3/25: Rolling Away the Stone of Empire in Livermore

Rolling Away the Stone of Empire
Good Friday, March 25, 2005, 6:45 a.m.
Vasco Road & Patterson Pass Road, Livermore

For more than twenty years, people of faith and others concerned about
nuclear weapons have gathered on Good Friday for prayer and witness
outside the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory. We will assemble at
Vasco Road and Patterson Pass Road, on the southeast corner. There will
be singing, spoken messages, and prayer, and then we will walk about 1/2
mile to a major gate of the lab. At the gate there will be nonviolent
acts of witness. Following the action, there will be a community
gathering in Livermore, to get together, share our concerns and
activities, and get a chance to talk with Ched Myers.

This year the principal speaker will be Ched Myers, whose work ?? both
written and lived ?? has struggled with the concrete practice of
discipleship. A member of the Pacific Life Community and Bartimaeus
Community, Ched Myers was active in the San Francisco Bay Area in the
anti-nuclear and anti-war movement. He is also a widely-read biblical
scholar, bringing to greater awareness Jesus' prophetic call for
justice. Ched currently works with Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries in
Los Angeles (http://www.bcm-net.org).

The story of Good Friday is one of the torture and murder of the leader
of a nonviolent movement challenging empire and working for a just
social order. It is the story of the death of Jesus of Nazareth at the
hands of the Roman proconsul and the collaborating social powers of
ancient Israel. This story is re-lived in many other struggles around
the world and through the centuries. The roll of the dead in the service
of love and justice includes Archbishop Oscar Romero, Dr. Martin Luther
King, Violet Luizzo, Victor Jara, Mohandas Gandhi, the four American
religious killed in El Salvador, Rachel Corrie, and many more.

You are invited to join the Good Friday Witness in Livermore where the
laboratory which brought the world the hydrogen bomb continues to expand
the U.S. nuclear arsenal to strengthen further an explicitly offensive
U.S. military policy. Since their inception, nuclear weapons have been
the trump card in the U.S. military deck and their threatened use has
played a part in numerous conflicts. The development of new, modified
and exotic nuclear weapons continues at Livermore Lab at an accelerating
pace. It can reasonably be said that Livermore is engaged in developing
the new crosses for the expanding U.S. empire.

*** HOW TO GET THERE ***
Maps from MapQuest:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?Q198147F7
Driving: Take I-580 to Livermore. Take the Vasco Road exit and go south
a bit over 1 mile to Patterson Pass Road. At Patterson Pass Road, you
can either turn right to enter a residential neighborhood to park; or
you can turn left onto Patterson Pass Road, and parking will probably be
OK. This location is where we were for Good Friday in 2003 and 2004. In
earlier years we were at a different location about a mile away.

*** HOW TO SUPPORT US ***
Please come. Please bring your friends. Please spread the word.
We will need volunteers for lots of things, both beforehand and on the
day of the event.
Your financial help is needed to cover the day's expenses: renting a
generator for the sound system, a portapotty, printing, postage, etc.
Please send a check made out to Ecumenical Peace Institute and mail it to
Ecumenical Peace Institute, PO Box 9334, Berkeley, CA 94709.
In the memo, please write "Good Friday."
Any leftover funds will be used by EPI and Livermore Conversion Project
for our ongoing work for peace and justice. Thank you for your support.

*** HOW TO CONTACT US ***
Phone EPI at (510) 548-4141.
Leave a message and someone will phone you back.