As we recorded this episode, Kathy is participating in and coordinating a 40 day fast for an end to the US backed Israeli genocide in Israel, which began on May 22nd. When we spoke, she was placed on a 250 calories a day intake to keep her heart rate up.

"We need to stand up against US military funding for Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza.” That’s what Kathy Kelly told me, what she insists upon. Unicef calls the genocide in Gaza "The War Against Children".

"The US backed Israeli genocide in Gaza needs to stop."

Long time peace activist, author, and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Kathy Kelly has traveled the war zones of the world, and stood with all those targeted for death by the United States more than anyone else I know, from Central America to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine.

Find out why I consider her the greatest living peacemaker in the United States, one of the great saints of our time.

She has travelled the world to the places bombed and attacked by our country over the last three decades in an effort to “make peace” and “love our enemies.” With Voices in the Wilderness companions, from 1996 - 2003, she traveled twenty-seven times to Iraq, defying the economic sanctions.

She led my 1999 FOR delegation of Nobel Laureates to Iraq.

Kathy was in Iraq throughout the 2003 “Shock and Awe” bombing and the initial weeks of the invasion. She joined subsequent delegations to the West Bank's Jenin Camp in 2002 during and after Israeli attacks, to Lebanon during the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hezbollah and to Gaza, in 2009, during Operation Cast Lead and following the 2013 Operation Pillar of Defense.

Kathy Kelly is board president of “World Beyond War.” From 2022 to the present, she has co-coordinated the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, she has co-coordinated an international network to assist young Afghans forced to flee their country. She made over two dozen trips to Afghanistan from 2010 – 2019, living with young Afghan Peace Volunteers in a working-class neighborhood in Kabul.

“Many of the Israeli weapons used in Gaza are of US origin,” she says. “It's crucial to go to weapons manufacturers and protest. It's important to raise the lament, and then to follow up with organizing.

We must keep trying to figure out how to organize and get a ceasefire. Love of our brothers and sisters in other countries makes so much sense right now. It's dependent on the people in the pews to speak out and follow the nonviolent Jesus.” She suggests we ask ourselves, “Is there a greater risk I might be willing to take?”

“Don’t be afraid,” Kathy tells us. “Seek ways to embrace the so-called enemy. Look for the people nearest to you who are practicing the works of mercy rather than the works of war, and align yourself with them.”

I hope you will listen in to Kathy’s plea for peace in Gaza, her living solidarity with the victims of war and hunger, and her ongoing work to promote a more nonviolent world, and be inspired. May the God of peace bless us all!

“Nonviolence is both the deepest core of our being and also the destiny of the human race,” Michael Nagler says on this week’s episode of “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast.” “All human progress has been a progress toward nonviolence.”

Is he right?

Michael Nagler is Professor Emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley, and co-founder of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program and UC Berkeley and the Metta Center for Nonviolence. He has dedicated his life to teaching nonviolence, spirituality, and meditation.

He is co-host of Nonviolence Radio and his books include The Search for a Nonviolent Future: A Promise of Peace for Ourselves, Our Families, and Our World; The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide for Practical Action; Looking for Light; and The Third Harmony: Nonviolence and the New Story of Human Nature. (See www.mettacenter.org)

“Violence is a terribly destructive frame of mind and practice,” Michael teaches. He also teaches us in this episode the practice of nonviolence through meditation, and what it means to discover our nonviolent capacity and how to implement that in the world.

He tells of the outcome of the only mass public demonstration by non-Jewish Germans in 1943, now known as the Rosenstrasse protest.

"There is little nonviolence education happening," he laments. Teachers of nonviolence like Michael Nagler help us to renounce our violence, learn the wisdom of nonviolence, plumb the spiritual depths of God’s nonviolence, and energize us to stand up and do what we can for disarmament and justice.

Listen as he explains how meditation can deepen our spiritual awareness, of ourselves and other human beings, and gives us concrete instruction to slow our minds down.

Let him inspire you with his wisdom and thoughtfulness:

"Whatever is positive, true, and good in human nature is real and available to every one of us.”

beatitudescenter.org

mettacenter.org

24: My guest today is Frida Berrigan, the daughter of legendary activists Philip Berrigan and Elizabeth McAlister, and niece of Daniel Berrigan. She offers us an intimate look into her childhood as a daughter of full time protesters at Jonah House, a community in Baltimore, and her life today.

The community at Jonah House protested full-time for decades. Her housemates were regularly arrested and jailed, including her parents: "We were just driving down to the Pentagon all the time, my parents never sugar coated anything for us,” she says. “

"They let it be known to us that any change we wanted to see in the world, we had to make ourselves. And if we didn't see the change, it was still worth doing what we could. We always knew that it was our responsibility to bear witness and resist as much as possible."

I also ask her about the upcoming 80th anniversary of U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6th. She shares with me why this anniversary is so important, who the Hibakusha are, and what we need to do today to make sure they are never forgotten.

In 2015, Frida published her book, It Runs in the Family: On Being Raised by Radicals and Growing into Rebellious Motherhood, about growing up in the Berrigan family. She has worked for years at the World Policy Institute studying U.S. military policy and nuclear weapons.

She also cofounded Witness against Torture, a campaign calling for the closure of Guantanamo Bay detention center and the end of U.S. backed use of torture and continues to write, organize and speak out for justice and disarmament.

And this year she tells how she got blessed and arrested on Ash Wednesday this year and why she was protesting outside the UN building in New York:

“Nuclear weapons are not on people's hearts. We are reminding people that nuclear weapons are still here and threatening the planet. They're not going to disarm themselves. We need to do that!”

This episode is a unique look into the ordinary life of a committed full time activist and demonstrator, hear her call to resistance and be inspired to go forward working for disarmament, justice and peace!

beatitudescenter.org