Putting our Heads Together
Although as a member of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, I don’t celebrate Palm Sunday as a holy day, I am definitely paying tribute to the ecumenical cooperation manifested through support of Eco-palms, an initiative of Lutheran World Relief. Media outlets, too, are reporting that congregations of several Christian faiths are utilizing these special fronds, which are harvested in a way that protects God’s creation and upholds the dignity of human labor. Check out our original posting or any of the stories from Dallas, Louisville, and Salt Lake City, to learn how joy and justice are filling sanctuaries today.
Interfaith collaboration has been on my mind a lot this week as both Katy and I had a chance to hear from the Mirembe Kawomera coffee cooperative in Uganda as they visited our area. The cooperative, consisting of 700 small scale farmers from the Jewish, Muslim and Christian faiths, offers a transformative model of peace and cooperation through coffee farming. Their product is distributed, thanks to the good folks of Thanksgiving Coffee, through buying clubs at mosques, churches and synagogues and those sales, like the typical Fair Trade model, finance health projects, education efforts and coffee quality improvements.
What’s unique about the “Delicious Peace” cooperative is its intentional coming together of religious groups that had traditionally been separated through political strife and animosity. The speakers on tour, pointed out that through the cooperative they are able to put their heads together “around a common table” to make decisions. Margaret, a Catholic representative, reflected, “It’s not just about making money but about making peace in our country.”
Tags: catholics, Coffee, ecopalms, fair trade, interfaith, lutherans
In the field of peacebuilding there at least two truisms. One – unresolved conflict does not simply go away when combatants put down their weapons. The difficult work of reconciling broken communities usually takes place after peace accords are signed, usually through focused work that does not shy away from talking about contentious issues.
The second truism is that seeking opportunities to explore and meet common needs will aid this reconciliation process.
This is the work that the Mirembe Kawomera cooperative models for us. In many respects it would be easier for the cooperative to come together to simply meet a need, probably economic. In doing so they would miss an opportunity to transform their conflict rather than simply manage it.
I want to commend Mirembe Kawomera as an example of true Conflict Transformation and a great way to build peace, one cup of coffee at a time…