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News from the Cooperative

In December Ched, on his way back from a Sojourners board meeting in Washington, DC, joined Elaine in Detroit for a couple of days of conversation with Bill Wylie-Kellermann and his daughters Lydia and Lucy about hospice with Jeanie (Bill and Jeanie pictured at right). Jeanie passed away on New Year’s Eve, after seven and a half- year struggle with brain cancer. Bill reports that the month-long community hospice effort was deeply moving and transforming.

Elaine, Peg and Ched were able to be present in Detroit for an amazing memorial service, where we witnessed an incredible outpouring of gifts of song, story, dance and memory. In a poignant moment, the healing quilt that had covered Jeanie was processed up to the altar, then recommissioned for our colleagues Kate Foran and Steve Borla, who are leaving their Word and World work to do hospice with Kate’s dad. This quilt has been used for hospice at the Los Angeles Catholic Worker since the early 1990s; we used it with Ladon Sheats in 2002; it later covered Phil Berrigan; and was ritually passed on to the Wylie Kellermann’s at the William Stringfellow conference last Fall. The quilt symbolizes how important the hospice journey has become in our circles, as we learn how to die as faithfully and humanly as we struggle to live. The Christmas break around was quiet, as we continue to work on the endless projects around the property. At last we got most of Ched’s books unpacked and writing spaces set up for winter. We are also finally getting started on what will be the long, tedious process of building a third residence on the community property. We were delighted to have the Boucher family, from our sister community Spiritus Christi in Rochester, here in Oak View for a visit over New Years upon their return from a family exposure trip to Tijuana.

Then in early January our community hosted the three day Word and World board meeting. Fifteen folks from around the country joined us, and this first event here at our new place was a resounding success! We used the local Community Center for meeting space, put folk up at our houses, with local friends and at the local motel, and even squeezed in a bonfire. Elaine was able to interview Rev. Nelson Johnson (below) for her and Ched’s upcoming book project on Restorative Justice. Gloria and Ross Kinsler hosted a Word and World house party around the same time, and helped with hospitality. Meantime, Gloria is hard at work translating Elsa Tamez’ latest book on I Timothy from Spanish.

We’ve been enjoying working with new colleague Matt Colwell, who among other tasks has gotten our website a much-needed revamping (we are still working on the updating). Matt traveled with Word & World interns Steve, Kate and Zac Moon and Christina Repoley up to the Bay area for a three day study seminar on the prophets with W&W faculty Norman Gottwald and Laurel Dykstra. In late January Matt joined Ched, Walter Wink, Pilar Aquino, David Korten, Larry Rasmussen, Olivia Ruiz, Gilberto Martinez and others for an ecumenical conference entitled “DEVELOPING HEARTS THAT YEARN FOR JUSTICE” in Tijuana. Matt is also working with Peg on the Sabbath Economics Collaborative’s upcoming June conference in Chicago on community investing, which will be an exciting joint venture with the Faith Traditions Group of the Social Investment Forum. We look forward to this summer when Peg moves to the Los Angeles area, so she can be closer!

Over the M.L. King holiday weekend Elaine & Ched and Eric, Alice & Liliana drove up to Santa Maria for our monthly community liturgy with Guadalupe Catholic Workers Dennis Apel, Tensie Hernandez and their children Rosella and Thomas. We all continue to pray for the four Christian Peacemaker Team hostages in Iraq, from whom no word has yet been heard as we near two months in captivity (at right, friend James Loney, one of the captives). We urge you to continue to hold them in the Light, and to check on them regularly here.

February 3-5 we hosted a BCIC planning retreat here at Oak View. Andy and Susan Loving (Louisville), John Parker (Durham), Rick Zemlin (D.C.), Barbara Zelter (Raleigh), and Doug Stelling (Vancouver BC) joined BCM board chair Rick Kidd, Ched, Elaine, Peg, and Matt to help us think through how we can deepen this work. Speaking of BCIC, here are some 2006 dates to note: 

March 11: BCIC Follow-Up local meeting with Peg Rosenkrands, Portland, OR.
June 22-25: BCIC Basic/Follow-Up Retreat with Peg Rosenkrands, Andy Loving and John Parker, Washington D.C.
Nov. 2-5: BCIC Basic Retreat with Ched Myers, Peg Rosenkrands, Steve and Christine Clemens, Circle Pines, MN.

See the full calendar posted on the Covenant Investment page. As always, contact Peg for more information.

View Ched Myers and Warren Cooper at the Washington National Cathedral!

In April Ched gave a talk at the WNC entitled "From Country Roads To Mean Streets... The Road to Emmaus," accompanied by jazz musician Warren Cooper. You can view it as a realtime video: click here. (Right, “Friend of the Humble,” Léon-Augustin L’hermitte, 1892.) You can find Ched's Fall speaking schedule here.

Bartimaeus Covenant Investor Community Update

The BCIC is an experiment in economic discipleship and relational giving, seeking to create and nurture a relationship between BCM’s capacity-building ministry and our supporters. We create and facilitate the time, space and resources for participants to make renewed commitments concerning their own household economics. In turn, we hope that participants will make a three year commitment to support our work. These four-day, high-commitment retreats offer a powerful process of biblical nourishment, economic analysis and practical resourcing. We work with a Sevenfold Covenant that focuses on issues of investment, debt, giving, work and Sabbath, consumption, solidarity and the environment. The BCIC process allows participants to assess and to examine how they can go deeper with practices of justice, sharing and sustainability. It also offers a vehicle for partnership and accountability.

We had four successful retreats (June 2-5 in Portland, and June 19-21 in Washington, DC, September 15-18 in western Massachusetts, October 28-31 in Rochester, NY). Contact Peg Rosenkrands if you want information.

For those looking for an excellent community development investment we recommend Oikocredit, an international, ecumenical organization whose director is a good friend of ours. "Oikocredit means believing that poor people can build themselves a better life if only given the chance, if only given credit." Many of us at BCM use Oikocredit, and encourage you to do the same. For more information, click here.

Word and World Update

We had a successful weekend conference on the work of William Stringfellow, October 6-9, 2005 in Minneapolis. Click here for more information. We are now preparing for the next school on July 22-29, 2006, in Memphis, TN, on the theme of "Faith and Labor." Contact Christina Repoley or Zac Moon or call (336) 230-0330 for more information.

Sabbath Economics Collaborative Update

Peg and Ched work closely with the SEC, a partnership project with colleagues around North America that helps resource education and action around issues of faith and economics from a Jubilee/Sabbath perspective. The SEC had its most recent regional meeting in San Diego, CA Nov 18-20, 2005. Some 40 folks gathered to hear keynote speakers and participate in workshops; many thanks for the hosting by Jubilee Economics Ministries.

SAVE THE DATES: June 1-3, 2006. We are excited that the SEC is partnering with the Social Investment Forum's Faith Traditions Working Group on a special conference entitled "MOVING MONEY FOR CHANGE: PUTTING CAPITAL TO WORK FOR JUSTICE," in Chicago, IL. The conference begins Thursday 2 p.m. and ends Saturday 5 p.m. Details of location, costs, and program are posted on the SEC website. Here is the conference description:

Vast financial resources are invested in the U.S. with little awareness of how that money might contribute to, or detract from, the common good. How can invested dollars promote justice, community, and economic opportunity for the poor, instead of being concentrated on Wall Street and making the rich richer? This conference will address this problem by examining how faith communities can become more aware and engaged in socially responsible investing, particularly as it relates to the growing strategic arena of “community investing.” The theologians, educators and activists of the SEC will join financial professionals of the SIF Faith Traditions working group and other interested persons to network, strategize and promote a message and vision of economic justice and the common good.

We will gather on the weekend that Christian churches celebrate Pentecost and Jewish synagogues celebrate Shavuot to explore these great faith traditions of economic justice and compassion. The conference will include in-depth conversation about the spiritual, philosophical and practical aspects of making surplus capital available to poor communities, both domestically and abroad, through community development financial institutions, micro-credit organizations, cooperatives and other strategies. A unique half-day exposure trip to ShoreBank, the country’s first and leading community development and conservation bank, will offer an opportunity to learn about this progressive model of community investment, followed by a visit to some Southside Chicago neighborhoods to hear stories of individuals and organizations that have benefited from ShoreBank’s practices. A variety of other sessions will focus on equipping and resourcing participants to further explore, engage and promote community investing.

Meantime, Ched's booklet, The Biblical Vision of Sabbath Economics, is still being widely used as a popular study guide (see our Resources webpage). Be sure and also look for Ulrich Duchrow's new book, Property for People, Not for Profit: Alternatives to the Global Tyranny of Capital (Zed, 2004), an important examination of the historical construction of our economy of possession.

Ched's reflections posted on the site

Click here to look at several recent articles by Ched:

"Rolling Away the Stone of Empire": Reflections on Good Friday and Easter, 2005
“Led by the Spirit into the wilderness…” Reflections on Lent, Jesus’ Temptations and Indigeneity (February, 2005)
“…to see what will become of his dream.” Martin and Jesus (Jan, 2005)
Same-Gender Marriage as a Theological/Ecclesial Issue: Reflections on Isaiah 56:1-8 (December, 2004)
Same-Gender Marriage as a Social Justice Issue: "Splitting the Difference?" (May, 2004)
Mel Gibson’s “Passion,” Anti-Semitism, and the Gospel: Mark’s Trial Narrative as Political Parody (April, 2004)
“'All the words of the scroll…' A Eulogy for Daniel Berrigan." From the Catholic Agitator, October, 2003
"Caretaking the Gift: A Journey of Hospice." From the Catholic Agitator, October 2002
"Conjuring Ground on Which the Future Might Stand" (Comments at Mary Ramerman's Ordination, Spiritus Christi church, November, 2001)
My Big Fat Letter to the IRS, outlining the theological and political rationale for my witness of War Tax Resistance

Thanks to the work of Australian friend Paul Dyson, you can also now download some of Ched's talks on various topics from this website.