August 9, 2005
By Dan Webster

The sweet smell of burning sage began and ended a four-day interfaith event to remember the victims of nuclear bombing and nuclear testing.

The University of Nevada-Las Vegas was the site of a conference, "Many Stories, One Vision for a Nuclear Free World." The Episcopal Peace Fellowship was one of 27 religious and non-profit groups co-sponsoring and endorsing the conference, put on by Pax Christi USA and the Nevada Desert Experience, on August 4-7.

Janet Chisholm from Nyack, New York, chair of EPF's national executive council, was the first speaker.

"You might say I fell in love with the bomb," said Chisholm, who grew up in Las Vegas. She recounted school days memories of what local residents were told by the federal government about the safety and necessity of nuclear weapons. There have been 928 announced nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site, 100 of them detonated above ground. Many above ground tests were advertised in the Las Vegas newspapers and citizens were invited to bring sunglasses and come and watch.

"It was amazing. It was entertaining. It was exciting," she told nearly 400 participants from across the U.S. She was so convinced she went to college planning to design missiles and rockets.

"But darn it, they made me take a religion course and then I became a religion major," said Chisholm. That began a life of activism for her, though telling her story was Chisholm's breaking silence over hometown nuclear testing. She said she believed her childhood Presbyterian pastor, who said the desert land around the then-small Las Vegas community was like the Holy Land.

"I really believed this desert was holy land," she said, declaring, "all land is holy. All people are holy."

Dr. Tony de Brum, another event speaker, grew up in the Marshall Islands and served its government. His story began as a child, fishing before dawn with his grandfather, when a bright flash broke the early morning stillness of the island shore. The colors were so eerie, he said.

"It was like sunrise and sunset decided to happen at the same time," de Brum told a rapt audience. "I can still hear the men saying, ‘Run! Run!'"

He recounted what he called "numerous broken promises and deceitful actions" against his people, who bore the brunt of the effects of 12 years of U.S. nuclear testing in the South Pacific.

"Some ask us why don't we just move. We tell them, for us, this land does not belong to us. We belong to the land," said de Brum.

Several workshops and teach-ins were woven between the main speakers. The Fellowship of Reconciliation and Pace e Bene offered introductions to their trainings for nonviolence.

Bay Area NVC offered a workshop on nonviolent communications. Erin Barlow, 13, one of the younger attendees, had been given a scholarship from EPF to attend the event after writing an essay. Barlow went to the nonviolent communication workshop.

"I was made more sensitive. I definitely will think differently about conservatives," said the middle school student and member of Church of the Epiphany in Henderson, Nevada. "I will try to understand what they're thinking and get past the idea of personal gain."

Barlow's interest in the nuclear issue arose from a reading assignment in school. It also may have come from a family connection. Her grandfather was once a site manager at the Nevada Test Site, 60 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Barlow also attended the Saturday evening action at the Test Site with Chisholm, where Martin Sheen was one of the speakers. The actor, who plays President Jed Bartlet on NBC-TV's "The West Wing," said his character would grant a "presidential pardon" to all those arrested "crossing the line" onto the test site.

Sheen, a longtime anti-war and anti-nuclear activist, recited a poem from Rabindranath Tagore that concludes, "Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."

Phoebe Lee heard Sheen's talk. She came with Sue Bolen from Boise, Idaho, where they attend St. Michael's Cathedral.

"I've been…on the periphery of the nuclear issue until now," said Lee. She was one of nearly 200 people who "crossed the line" in civil disobedience. After receiving a citation and being released, Lee and Bolen joined several protesters camping out on adjacent Shoshone land.

Episcopalians from dioceses in Utah and California also attended.

The closing ceremony, "Beyond Words: An Interfaith Ritual for Peace" was performed by the Omega West Dance Company from Berkeley, California. Some of the music used in the performance was from St. Gregory of Nyssa Church in San Francisco, California, with ceremony and dance involving religious leaders from different faiths and music and gestures from Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish and Muslim traditions.

Episcopal News Service
The Rev. Dan Webster is communications director for the Diocese of Utah and a member of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship's National Executive Council.