Eagle Harbor Church is the nexus for the international rally for amity.
On Friday evening, the bell at Eagle Harbor Congregational Church will ring for a different message.
“We hope that people hear it, and hear it as a call for peace,” the Rev. Dee Eisenhauer said.
The bell typically chimes for Sunday services and for special occasions like weddings and the anniversary of 9/11. This time, the bell will usher in an interfaith service that will cap off Bainbridge Island’s recognition of the United Nations’ International Day of Peace.
Established by the U.N. in 1981, the event calls for a worldwide end to violence and a 24-hour period of complete ceasefire.
The island’s events will include a moment of silence at noon – a practice encouraged by the global peace day organization; a gathering by the local peace activist group Women in Black at the corner of Winslow Way and SR 305; a slow, silent walk along Winslow Way to the church; and the service and vigil led by church pastor Eisenhauer that will include music and prayer.
“It’s quite amazingly dramatic, if it works,” said Jan Bailey, Women in Black member and march organizer. “So we hope it will work.”
Eisenhauer, like members of the Women in Black, is no stranger to peace activism, having participated in dozens of regional peace marches.
She can understand how easy it might be to view the problem of violence and the challenge of peace as too much to take on. She admits to becoming discouraged when she adds up the paltry number of years that human beings have existed free of war, if there are any at all.
“Violence seems to be deeply built into our DNA,” she said.
In that sense, she says, peace becomes a choice, a conscious practice that ordinary people can adopt, starting at home, to make a difference in both themselves and in the world.
To her mind, peace can come from bearing witness at local events to writing to legislators about causes that matter, to teaching children what it means to become conscientious objectors.
“Partly you do that to be public about protest, and partly to keep from being overwhelmed by despair yourself,” she said. “We have such a quick resort to violence, that you have to mentally and soulfully swim upstream of that tendency.
“So that means reading, it means poetry, it means educating yourself, it means talking to other people about it. Because otherwise it just gets swept away with the tide of fear and violence.”
Friday’s service will take a worldwide approach, showing the flags of and naming each country in which conflict is now occurring. Participants will also be invited to sign a letter drafted by the denominational leaders of the United Church of Christ protesting the conflict in Iraq.
For Donna Moore, a member of Women in Black since the group took up its weekly Friday afternoon post five years ago, Iraq was a catalyst for action.
A long-time personnel officer with the U.S. State Department before her retirement, Moore was stationed in several Middle Eastern countries including Libya and Saudi Arabia.
A self-described “fed,” she never thought of herself as particularly political and trusted in the fundamental goodness and solidity of the American way of life. She still “believes in the honor of our society, and in democracy.”
“(But) when we went into Iraq, I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I said to myself, ‘that’s 50 years of diplomacy down the tubes.’”
So in a departure from what had been more of an armchair approach to protest, she joined the Women in Black. And in early August, having traveled to Bangor as part of an interstate, interfaith peace walk protesting against nuclear weapons, Moore found herself in the unsettling position of being arrested near Naval Base Kitsap in Bangor.
“That was a lot scarier, a lot riskier to take it that far,” she said. “But I figure if a 75 year-old lady, an ex-state department employee, can’t do it, then who’s going to stand up?”
Bailey will set the pace for Friday’s walk along Winslow Way. She, like Moore, recalls the first and only other time Women in Black departed from their usual post to walk along Winslow Way three years ago on the anniversary of Sept. 11.
That march took place at a slow 15-count step. As the women walked, they handed out flyers about their mission and invited passers-by to join the walk. Their ranks grew as they made their way.
“It was the strangest thing because on a Saturday noon, when everyone was very busy, the town went completely still,” Bailey said. “It was the most effective thing we ever did.”
Bailey says that it isn’t unheard of for members of Women in Black to encounter despair and to feel like their effort is small compared to the monumental nature of violence in the world.
But Eisenhauer offers a reminder that starting at home is a powerful, and necessary step.
“To remain silent is to vote with the status quo,” she said. “So even though our witness to peace or nonviolence might not seem very effective at times, it is essential that we keep taking a stand at making our witness.”
“I hope that all fighting will cease for 24 hours all over the world,” Bailey added. “That is my hope.
“And if people want to gather at 5:15 at the corner of Winslow Way and 305, we will all do our best to state that hope.”
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It begins at home
The island’s recognition of the International Day of Peace will begin with a moment of silence at noon Sept. 21. Women in Black will stage a silent vigil at 5:15 followed by a walk at 6:15 along Winslow Way to Eagle Harbor Congregational Church. The peace service, led by the Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, will begin at 7 p.m. All are welcome to join the march and vigil with signs, flowers, paper doves and flashlights. See www.internationaldayofpeace.org.
