Nov 15, 2010

Save Darfur National Call-In Day

SDC/GI-Net and partners are organizing a national call-in day on November 16th for all activists, faith groups and partner organizations. Participants can call 1-800-genocide and follow a recorded script asking Secretary Clinton to appoint a high-level diplomat for Darfur. Please promote the call to your constituents and networks. To learn more or get help promoting the call, please contact Joe Maddens (joe@savedarfur.org).

Nov 7, 2010

LPF Peace Art Contest




We are doing a makeover of the main homepage of the LPF website and want to include pictures of people involved in a variety of peacemaking activities and other images and artwork to illustrate the work of LPF.
Please send us action shots of you and other peacemakers in action and images or artwork of what peacemaking means to you. The best entries will be featured on the LPF website.
Ideas include:
  • Take action photos of peace related events/activities in your congregation or community.
  • Sunday school art projects: draw a picture of what peace means to you.
  • Pick out your favorite peace related bible verse to illustrate.
  • Download LPF´s Peace Deck and create original artwork based on your favorite quote.
  • Illustrate the concepts of active nonviolence and conflict resolution in photos or drawings.
  • Take pictures at your local foodbank or feeding program of people helping people in need.

Please submit entries by email to lutheranpeace@gmail.com (5 mb max per email) along with the author´s name so we can give them credit.



Prayer Awareness

by Miriam Teichner

God--let me be aware.
Let me not stumble blindly down the ways,
Just getting somehow safely through the days,
Not even groping for another hand,
Not even wondering why it all was planned,
Eyes to the ground unseeking for the light,
Soul never aching for a wild-winged flight,
Please, keep me eager just to do my share.
God--let me be aware.

God--let me be aware.
Stab my soul fiercely with others' pain,
Let me walk seeing horror and stain.
Let my hands, groping, find other hands.
Give me the heart that divines, understands.
Give me the courage, wounded, to fight.
Flood me with knowledge, drench me in light.
Please--keep me eager just to do my share.
God--let me be aware.

Nov 5, 2010

St Martin of Tours - Feast Day


St Martin of Tours is known as the first conscientious objector and a great peacemaker in the Christian church. His feast day of 11 November (or the nearest Sunday) which is also observed as Remembrance Day for remembering those killed in wars (it was called Armistice Day following the First World War).

Lutherans have had a long history of responding to the gospel call to be peacemakers. One of the initial motivations for the formation of a Lutheran peace movement in the US was the need to support those resisting the draft through conscientious objection to military solutions to conflict. LPF traces its roots to this movement dating back to 1940.

For more contemporary information on current issues relating to the military service, see LPF's resource: Youth and the Military

For further information on St Martin of Tours, here are several links:

Martin of Tours

St. Martin's Day

St Martin — patron saint of conscientious objectors

November 11th. St. Martin of Tours.

SAINT MARTIN OF TOURS BISHOP, CONFESSOR—316-400

St. Martin of Tours