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A New Friend Joins Agape for Retreat
“Mikey” came to Agape for a silent retreat, through Agape’s relationship with Sr. Jane Morrissey and The Peace Pagoda. He joined us for morning prayer, blessed the hermitage and its sacred presence with his great vibes, and offered stunning commentaries on how Jesus claimed his life. The hermitage is made more sacred by his gift…
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Family in a Van: A Wild Adventure Still Unfolding
When Brayton got the initial phone call from Courtney Hayes-Jurcheck, that she and her husband John Jurcheck, both 41 years of age, who, with their sons, Luca, 5 and Oliver, 9 were traveling to farm and WWOOFING sites in a 1987 Vanagon, we were excited about their romantic, counter-cultural adventure. They wanted to spend time…
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Life Springs Up Again at Agape
We are planting in the garden! The energy and excitement of our “no-till” seeding comes through in these photos. The straw came from Agape member Dixon George’s family homestead in Spencer, MA. Ann Garvey came from Winchester, MA to retreat and helped in the garden too.
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At Last, Hay for the Garden!
Last week, Brayton, Dixon, and Katya (our intern currently staying at Agape), and with the assistance of our friend Jerry and his car trailer, made a trip out to Dixon’s childhood home in Spencer, MA to get some much needed hay for the garden. There they met up with Dixon’s brother Will, who lives and…
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Lift Every Voice and Sing – by Melinda Adrienne Pellerin, SSJ
“Lift ev’ry voice and sing, ‘Til earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty… facing the rising sun of our new day begun, Let us march on ’til victory is won.” Often called the Black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was written as a poem by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson,…
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Rooted in Love – by Jeanelle Wheeler
I believe white people need to learn to talk about race. White people need to own our whiteness and examine what whiteness means. This examination is a huge part of fighting for racial justice because, as Lala Saad writes in her book, Me and White Supremacy, “You cannot dismantle what you cannot see. You cannot…
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Power Differential in the Context of Poverty in Haiti – by Steve and Nancy James
We both grew up as missionary kids in Burma/Myanmar where our friends were Burmese/Karen kids, so we were very conscious of not being like our friends. Every day, we wished that we had brown skin and black hair and that we were not white foreigners. Although our childhood in Burma/Myanmar and India was an “adventure…
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Look Again – by Rev. Jonathan Betts Fields
It is essential that we notice how we have been changed and how we have worked to change ourselves if we are to truly become anti-racists building the Beloved Community. If we want to change our world, we first must live, move and become the change we wish to see. Then we have to look…
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Be the Change – by Julie Bradley
After attending Agape’s October 2020 Zoom Francis Day event, I felt a sense illumination. Agape Community stepped up to the challenge of racism, showing its members’ level of commitment and involvement in all areas of struggle within humanity. This event brought me a sense of hope that in the future we will see more and…
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The Dream of Allyship – by Edgar Hayes
There is a classic story about a hypothetical dream conveyed to a psychiatrist in which a runner tries to catch up in a race of 401 laps. The runner keeps being held back from completing the race by one obstacle after another, until a merged path appears when “a huge bright light began to shine.”…
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