wfn.org | Episcopalians: Hands in Healing reaches out for peace in the cities

[dmack@episcopalchurch.org]

April 18, 2002

2002-099

Episcopalians: Hands in Healing reaches out for peace in the 
cities

by Robert Williams

(ENS) Driving from Hollywood-area gang turf to the Wyoming 
roadside where co-ed Matthew Shepard was fatally gay-bashed, Los 
Angeles' Episcopal bishop and 12 young Southern Californians 
will travel on to Las Vegas, Omaha, Chicago, Detroit, New York's 
Ground Zero, and the Washington National Cathedral--all in an 
April 19-June 5 cross-country trek called "Hands in Healing," 
addressing violence perpetrated against youth and families.

By charting this course at the outset of his new ministry as 
chief pastor to the six-county Diocese of Los Angeles and its 
85,000 members, Bishop J. Jon Bruno-himself a former Burbank 
police officer and Denver Bronco-is calling people of faith 
everywhere to "simple acts of courage" to stop domestic 
violence, gang activity, hate crimes, and other forms of 
aggression.

"Rosa Parks kept her seat on a bus, and that moment defined 
the rest of the civil rights movement," Bruno said in a recent 
interview outlining the tour, which includes return-route 
pilgrimages to Atlanta, Montgomery and Memphis sites honoring 
the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "As our own van moves 
across country, the young people and I will contemplate, from 
our own bus seats, how we can act more courageously to see that 
peace and justice prevails over violence now and into the 
future."

Reflecting on cycles of violence

The bishop, who has hand-picked the young adults participating 
on the tour, has designed the trek to include site-specific 
theological reflections that address cycles of violence. In 
Oklahoma City, for example, the group will consider not only the 
carnage of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal 
Building, but also the death penalty by which the accused 
perpetrator, Timothy McVeigh, was executed.

Joining Bruno in planning and guiding the theological 
reflections are Sara Clinehens and Michael Cooper, both of whom 
recently began work on the diocesan staff as advisors for youth 
ministry. Clinehens and Cooper, who will travel along the tour 
route, are collaborating with Wendie Roberts, new diocesan 
missioner for Christian formation, in shaping both the program 
and its cadre of young participants. 

The trek will reach its mid-point on Memorial Day weekend in 
Washington, DC, where Bruno is scheduled to preach that Sunday, 
May 26, at the National Cathedral.

Gathering stories

Under the theme of "Hands in Healing: Reaching Peace for Youth 
and Cities," the trek will involve participants who have 
experienced violence in close proximity. One participant has 
lost two brothers killed in gang shootings; two have lived under 
apartheid in South Africa; others have taken stands against 
domestic violence, racism and homophobia; all have experienced 
in various ways the trauma of the September 11 terror attacks.

In each community they visit, the L.A. young people will seek 
to engage peers in other cities to learn their respective 
experiences with violence, and to share in dialogue, prayer and 
theological reflection. 

One objective of the trek is to gather stories to inform an 
interactive, multigenerational and on-line curriculum that is 
being developed through the diocesan Office of Communications 
and Public Affairs, which is coordinating the full Hands in 
Healing initiative on the bishop's behalf. 

As the van crosses the nation, the bishop and some 
participants will travel by plane in order to balance weekend 
"Hands in Healing" events with work-week schedules in Los 
Angeles. Adult supervisors will travel with the van full time. 

The national tour follows a six-part series of diocesan 
county-based forums addressing issues of violence within the 
Southland, the last of which was held April 6 in Los Angeles. 

------

--Robert Williams is director of diocesan communications and 
public affairs for the Diocese of Los Angeles.