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Stonehill College Rural Immersion
A Stonehill College H.O.P.E. service trip, originally scheduled for two weeks in Nicaragua, had to change plans when a travel advisory was issued, so the two faculty members and nine students came to Agape from May 21 to May 26. Students were dismayed that their Nicaragua planning sessions never came to fruition, but they enjoyed,…
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Iona College Rural Immersion
This post comes a few months after the fact due to a combination of Brayton and Suzanne’s writing sabbatical earlier this year, transitions in community members, and lack of website expertise. However, after a full year without regular blog posts, we will be eager to make more posts this summer. For the fifth year in…
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Remembering Francis Day 2017
Though it is approaching two months since October 7th, we still find ourselves immersed in the significance of Francis Day 2017. Read on for a re-cap of the day. The Agape Community’s Francis Day celebration this year saw more than 350 water protectors (more attendees than any other year) gather to honor America’s indigenous people….
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No More Sacrifice Zones by Suzanne Belote Shanley
Ever since Brayton returned from Standing Rock, North Dakota, the breathtaking images that he shared with me by phone while in North Dakota have resounded in my heart and soul: “You won’t believe these…teepees, tents everywhere. We delivered the straw bales. Our greeters were people of all ages. They came for a month ago and…
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Native Nations Rising: A Countersign by Brayton Shanley
Our country is in rapid political decline. The sign? Donald Trump is president and has been leading the decline for seven whole months now. Eighty percent of the registered Republicans support Trump through his clinical narcissistic horrors. So we are descending fast. And where is the hope in such a descent into dangerous political absurdity? …
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“We Need an Energy Shift to Heal Our Mother Earth” Chief Arvol Looking Horse: Lakota, Dakota, Nakota Nations
“I, Chief Looking Horse, of the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota Nations, ask you to understand an Indigenous perspective on what has happened in America, that we call ‘Turtle island’…recognize the importance of Sacred Sites and realize the interconnectedness of what is happening today…continued massacres…on other lands and our own Americas. Our ancestors never saw a…
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Wronging Each Other in the Name of God and Ideology: Reflections on and from Mosul by Ahmad al Hadidi
I have been living in the United States for almost fourteen years but I never imagined that I would be witnessing from my comfort zone here the destruction of my birth city Mosul. Yet, another war in my life made me not only suffer but also ponder on why we, equally created human beings, have…
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How Boycotts Can Stop Pipelines by Hattie Nestel
In the dead of winter or sweltering summer heat, several of us hold signs reading Boycott TD Bank–Support Standing Rock. Have stood like this this twice weekly for more than six months and have distributed some three thousand leaflets urging account holders to move their money out of TD Bank. Why bother? Because climate change…
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Hope Found at Agape by Celia Dolan
In mid-May, I embarked on a journey with five fellow Stonehill College students for a HOPE service trip (Honoring our neighbor, Organizing for justice, Practicing peace, Encountering God). We drove about two hours from Easton to Hardwick, unsure of what we would find at our destination. Upon our arrival, we found a welcoming community. As…
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Three Generations of Divide and Conquer by John Paul Marosy
Divide and conquer is a time-honored strategy that ruling elites use when they don’t have solutions to problems. The problem in the U.S. today is not “immigrants,” it’s the divide and conquer strategy being cynically deployed by the corporate ruling elite to consolidate power and feed the greed machine, Wall Street and the Military Industrial…
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