

Today dozens of volunteers worked to assemble thousands of peices of fabric that were contributed by peace activists from aruond the country. More photos will be posted later, here is a small video I made with my phone of just a small part of the Rope of Hope.