Weddings and loose ends

I'm writing this from Kigali, Rwanda, where I've just arrived to assess HIV/AIDS projects for my charity NPC. I'm here until Saturday then driving down to Burundi (avoiding interahamwe and other rebels on route) for another six days research. This trip is hectically sandwiched between two weddings in England. I arrive back in London at 6am on the 24th and head straight to the wedding of my oldest friends Anne Westmacott, and the evening before I flew out here was the wedding of an Iraqi friend Hussein.

Hussein and Ghida's wedding reception was the most oppulant I've ever attended, or am likely to attend! It was in the Royal Counts of Justice in London, in a giant hall seating at least 500 people. All the great and the good of anglo-iraqi society were there, and at one point I even found myself bopping on the dance floor to an Amr Diab song alongside the lawyer who is organisings Saddam's criminal tribunal. It was wonderful meeting Hussein's friends from school and university, as I've only seen a small section of his life in the year we've known each other. One of them commented, and this is spot on, that H manages to make everyone in the room feel special, and that was demonstrated as he floated around arm in arm with Ghida greeting everyone. Brides are traditionally radiant, but Ghida really took it to a new level - the photos I have of them dancing together look like the must be scenes from a Hollywood film. I also had the surprise of bumping into another Iraqi friend who, unbeknown to me, had also got married that same day.

I'll post of some more in a few days about my impressions of Burundi and Rwanda. Before I sign off I better tie up a few loose ends, having not posted for quite a while. I mentioned, regarding my trip to the Congo a couple of months ago, that I'd been asked to carry over a "package" from the Ambassador in Britain the Foreign Minister. Various concerned friends had emailed to ask about my smuggling activities, and I have to admit that the package turned out to be a perfectly boring (but very heavy!) box of A3 paper and envelopes - clearly in short supply over in Kinshasa. So I'm not on the run from Interpol... yet. I should have really posted more about Kinshasa, but it took time to digest and I was really busy in May and June (excuses excuses). But grab me sometime and I'd be delighted to chat with you about the disco dancing funeral processions, the brightly coloured shops with names like "The Love and Blessing of God Grocery", canoing on the mightly Congo river, the sharp division of society into two rival groups - those who drink Skol and those who drink Primus beer - and many other things.

The other bit of news from the last month is that Jubilee Iraq has recived a grant from George Soros' Open Society Insitute, which will enable us to hire an Iraqi out in Baghdad to take the campaign forward there over the next few critical months. I'd hoped to go out there in June to recruit someone, but planning for this Africa trip meant I wasn't able to take of any holiday time from my day job, but I'm hoping to get over in August. It's been far too long, almost a year, since i was last out there and my heart strings get jerked with the news each day. Inshallah (providing NPC can get funding for this) I'll be over there for an extended period towards the end of this year, begining of next, catalysing support and funding for Iraqi civil society.

In memory of Nabil

I've just learnt that an Iraqi friend, visiting his family after decades in exile, has been killed by American soldiers. I don't have any more details at the moment.

Nabil was one of the most vibrant enthusiastic people I've ever met. He lived for many years in Switzerland, and was the cornerstone of our Jubilee Iraq demonstration against the UNCC reparations in Geneva in March.

He arranged to meet us in Geneva station, with the instruction to look out for his berret. I think Fay and myself spooked a couple of berret-wearing Swiss men as we stared at them and tryed to figure out if one of them could possibly be an Iraqi. But when Nabil arrived he was very clearly different - unfortunately I don't have a photo of the trademark berret, but the grin you can see here is equally distinctive. He was the sort of guy you can't help but warm to instantly: bright and bubbly, but also passionate and dedicated in campaigning for justice. I simply cannot conceptualise how a soldier can have imagined him to have been threatening enough to kill.

I don't feel able to write more now, but may do later. For me this obviously brings home the reality of the war. Those cold bodycount statistics (now exceeding 10,000) each represent a real person just as unique and precious as Nabil. I had been wondering whether or not to arrange a another demonstration at the end of June when the UNCC next meets (incidentally on the eve of the transition) to award yet more reparations against Iraq because of Saddam's crimes, and in fact I would probably have been emailing Nabil next week to discuss it. Now I am convinced the demonstration must go ahead as he would have wanted.

I pray for Nabil's family and friends in their grief, and I pray that Iraq may soon become the free, just and peaceful country that he longed and strived for.

[update] I've just recieved more information. Nabil was killed in the controversial strike on the wedding party near the Syrian border. It has not been widely reported that the planes also bombed all of the cars along that stretch of the road to Syria. Nabil was in one of them, on his way back to Switzerland. His elderly father had to go searching and found his still unidentified body in a hospital nearby.

Nabil was a Swiss citizen, and I hope the Swiss government will take a stand on his killing.

I, Robot and the purpose of life

There are some things buzzing in my head which I'm going to spit out and see if they make any sense. I've just got back from my first time in over a year at a home group (a few people from church who meet each week for fellowship and prayer). It reminded me that the christian life is meant to be lived as part of a community, and made me realise just how self-centred I've become

A lot of people think I'm a very decent and altruistic kind of guy. I've just got back from the Congo doing work on AIDS for a charity and I spend a lot of my free time campaigning on Iraq. Sure, there is an aspect of me that really wants to help people, but the truth is that I spend the vast majority of my time and energy thinking about ME and what I WANT. In fact I'm reasonably sure that I'm more self-focused now than at any point in my life, certainly since I was transformed by Jesus almost a decade ago.

I write a blog for goodness sake! Keeping a diary is one thing, but posting it online and assuming that it's worth YOUR time reading my ramblings is very egoistic. (who are you guys anyway? This blog gets about 50 visitors a day, so not Salam Pax or Instapundit (thankfully), but still considerably more than the number of people I talk to physically each week. And I can tell from some of the search engine terms used to get here that you're an interesting bunch.)

I'm trying to figure out why I've become so self-centred in order to decide what to do about it.

Certainly I've had a pretty rough time over the last few years (though not a touch on people I've met in Iraq, Congo and many here in Britain), with redundancy from a dream job, a long period of unemployment, a broken heart etc. etc. But I think the main thing which has contributed to my selfishness is a loss of regular christian fellowship. Although I have lots of friends scattered around London, it's hard to be part of a close-knit community here. So for almost three years I haven't had people to be accountable to and to pray with regularly; to share their concerns on my shoulders as well as receiving their support for me. As a result I have grown increasingly lonely and have retreated into my own head and even away from God. I think this drift self-centredness is what the Bible calls our "sinful nature", and we all have a tendency to do it unless we keep focused on God and have the support of a community.

The home group I've just joined is about to start studying together a book called "The Purpose Driven Life", and I read the first chapter on the tube home this evening. The opening paragraph is very relevant to the issue I'm blabbering about:

"It's not about you. The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It's far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose... You could reach all your personal goals and become a raving success by the world's standard, and still miss the purposes for which God created you. You need more than self help advice."

I'm now going to make an apparently random connection with the other book I have on the go at the moment, a collection of early science fiction stories by the late great Isaac Asimov He coined the term 'robotics' back in the early 1940s and in a series of stories laid down the classic three laws of robotics:

(1) A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
(2) A robot must obey the orders given to it be human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
(3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection down not conflict with the First or Second Law.

This laws are embedded deep within Asimov's robots and as a result, in the words of Asimov's robopsychologist Susan Calvin, in stark comparison to most humans, "robots are essentially decent... The three Rules of Robotics are the essential guiding principles of a good many of the world's ethical systems... you can't differentiate between [the actions of] a robot and [those of] the very best of humans."

Asimov's robots *have to* follow ethical rules and serve the interests of their human creators, in fact they will shut down before violating one of the three laws. Like the robots, God has programmed us with ethical rules - our consciences - something demonstrated by the similarity of the core values of most religions and philosophies. However, unlike the robots, we are not forced to obey. We can chose to disobey our Creator and act against his purposes, and we've been doing just that since Adam & Eve.

Instead of creating us as robots, God has given us free will and hence the opportunity to obey him out of love rather than robotic requirement. As Jesus told his disciples at the Last Supper:

"If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching... I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. My command is this: love each other as I have loved you." (John 14.23, 15.11-12)

I think I've figured out the theory, but putting it into practice is another thing. I'd really appreciate your prayers that I move away from my current self-centredness and really pour my energy into obeying God through loving my fellow humans.

Smuggling up the Congo

My friends may not be surprised, given that I seem to be drawn to warzones like a moth to flame, to learn that in 48hr time I will be touching down in the Democratic Republic of Congo. What I suspect will surprise them is that on this trip I will be smuggling contraband goods, in fact smuggling them for the Congolese government itself.

I am currently in my flat in central London awaiting a phone call from the Congolese Ambassador to inform me off the pickup instructions. I am then to collect a mysterious sealed box which I have been told to deliver at precisely 11am on Tuesday into the hands of the Foreign Minister in Kinshasa. I have no idea what the box will contain. It might be fairly standard merchandise such as trafficked human organs, drugs or non-sequential dollar bills. It could however be something slightly more exotic, such as the design blueprints for a nuclear weapon, or evidence linking political enemies with the missile attack in 1994 which destroyed the plane carrying the Rwandan and Burundian Presidents and sparked a decade of genocide and war in the region.

The official description which the Ambassador gave me yesterday, when he persuaded me to make the delivery (in return for getting a visa at short notice without all the officially required documentation), was that the box contains "headed stationary". So perhaps the truth of this little anecdote is merely that President Major General Joseph Kabila has a predilection for the kind of high quality scented letter writing paper that can only be bought from certain shops located on London's Bond Street... surely that's the most plausible explanation, isn't it?

My trip to Congo, by the way, is part of the work I'm doing on HIV/AIDS in the region. I'm just going to be in the capital for a week on this occasion, but will hopefully spend most of July visiting AIDS projects out in the eastern part of the country around lake Kivu, and also in Rwanda and Burundi. As a side line while I'm there, I'm hoping to solve one of the last remaining puzzles of African geography by discovering the source of Um Bongo .

The truth about Falluja

Reports suggest that at least 600 Iraqis have been killed and over 1000 injured in Falluja. Most of the UK media has repeated uncritically the US story that those all killed are "insurregents" but my friend Jo Wilding, who is taking a circus around schools in Iraq, spent the weekend working with ambulances in Falluja and tells a very different story: "The satellite news says the cease-fire is holding and George Bush says to the troops on Easter Sunday that, "I know what we're doing in Iraq is right." Shooting unarmed men in the back outside their family home is right. Shooting grandmothers with white flags is right? Shooting at women and children who are fleeing their homes is right? Firing at ambulances is right? Well George, I know too now. I know what it looks like when you brutalise people so much that they've nothing left to lose." (read more from her).

I feel so helpless here in the UK. Rationally I can argue to myself that I may be able contribute more to Iraq by working on long term issues such as debt through Jubilee Iraq, but my heart says I should be out there now like Jo standing alongside Iraqis and using my white skin, blond hair and english accent to try and protect the innocent and the wounded, assuming I could summon up a fraction of the courage that she and many brave Iraqis have.

Following on from my post on Easter Sunday, a story of solidarity from Iraqi newspaper Azzaman which reported that Iraqi Christians did not celebrate Easter in the normal way this year. They only went to church, prayed, and asked the Lord to end this distress. Instead of visiting relatives and friends, as is common on Easter, they went to health centres to donate blood. Najat Yousif Hanna said "How can we celebrate while our brothers in Fallujah, Karbala, Najaf, and other cities are suffering and bleeding."

Karbala and Calvary

I've long been intrigued by the Shi'ite understanding of the martyrdom (shahada in Arabic) of Mohammed's descendents, particularly that of Imam Husayn at Karbala. Husayn had been promised the caliphate (leadership of the Islamic community) after Caliph Mu'awiyya, however when Mu'awiyya died in AH61 (AD680), his son Yazid seized power and wiped out Husayn’s tiny army at Karbala on Ashura, the 10th day of Muharram.

This year is particularly poignant because as pilgrims gathered at Karbala to commemorate Ashura, hundreds were killed in terrorist attacks. Also the Arba’in (the 40th day after Ashura), which marks the end of the period of mourning both for Husayn and for the Iraqis killed by terrorists, falls today - Easter Sunday, which for Christians ends the period of mourning for Jesus, being the day of his resurrection. This coincidence of dates provides an opportunity to consider the concepts of martyrdom in the two faiths.

Others have noted the similarities. Sayyed Farqat Al Qizwini, Director of Relgious Studies at Hilla University says that "Imam Hussein sacrificed himself for human beings, justice, freedom, and peace on Earth -- just like Jesus Christ did for the same reasons." Anglican vicar Ray Gaston from Leeds gave a lecture at Karbala University, this year with his own reflections on how, as a Christian, he is inspired by the story of Imam Hussein.

What strikes me most powerfully is that both Ashura and Good Friday are considered to have cosmic significance and an empathetic quality. Husayn's descendent Imam Ja'far ibn Muhammad as-Sadiq famously said that "Kullo yawm'in Ashura, kullo ardh'in Karbala" which means "Every day is Ashura and every place is Karbala". The injustice and suffering experienced by Husayn at Karbala resonates in every instance of injustice and suffering, and can comfort and inspire the victims. Ghandi said “I have learnt from Husayn how to be oppressed yet victorious.” The resonance is particularly strong for Iraqis at the moment who have been suffering so much for so long, and are able to celebrate in public for the first time in 25 years. Channel 4 produced an excellent documentary tracing British pilgrims going to Karbala, and the website contains some quotes from pilgrims about "what Muharram means to me."

Jesus, like Husayn, willingly suffered an unjust death which appeared to be a defeat but was in fact a great victory over evil that brings comfort and inspiration to the oppressed today. So Christians might say in parallel that "Every day is Good Friday and every place is Calvary.”

Just as Ashura has resonance for every time and place, so many Muslims attempt to express their grief and share in Husayn’s sufferings through self-flagellation. There are also Christians groups who practice self-flagellation. While this practice is not mentioned in the Bible, self-denial and a willingness to endure suffering certainly is. Jesus said that anyone who wanted to be his disciple “must deny himself and take up his cross daily”, while Paul talked about “the fellowship of sharing in Christ’s sufferings”, and Peter even enjoined persecuted believers to “rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ.” The Shia have always been persecuted, with the first 11 Imams all being martyred, and so have faithful Christians: all of Jesus’ apostles were martyred along with a large proportion of believers over the first three centuries under the Roman empire. The presecution continues today and it has been estimated that more Christians were martyred in the 20th century than in the previous 19 combined.

There are differences in the two martyrdoms. Husayn’s death on the battlefield was honourable, as he himself said it is “better die with honour than live in shame.” Jesus’ death however was an inherently shameful way to die (as Mel Gibson’s film The Passion powerfully depicts): he was flogged, spat on, mocked and nailed to a cross. Another difference is that while Ashura is a time for tears, Christians actually rejoice and call the day of the crucifixion Good Friday not Bad Friday.

The differences related to an underlying difference in theology. Christians believe that Jesus’ death was redemptive, that he lovingly chose to take upon himself the burden of human sin and shame in order to offer people the opportunity of forgiveness through repentance and trust in him. Isaiah had prophesied 600 years before: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” And the Apostle Peter wrote: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the Cross… once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God.”

Some Shia do seem to understand Husayn’s death in a redemptive way, for example Martyr Murtada Mutahhari writes “Imam Husayn… has insured us against the consequences of sin in return for our tears. All that we have to do is to shed tears for him and in return he guarantees immunity to the sinners.” However mainstream Islamic thought has generally rejected the idea of redemptive sacrifice. For example Imam Sa’dullah Khan, director of Muslim affairs at the University of Southern California, writes: “Muslims do not believe that another person can die to atone for the sins of human beings. Atonement for sins comes from sincere repentance of one’s wrongdoings, and salvation lies in submission to the commands of Allah and doing righteous deeds.” This is a soteriology (theory of salvation) based on good works, in contrast to the Christian soteriology of salvation through grace ("it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith... not by works, so that you can't boast").

With regard to Jesus’s crucifixion, some Muslims such as the apologist Ahmed Deedat argue that he did not die on the cross since, without the notation of redemptive sacrifice, that unjust death would imply that his mission had failed. One common theory is that he was teleported from the Cross and replaced with someone else (usually given as Judas) who died in his place. The Qu’ran does not contain this story, and some argue that the substitution theory comes from a misunderstanding of Sura 4.157-8 (which rebukes some Jews who were apparently boasting about killing Jesus) and that when it is read in the context of Sura 3.54 ("O Jesus, I will cause thee to die and exalt thee in My presence") the Qu’ran is actually in harmony with the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion.

This is an area of intense speculation and controversy which I need to research more, as I believe that many theological disputes between Christians and Muslims result from misunderstanding on both sides accentuated by centuries of conflict. As Muslims and Christians come to understand each other's faith from the perspective of individuals' heart-beliefs and experience, they realise that there is a great deal more commonality than they might expect. This is not to imply relativism or pluralism - there are indeed important theological differences between the two faiths - but God is much bigger than any human theology and reaches out in love to all people irrespective of their background and beliefs.

Self-sacrifice in the face of injustice is at the heart of both Karbala and Calvary, and it is this kind of loving self-sacrifice from Muslims and Christians working together which can build a peaceful and prosperous future for Iraq in the face of enourmous injustices.

International voting in the US Presidential election

An idea I've been mulling over for a while is to set up mock elections around the world to coincide with the US Presidential elections, since these arguably have more bearing on many of us than our own domestic elections. It seems that someone else has had the same idea, and there's now a website where you can cast your vote for the three main candidates. So far about 3000 votes have been cast, and Ralph Nader is narrowly ahead of John Kerry. The results are broken down by country, so you can see that twice as many Austalians favour Kerry over Nader, while in New Zealand the reverse is true. Interestingly the Netherlands is the only country which seems to have a sizable minority (22%) who favour George Bush.

Epiphany on the Central Line

Do you ever find yourself assessing people on the Tube? Yestarday I was standing in a crammed carriage and found myself unconsiously passing the time by inspecting my fellow passangers. It's the shallowest kind of judgement, deciding whether someone looks interesting or attractive based on a few seconds glance in a sweaty train. Most of the people around me looked depressing, ugly and smelly (as I'm sure I appeared to them). No one's at their best on the Tube, but some people look particularly repelant (and other passangers edge away from them, not wanting to be squeezed up with against an Arsenal supporter reeking of lager or an obesse American tourist) while once every few days, among the thousands of people one passes, there is the flash of an angelic face, seemingly untainted by the London grime, which causes one to gasp and almost miss a stop.

Then it struck me. Looking around at all those depressing and ugly faces of my fellow commuters - God loves them.

Not in some sort of general philosophical way (love is an attribute of the divine nature) but in an intense and individual way. Mel Gibson's controversial new film The Passion covers the most extreme expression of this love - that God "became nothing, taking the very nature of a servant" and chose to bear immense suffering to wipe away our sins. But God's love is also revealed in more tender ways. The Bible says that he counts the numbers of hairs on each of our heads (the sort of thing lovers might do as they are wrapped in each other's embrace) and that he even sings love songs about us! [Phil.2.7, Matt.10.30 and Zeph.3.17]

I've known this all for many years, but occassionally it strikes me at a particular moment in a profound way. And that's what happened yestarday on the Central line between Oxford Circus and Bond Street!

I've just watched the DVD of "Bruce Almighty" the rather mediocre Jim Carrey film in which a very self-centred TV reporter is given God's power for a week. The film is not very theologically sound of course, but I rather like Morgan Freeman's representation of God as a wise-cracking cleaner. It captures two characteristics of God - the way he humbles himself in order to relate to humans and the deep love he has even for Carrey's spoilt and irritating character.

Nonviolent muslims and Bollywood stars

I'm reading a really inspiring book "Nonviolent Soldier of Islam" about Badshah Khan, Ghandi's contemporary in the North Western Frontier province (now the Afghan/Pakistan border). He transformed a hundred thousand Pathans, renowned for their blood feuds and fierceness as warriors, into a nonviolent satyagraha force (the Khudai Khimatgars = "Servants of God") who contributed a great deal to the end of the British Raj. Here is a quote:

"There is nothing surprising in a Muslim or a Pathan like me subscribing to the creed of nonviolence. It is not a new creed. It was followed 1400 years ago by the Prophet all the time he was in Mecca, and it has since been followed by all those who wanted to throw of an oppressor's yoke."

It would be wonderful if this example of effective Islamic nonviolent resistance could inspire people in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. If anyone has any ideas on how to go about doing this then please do get in touch.

Lots happening with Jubilee Iraq over then next fortnight: A demonstration in Geneva against the reparations Iraq is paying, a conference on Saddam's odious debt in Berlin hosted by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and then a meeting in Vienna with Austrian MPs. Alongside this I'm writing articles, putting together a report for Iraqi politicians, failing to control my bursting inbox... as well as doing my day job and trying to keep some contact with my friends and family.

Just discovered that a friend from university, Soha Ali Khan, has become a rising star of the Bollywood film industry! She has two (!) films under production and when I Googled for her I found over a thousand articles, mainly from the last few months, in english alone! Her forthcoming films are "Yeh Dil Maange More" and "Mohabbat Ki Kii Kiii" which is apparently a "breezy romantic comedy depicting three phases of love directed by Ananth Narayan". Here's an early interview and a more recent one. Here are some photos. Also turns out one of the stars of my favourite Bollywood fic Dil Chahta Hai is Soha's brother Saif.

I wonder which of our Balliol colleagues will be next on the big screen? Will Adi McGowan quit his job as a Vice-President at Deutsche Bank and become the next James Bond? Will Mike Follett soon eclipse Hugh Grant in trans-Atlantic romantic comedies? What about John Riordan in Dennis Hoper style bad-guy roles? All of this will be meaningless of course to most of the readers of this blog.

SPEAK against the arms trade

Today I participated in an inspiring prayer and protest action against the arms trade. About 400 young people from SPEAK gathered at the Defence Export Service Organisation to repent of our nation's involvement in the arms trade and pray for its abolishment. DESO is funded with £16m a year of British taxpayers money and exists to push the arms trade, often to poor countries and oppressive regimes.

(see my photos from the event - they're not great unfortunately because I was in the thick of it).

The day began in nearby Bloomsberry Baptist Church for teaching and prayer. We then walked to DESO in a silent funeral procession. On the way a guy in the top floor of a building we passedspontaneouslyy stuck his head out and added some beautiful mournful harmonica music to the slow drum beat at the head of the procession. A mock World War 1 trench had been constructed in the road opposite DESO, to symbolise the horror and pointlessness of war, and we all descended into the trench. The trench also represented the "gap"referredd to in Ezekiel "The people of the land practiceextraordinaryn and commit robbery; they oppress the poor and needy and mistreat the foreigner, denying them justice. I looked for a man among them who would stand before me in the gap onbehalfd of the land so I would not have to destroy it." (Ezekiel.22.29-30) The gap of sinfulnessseparatingg God and people has been bridged by Jesus'sacrificiall death.

The main action began with a drama about the lies of the arms trade (it brings security, it is essential to our economy etc.) and using the light of God's word to reveal them as falsehoods. Next we all participated in a liturgy of repentance for the sins of our nations, involving reflection on the terrible facts about the arms trade and confession on behalf of ourselves and our nation.

(some extracts)

"We pray for those who are starving whilst their leaders buy more weapons. We pray for those trapped in a land full of war. We pray for child soldiers who have never had childhoods... Set us all free God"

"In permitting the continuation of this brutal trade: Lord we have sinned.Inn our worship of money and materialism: Lord we have sinned. In walking past on the other side: Lord we have sinned. In failing to pray for change: Lord we have sinned. In our unjust colonial history: Lord we have sinned...."

After the litugy we all shared communion. By this stage we were freezing from kneeling on concrete on a cold, rainy February day - but it was appropriate that our repentance for the arms trade involved discomfort. As you'll see from the photos, we were kneeling in quite a disordered way, and could learn a lot from muslim friends about how to organise into neat ranks. As Christians we need to rediscover communal prayer involving kneeling and prostration which was common in the early church - in fact in many ways the style of Islamic prayer would be very familiar to early Christians.

Next we prayed for strength to bring about change and advocate for the rights of the poor. Here we tied messages calling for an end to government support for the arms to daffodils (representing the alternative to war: life) which were handed into DESO. We ended the day with drumming and song in praise of God's love and justice.