Attention PeaceWithIran.com users,

Sister Ellen Francis from the Episcopal Order of St. Helena’s Convent in Augusta, Georgia has officially begun a weekly “fast for peace” in regards to Iran and the United States and Israel. Sister Ellen Francis is an American who has traveled the world for peace and human rights activism for many years. She had the privilege of living in Iran for ten years and since then has made many more trips there for civilian diplomatic reasons. I had the honor of going on one such trip with Sister Ellen Francis in March of this year. As one can read from my own personal blogs about the trip, it was a once in a lifetime experience that I will not soon forget. Not only did I gain tremendously as a person from the trip culturally, I believe we made amazing progress as a group in our collected goal of fostering more peace and harmony between the people of the United States and Iran.

As one can clearly see from this website and so many others, there are hundreds of thousands of people all over the world who are taking pro-active steps of action to not only assure that a few ignorant people who happen to currently work for us (think “government employees”) don’t needlessly attack the people of Iran militarily, but are also working to actually create and foster more peace and harmony between our two countries - which is at the end of the day what everyone says they want. Right?

Even the worst of them, the absolute most treacherous, murderous, and caniving monsters in the world today - (think Bush Jr. and Sr., Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Libby, Limbaugh, Rove, the Clintons, many of the current “Ayatollahs” serving in the government of Iran, et al. - for more detailed information on the history of some of these heinous names, start your research by studying the Project for a New American Century here), claim that they are “working towards peace.” The problem is that it is hard sometimes to see the logic of a few people’s methods - such as bombing other countries as just one example or sponsoring terrorist acts as another. But at the very least we can agree that “peace and harmony between our countries” is what everyone “claims” to want.

Sometimes it is more obvious when someone’s actions are more aligned with “working towards peace.” The work of groups such as The ANSWER Coalition or UFPJ or Amnesty International or Star’s Edge are all good examples of this. They actually walk the talk. Many more organizations exist and can be found on the TuneInTurnOnHelpOut.org website. Many examples can be found in groups that are even smaller all over the world… sometimes just the actions of ONE.

One such example comes in the form of a beautiful person by the name of Sister Ellen Francis who has begun a weekly “fast for peace with Iran campaign.” I am inspired, moved, and challenged by Sister Ellen Francis’ bold commitment. More information can be found on her own personal blog and in the letter she sent in this week re-printed below. If you want to join her please feel free to visit her blog and email her. And let us know here at PeaceWithIran.com if you also plan on participating.

As always, keep those articles, blog posts, lecture and event notices, activism updates, and other interesting items pouring in - and most importantly keep up the real world actions for peace. Everyday. Do something.

Sincerely,
The Raconteur

Dear Ed,
I’ve started the fast, and am feeling really good. I’ve posted a notice on my blog (ellenfrancis.blogspot.com), and also some advice about fasting. I think that the prayer is the most important part, and that people could join in just doing that, or fasting from one type of food, or partial fasting for part of the time. Maybe on another day, too — Wednesday is the best day for me since it’s our “day off” here in this convent.

Just think of all the people in the world for whom fasting isn’t an option but a WAY OF LIFE.

Isn’t it great that The Call Iran Project in Washington went so well? Carah Ong posted a notice about it on the Fellowship Of Reconciliation Iran listserve.

So let me know if you’d like to join in some way, and I’d be really happy for the publicity through the PeaceWithIran website. The more the merrier, and the more powerful we will be! I’m going to write an article for the Episcopal Peace Fellowship newsletter and maybe for our newsletter too. A few people have left comments on my blog.

Yours in Peace,
Sister Ellen Francis