Val Liveoak

Introduction

In 1983, a series of synchronistic events led me to join an Oxfam study tour to Sri Lanka. There we studied a large scale Gandhian organizing project called Sarvodaya Shramadana. This movement was strongly spiritually based, ecumenical but rooted in the Buddhism of the Sri Lankan majority. One book about it is subtitled "Religion as a Resource [in development]".

My response to the first days of the trip was overwhelmingly emotional (perhaps influenced by jet-lag)--I loved the country, the people, and Sarvodaya.

After ten wonderful days, however, the counry burst apart into violent battle between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils. Hundreds were killed, thousands displaced, and large sections of every village, town, and city were destroyed. Martial Law was declared with a 24 hour curfew.

During this tense time, we were offered a silent meditation retreat which was extended from one to three days. Sitting in silent contemplation was a profound contrast to the chaos and violence outside the Sarvodaya center gates. After the retreat ended we traveled through a number of villages where evidence of the rioting had left ugly scars. It was obvious that people had gone out, and with hand tools and molotov cocktails, burned out their neighbors and destroyed every third or fourth home, business or temple. In one bombed-out city neighborhood, men wandered sullenly through the ruined streets, and the palpable tension was identical to what I had experienced in U.S. cities after the racial riots of 1967 and 1968.

Before we left, we saw how Sarvodayans were sheltering the victims of the riots, often at great personal risk, and already beginning to plan ways to reduce the communal violence and build reconciliation on a village level. Seeing this response moved me deeply. I had witnessed a clear demonstration of the value of a deep spirituality in peacemaking work, and felt a strong call to develop my own spirituality in more concrete and conscious ways. I began to attend Friends Meeting within the year.

Over its 350+ years of history, the Peace Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends has taken many forms. Among them are resistance to war, militarism, conscription, military taxation and weapons production; attempts to build a "Peaceable Kingdom", and involvement in government; advocacy for reforms affecting marginalized groups within society (prisoners, slaves, the insane, people of color); spiritual development of inner tranquility and a sense of community with all people; and service work.

In this paper I will examine my experiences with some of the above expressions of the peace testimony, and suggest ways in which the Society can support and amplify its peace witness. I

I'm a member of the Baby Boom generation. Involvement with protest of the Viet Nam war was a major formative experience for me, as was a search for alternatives to my parents' way of life. My parents had experienced the Great Depression and World War II, and they seemed to place their faith in material things, denying the spiritual. Additionally, they accepted the Cold War concepts of deep mistrust of others, living as if they trusted only a very few people. At the same time, they seemed to accept everything our culture and the government mandated, from racism to consumerism to militarism. Their idea of the good life was unfulfilling to me as an idealistic adolescent. I later recognized that they were alcoholics, and now know that denial and dysfunctional thinking distorted their sense of reality.

I have also been a seeker of God for all of my life. There's a Quaker outreach ad that says, "Are you a Quaker and don't know it yet?", and that idea applies to my spiritual journey before I became a Friend. My parents allowed me to develop my spirituality, but they weren't encouraging--on my own I attended a number of churches, depending on neighbors for rides.

Even as a small child, though, I had a sense of God's presence and a strong sense of fairness and outrage at injustice. Questioning authority was punished in my family, but nevertheless I learned to do it, almost reflexively.

My first personal experience of a sense of injustice that extended beyond my own rights or privileges took place when my family lived on Guam. In our school the main division was "Statesiders" vs. "Guamanians". To some extent these divisions were on racial lines. They also reflected cultural, linguistic and economic differences: Statesiders, while of various racial and ethnic backgrounds, spoke English, mostly lived in military housing, and were better off than the Guamanians. Their first language was Chamorro, they lived in what we called villages, and their economic status was generally lower than ours. Although village life involved a well developed culture, no Statesiders whom I knew participated in it. My friends were mostly Statesiders and I never socialized with Guamanians outside of school.

In ninth grade, our student council debated whether students should speak Chamorro at school. I was in favor of prohibiting it. A self-important adolescent, I was a member of the top class in a brand new school, and a high achiever. As a member of the student council, setting rules for the first time, I enjoyed the sense of power.

While I could argue about the importance of learning proper English, my motivation had more to do with exerting power, and responding to the hurt I'd sometimes felt when excluded from conversations in a language I didn't understand. Looking back, I realize I also need to examine myself for racism and a desire for cultural dominance.

The debate spilled over into a Civics class, where one Guamanian friend said "You are right. This is a stupid, poorly developed language, and we shouldn't speak it."

At that moment I had a powerful intuition that I was wrong, and that my friend was wrong, to repudiate and insult his mother tongue. A few days later, another friend pointed out that my best friend and I had developed and frequently used a code language of our own that excluded everyone else.

From these experiences I learned a little about empathy and important lessons about how painful cultural domination is. I learned a greater appreciation of diversity at a time when skin color, language, culture and class divided almost everyone I knew. I began to see Guamanians as "like me", despite our differences.

My sympathy for whomever I perceived to be the underdog continued, although I had no support or models for acting on it. (I wish I had been a Quaker then!) Hence, although I keenly felt the rightness of the Civil Rights movement, I didn't participate. As a college student in the mid-60's, I did volunteer work with underprivileged children of color, and began to become politicized, but it was not until 1972 that I became an anti-war activist and a feminist. Politically, I slowly moved from liberal to radical. As my political awareness grew, I became alienated from churches that seemed not to be addressing the justice issues in which I became very active.

I began learning more about nonviolence through my protest activities. Nonviolence always seemed to me a spiritual discipline, and its study and practice in a sense became my religion. I could not have remained committed to nonviolence without some kind of a deep belief. My faith grew from my practice and my practice was inspired by my faith. I was still not a Quaker, but moving closer all the time.

When the Oxfam trip to Sri Lanka came along, I had become a nurse (after receiving a BA in History). Working at a number of jobs, many of them associated with the Co-op movement or community health care, I developed a great interest in the empowerment process. As an activist in the counterculture scene in Austin, Texas in the '70's, I worked on organizing communal households, setting up a socialist school and free university, fundraising for alternative organizations, and peace and justice activities. In the `80's I became active in both the Democratic and Democratic Socialist Parties and was an officer in my union. I was a divorced mother of a young adolescent son.

My nursing work became increasingly well-paid, and I was buying a house, a new car, and other appurtenances of middle class life. But I was discontent, feeling trapped by my increasing consumerism (it's hard work to spend responsibly!) and my debts. Further, working in a large institution I felt spiritually and emotionally isolated.