This week I reflect on what I call “Mary’s Advent Journey of Nonviolence,” from the Anunciation to the Visitation to the Magnificat.

Luke tells her story as the three movements of the spiritual life--from contemplative nonviolence to active nonviolence to the Magnificat as prophetic nonviolence.

How did Jesus learn his spectacular nonviolence? Luke tells us it is from his Holy Jewish mother, Mary and she can be our teacher too.

In the Anunciation, contemplates what God has told her in silence and stillness.

In the Visitation as active nonviolence, Mary reaches out to “love her neighbor” and “show compassion to someone in need.”

These public actions would become the bedrock teachings of Luke’s Jesus. In this second movement of nonviolence, when we reach out in love to serve someone in need, we bring peace, joy, and consolation. That’s what peacemakers do.

Mary also proclaims the greatness of the God of peace, announces that God is throwing down the rulers from their thrones and lifting up the lowly, and remembering God’s promise of mercy, of nonviolence!, for generations to come!

Like Mary, this Advent, we proclaim a prophetic announcement about the coming of God’s reign of peace and nonviolence here and now.

Listen in, take heart, and go forward into the Christmas blessings of contemplative, active and prophetic nonviolence! God bless everyone—Fr. John

beatitudescenter.org

This week I speak with my friend Mike Martin, a blacksmith and founder of RAWtools.org, one of the most creative Christian peacemaking projects in the country.

To me, this is what the Advent work of "beating guns into garden tools" is all about: getting ready for the coming of peace on earth.

Mike Martin is a former Mennonite youth pastor and licensed for this specialized ministry by the Mennonite Conference. He learned to how to blacksmith in order to turn guns into garden tools. He is the co-author of a great book with our friend Shane Claiborne, Beating Guns: Hope for people who are weary of violence. See www.beatingguns.com

I first met Mike about 10 years ago at the Wildgoose Christian summer festival in North Carolina. I was giving a talk on peacemaking in a tent, and Mike was outside banging away on handguns and putting them into a fire, and eventually, turning them into plowshares, garden tools, and little crosses to wear around your neck--I kid you not.

It was thrilling. I was talking about beating swords into plowshares, but he was actually doing it, and you could take part in it, and hammer on a gun, and maybe buy one of his new creations.

Since then, his project has taken off around the country. Check out: www.rawtools.org

“I've probably hammered on a gun barrel thousands of times and it feels meaningful every time,” he tells me. “We're using raw tools--not war tools--to transform the world. We offer a safe space for gun violence survivors to heal.”

"Gun violence survivors tells us it's the first time they can deal with their anger or pain in a healthy way, you're destroying the thing that brought you harm to transforming something that can cultivate life ."

Be inspired by a former Mennonite pastor and blacksmith that has created a unique movement to disarm hearts, promote peace and cultivate justice.

Listen in and learn how to do your Advent part of preparing for the coming of peace on earth. God bless everyone!

www.rawtools.org

beatingguns.com

beatitudescenter.org

This week I speak with Congressman Jamie Raskin, one of the strongest voices and advocates for democracy and truth, about movements, democracy, and nonviolence. He represents Maryland’s 8th Con. District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Raskin was previously a state senator in Maryland where he helped abolish the death penalty and gain marriage equality. Before that, he was a professor of constitutional law at American University for more than 25 years.

He has authored several books, including the Washington Post best-seller Overruling Democracy: The Supreme Court versus the American People, the acclaimed We the Students: Supreme Court Cases for and About America’s Students, and the New York Times #1 best-seller Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth and the Trials of American Democracy, about the death of his beloved son Tommy, followed two weeks later by the Jan. 6th insurrection led by Trump.

Jamie shares with us his harrowing story of hiding under a desk with his daughter and son-in-law sending what they thought were farewell texts while a violent mob was pounding on the door screaming death threats.

He was appointed to lead the 2nd impeachment trial of Donald Trump. It ended in the most sweeping bipartisan vote to convict an impeached president in history. He also served on the committee to investigate the Jan. 6th attack.

"We're in the fight of our lives and have been since the beginning of this nightmare,” he says at the start. “But people are galvanized and mobilizing all across the country."

Listen to this incredible leader of democracy and constitutional expert explain in his own words what democracy means to him and how we have to be a part of saving the country we live in.

“The whole Constitution is under attack, and we need the whole people to defend it. Democracy is the system that relies on nonviolent expression.”

Hear why he calls to us to "be the hope!”

https://raskin.house.gov

beatitudescenter.org