Weekly Wednesday @ 12:00 PM - Online
Weekly Picket & Pray
by Christians for a Free Palestine (CFP), Mennonite Action, Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center
From Lydia Wylie-Kellermann - “When I made the decision to go to the West Bank in college, I told my family my dad said, half-jokingly, “Do you need your dad’s permission?” I responded, “You gave me your permission when you baptized me.”
I have never known a faith that was not bound up in Palestinian liberation. I have never known the cross to not have everything to do with taking risks for justice. I have never known a discipleship that could disentangle the word from the world. And I have never known prayer that wasn’t a protest or a protest that wasn’t a prayer.
So I am writing as a CFP member and director of Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center to announce a new, needed initiative starting Wednesday October 8, two years since when this phase of genocide of Palestinians began.
It’s called Picket and Pray: a weekly 30 minute Zoom call every week for shared spiritual practice rooted in the Christian tradition and action to end the genocide and for a Free Palestine. Picket and Pray is a collaboration between CFP, Kirkridge, and Mennonite Action, and it will happen every Wednesday at Noon ET / 11am CT / 10am MT / 9am PT.
Sign up via the button below to receive the zoom link and add it to your calendar every week. Join whenever you can.
As I write, I feel the waves in my body as the Global Sumud Flotilla makes its way towards Gaza’s shores. Fifty-two vessels…now facing drone attacks. And yet I scroll through videos, there is singing and dancing aboard the ships. I see people keeping their eyes on Gaza. Keeping their hearts open. Stepping into risk. And refusing to let them have our joy. They cannot take our singing.
I need that reminder. As Israel’s U.S.-funded genocide has escalated, including forcibly starving millions of Palestinians in Gaza, it is hard to know what else can be done or to have hope that actions are doing anything. Yet I know that our action matters. In a moment where despair feels too close to wrapping its way around my heart….I need a touch point. I need a way to connect with beloveds…to sing…to pray…to keep acting unceasingly.
These calls are inspired by the incredible action hours led by Jewish Voice for Peace, American Friends Service Committee, Sabeel, and others. We are so grateful for the endless ways that our work learns from and intersects with movements here and now and with those who came before.
In that light, we want to say a word about why we are calling this “Picket and Pray.” That was the original tagline from Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center in the Pocono Mountains, where I live and serve as executive director. In 1942, during the war, fifteen folks gathered concerned that “Christians in social action weren’t praying, whereas Christians praying seemed unconcerned for justice (war, race, work, riches).”
They made commitments to one another around serious daily prayer and social witness. Eighty years later, I love walking this land and thinking of the generations of folks who have prayed and resisted on these stones. I am grateful that a piece of that history becomes part of our weekly practice where this beloved community can feel one another in a rhythm of prayer and action.
I hope you will join us. My heart yearns to see you, to hold this time together, to pour out our prayers, and to act…and to act…and to act….and to act until liberation is tasted from the river to the sea.
With deep gratitude,
Lydia Wylie-Kellermann