In February, a few of us attended an interfaith statewide advocacy event at our state capitol through one of our partner organizations, The Faith Action Network (FAN). This past week, I ran into members of FAN virtually at Ecumenical Advocacy Days (EAD). EAD joins together Christians from different denominations across the country to engage in faithful public witness virtually with members of our U.S. Congress. We met with staff from the offices of both of our U.S. Senators, Cantwell and Murray.
Ecumenical Advocacy Days (EAD) theme this year is, “Swords into Plowshares,” based on the scripture passage: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Micah 4:3). There were two simple asks, Destroy “Swords” and Create “Plowshares.”
In the Swords ask, we highlighted the People Over Pentagon Act, HR 1134 which proposes cutting $100 billion of wasteful spending from the Pentagon budget that is nearing $1 trillion dollars. One of the authors of the bill, Mark Pocan of Wisconsin states, “By cutting $100 billion from the defense budget, this bill prioritizes urgent needs like healthcare, education, and infrastructure over padding the pockets of defense contractors…It’s time to invest in our communities and make meaningful change that reflects our nation’s priorities.”
The “Plowshares” ask then highlighted the importance of maintaining and strengthening funding and removing barriers for vital human needs programs like SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that is one of the most effective tools we have in our country to curb hunger. EAD reminds us “True human security requires us to invest in vital human needs and protect our common home from ecological degradation.” By investing in human security, we can help ensure everyone has access to their basic human rights. With as much gun violence as we face in our country, maybe we need to re-examine our spending priorities at a national level.
At one of the presentations I attended this week, I learned about an organization, Swords into Plowshares Northeast, that actually melts down the metal from gun buyback programs and pounds them into gardening tools. They are helping to remove deadly weapons in our society and instead, turning them into something useful and lifegiving. Watching this process, I started reflecting on this physical act of turning swords into plowshares. What does this mean for our modern world? How can we take tools of fear, intimidation, and death and turn them into tools of joy, hope, and life? Shouldn’t we want that?
Throughout our focus these past few weeks on Holy Ground, we’ve considered how to re-connect with the beautiful holy creation of God. When we think about the soil of our Earth that produces our food, we can imagine what it means to pull ourselves back to that connection, kneeling down and putting our hands into the soil with those re-purposed gardening tools made of gun metal. We recognize how this soil provides nourishment through food, something that all living things need to survive. We can imagine that tool in our hand, acknowledging how it was once a tool of destruction that is now helping us to care for that holy ground so that all can be fed.
What if we put people and our planet first? What would our world look like then? What are the ‘swords’ that you can transform in your own life that can instead be used as ‘plowshares’ to provide new life?
Jackie Celin
Student Pastor of Missions