Mushrooms and Peacemakers

March 28, 2012
by John Cooper, Cabinet Maker
http://jcooperforpeace.wordpress.com/

Edited slightly by AK for an international audience

I have been trying to find Peacemakers lately…

It reminds me of trying to find mushrooms. In the Spring in certain areas, if you know  how and what to look for, you can find delicious Morel Mushrooms.  People come from everywhere to find these delicacies. Mushrooms are already being found in Illinois, where I grew up.  They grow on our family farm and people  harvest them.

To find mushrooms you need sharp eyes. Where they grew in the past, they might not be be the next year.  Take a stick and walk around in the woods moving covers of leaves from the previous fall.  Sometimes great big ones seem to appear right before your eyes!  Look on the North slopes, look where May Apples grow. Look all around, relax, don’t get too stressed out.

Mushrooms and Peacemakers?

Now, how does one find Peacemakers?

Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God".


I got it!

To find a Peacemaker, you just go to a Christian church and looks for followers of Jesus!  Jesus seems to say we should be...right? They are of course all Peacemakers! Wrong.

You have to look for Peacemakers, kind of like looking for mushrooms.  Take a stick, stir things up, relax, keep an open eyes and an open mind, don’t look in all the regular places  Peacemakers do not all grow in Christian churches, in fact form my experience, unfortunately, not many grow in Christian churches, or in the U.S. Government, or in the Universities where one might expect to find courses in Peacemaking.

Look everywhere, look in the spring, Look in the summer, look in the fall, look in the winter.

Mushrooms grow as a fungus, when the conditions are right, in the right type of soil.  So do Peacemakers.  Peacemakers grow as a result of the infection of the Spirit of God, revealed to us in Jesus, and in others, such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Tolstoy, Gregory Boyd, and common folks, even me, where you can also find this fungus growing. Look for it. You might find it, if you care about it.  Taste it, if you wish.

I found some Peacemakers in Atlanta last weekend!

I went to a Peace Party. Now, there is where one finds Peacemakers!  Check out this link: http://forusa.org/events/2012/03/24/welcome-international-for-peace-party  Read the names.  Peacemakers from all over the world congregating for a Peace Party!  John Lennon would be glad! Joan Baez would sing!  Jesus would say: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God".

Perhaps some religious types would say, “John, you are absolutely crazy, some of these people are Jewish, some may be Methodists, some are Catholics, some may be Muslims, some are Mennonites, there are black people in here from the Congo, Holland, Germany, Japan, U.S. From everywhere! How can you say they are sons of God?  They are not even all of them Christian!

I did not say that. Jesus did, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God".

I found some more Peacemakers.  I went to the Oakhurst Baptist church, http://www.oakhurstbaptist.org/ Check it out. I would never have imagined a Baptist Church like this. They planned the whole service around the visit of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, of which I am a member, and of which we have a chapter right here in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, imagine that!

They asked us to sit on the front row as part of the service.  Little children came up and asked us where we we came from, then look it up on an iPad.  They looked at the flag of our nation. They welcomed us.  I told them Alabama had a flag, Roll Tide {U.of Alabama Football), and everyone laughed!

The songs were about Peace, the sermon was about Peace and given by one of their ministers who is a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Lucas Johnson.  At the end, we marched around the church Sanctuary, singing about Peace!  Oh, they have women pastors and blacks too. A lot of people with theological degrees looking for a home, a lot peacemakers, I perceived.

After church, one of the pastors, (a woman), hugged all of us. And men hugged each other too. Hugs are free!

I might mention this church has been disfellowshipped from a religious denomination, as you will see on their web site. For their radical beliefs in such things as: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God".

I have been too. Disfellowshipped. I know the feeling. However, one needs to worship God somewhere. Everywhere, for that matter, since He [God] is everywhere, even in these Peacemakers whom He claims to be his sons.

Anyway, I know this is getting a little long, but if you are looking for mushrooms, I have some tips.  If you are looking for Peacemakers, I have some tips. Some might say I have eaten the wrong type of mushrooms, the way I think about these things and all. But I think I know which mushrooms to eat, I am not dead yet. I keep kicking against the thorns of this culture which is indoctrinated in violence and war.  There are holes in my shoes.

Want to talk about the Gospel of Peace some day?  Call me, let’s do it, over a breakfast of mushrooms and Green Tea.

Grace AND Peace,
John Cooper
http://jcooperforpeace.wordpress.com/