Archive for 'Blog'
Nationwide Nonviolence Tour: Wayne State University
Posted on 11. Oct, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
Day Eight: “[It is] a sight which will remain with me for the rest of my life – with the frigate in the background, two gunboats, two landing craft and four high powered ribs spread out in a semi-circle speeding towards us. . . . ” With these words we find out what has become of Yonatan Shapira (a subject of the doumentary) on the catamaran trying to bring humanitarian aid past the Gaza blockade. After boarding the Irene, “The senior officer . . . placed a Tazer gun in contact with his clothing and fired it directly into his heart. Yonatan let out a dreadful scream and the force of the Tazer caused him to lose control of his muscles.” Thus begins the second week of our nonviolence tour.
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Nationwide Nonviolence Tour: De Paul University, Chicago
Posted on 10. Oct, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
Day Seven: Yesterday, Elik Elhanan, whose sister was killed by a suicide bomber, informs me that the commandment most frequently repeated in the Old Testament is to provide hospitality to the stranger. Interestingly, it is a divine command that compels Elik the atheist to resist the inhospitality exhibited by the Israelis to thousands of Palestinian “strangers.” Yet, millions of theists turn a blind eye to this injustice against those whom the biblical commands us to love. It is the atheist who is getting it right and we purported Christians who blithely keep getting it wrong. The irony is almost too heavy to bear.
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Nationwide Nonviolence Tour: Host Lynne Hybels
Posted on 09. Oct, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
Day Six: Lynne Hybels, wife of Willow Creek pastor, Bill Hybels, invited us to join about 30 close friends and church leaders in her home. Looking at Sami Awad, to her right, she tells the group in her living room, “I want to introduce you to my hero.” This is real. You can feel it in her tone and see it in her eyes. After spending a week with him, I understand what she is saying. It’s not every day you hang out with a man who stands in front of tanks and bulldozers with nothing in his hands but faith, hope and love.
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Nationwide Nonviolence Tour: The National Cathedral, Washington D.C.
Posted on 05. Oct, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
Day Five: The National Cathedral is as large as it is impressive. I try to get a picture with my I-phone and I find it is impossible to get the entire building in the frame. It is the sixth biggest cathedral in the world after all. At 6:00pm Perry Auditorium, the dark, thick-beamed room fills up quickly. It becomes evident that extra seats will be required. Soon there are at least 200 and the room has reached its maximum occupancy.There is a buzzing of expectant voices. Lots of very influential Israeli/Palestinian activists. This is one of the most interested audiences to date, it is certainly the largest.
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Nationwide Nonviolence Tour: National Press Club and Georgetown U.
Posted on 05. Oct, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
Day Four: We have driven through the night from New York City and arrive at our hotel in Arlington, Virginia at around 3:00am. Not the most pleasant hour to arrive in a new town. The air conditioning on the bus was set on maximum overdrive and I had nothing with which to ward off the persistent gales of hyper-cooled air. Not a whole lot of rest this trip. What is worse, we have all of 3 hours before we need to rouse ourselves and put on our “game gear” to travel across town to the National Press Club in Washington, D. C. so Sami Awad can be interviewed by the Middle East Broadcasting Corp.
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Nationwide Nonviolence Tour: New York–Riverside Theater
Posted on 26. Sep, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
Day Three: One thing I love about Elik is that he does not mince words. He is passionate, bold and fiery—like King David. He uses provocative language that makes you sit up, sometimes just a little uncomfortably, and then hits you with a series of rhetorical hard lefts and rights, but combines them with a disarming sense of humor. He is immensely quotable. He urges the students to join the marches opposing the occupation–there is a very pragmatic reason for this: “When whites and internationals join us, the military does not shoot live bullets.”
Yup, sign me up, the coward in me muses.
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Nationwide Nonviolence Tour: Brown University
Posted on 26. Sep, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
Day Two: Tonight we are joined by Teny Gross, the Director of the Institute for the Study and Practice of Non Violence in Providence, Rhode Island. He is a former Israeli army sergeant. Elik Elhanan is the other new member of the panel. He is a co-founder of Combatants for Peace an organization of former Israeli and Palestinian fighters who have laid down their weapons to seek a nonviolent resolution to the crisis in their homelands. His perspecive is very personal. since he lost his 14-year-old sister to a suicide bomber while serving in the Israeli army. He illustrates the necessity for understanding and forgiveness as the foundation for peace in the Middle East.
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Nationwide Screening Tour of Little Town of Bethlehem: Boston College
Posted on 25. Sep, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
There is a sense of excitement and anciticipation. It is day one of EthnoGraphic Media’s (EGM) 12-day launch tour of its new film Little Town of Bethlehem. This premiere on September 21, 2010 was scheduled to coincide with the United Nation’s International Day of Peace. I am on bus with a team whose members have flown in from across the U.S. (California to Washington D.C.). We are joined by a film crew from Dot & Cross, and a photographer to document the trip. This ground-breaking documentary addresses a growing (and finally, truly hopeful) movement, composed of both Israelis and Palestinians, with united voice calling for a nonviolent end to the occupation in Palestine.
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Orcas Watch: A healing silence
Posted on 03. Sep, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
For our 30th anniversay Patty and I received an invitation from Leonard Sweet to spend five days on Orcas Island on the Puget Sound. Across the still waters are a smattering of the San Juan islands, while Vancouver Island and snow covered peaks can be seen through a bluish mist. We saw bald eagles, a family of sea otters, a sea lion on a rocky outcropping and orcas sporting 100 yards away. But, it was not so much what we saw but what we heard that impacted us. It was the seameless, liquous sounds of silence. A recipe for the healing of the battered and badgered–the plugged-in and worn down. Kierkagaard would approve.
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Why Stories and not Sermons?
Posted on 27. Jun, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
But what if the film (or painting or novel) you are working on never mentions Jesus, or if it does, it is as an expletive? What if it does not proclaim the Gospel? What if it depicts evil straightforwardly and has barely a glimmer of hope? Why waste your time? Why not simply preach a sermon?
The disciples wondered the same thing. They got frustrated at all the confusing and oblique parables Jesus told. Like conservative Christians today, they wanted to know, why bother? So Jesus had to give them a lesson on mystery, on what to aim for if you want to impact a jaded or suspicious (i.e, a postmodern) audience. And, in doing so gave us an apologetic for art.
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Desiring the Kingdom: Humans are Lovers not Thinkers
Posted on 18. May, 2010 by Tim Stoner.
Desiring the Kingdom was authored by James K. A. Smith, a philosopny professor at Calvin College and is one of the 10 most influential books I have read. It shines unrelenting light upon the deficits of the traditional perspective on Christian formation-discipleship. Its thesis can be summarized simply: Christians have been wrong for over 400 years in defining humans by placing the focus on the mind–we are thinking beings that are containers for ideas. He argues that being a disciple of Jesus is not primarily a matter of getting the right ideas and doctrines and beliefs into your head; rather, it is a matter of being the kind of person who loves rightly. We are first of all lovers not thinkers. And then he gets dangerous.
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Tim Stoner: send me your address you get a book...
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Emory Hermie: So little done, a lot to accomplish. One's mind h...
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Bob Schuman: Mmmmm...........
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Sara Schimmer: I couldn't agree with him more. The Falls Church ...
