A mission of peace

Michele Marr

Their names are not household words like the names of Martin Luther

King, Jr. or Mahatma Gandhi, but Monique Theriault and Carol Zwaans

share their dream of justice and peace.

For Theriault and Zwaans the seed of their dream was planted six

years ago during a nine-month course of study called JustFaith, a

program developed by a Roman Catholic named Jack Jezreel who hoped to

challenge and empower other Catholics to be instruments of social

transformation and justice.

As part of the JustFaith curriculum, the two women read “The

Prophetic Imagination” by Walter Brueggeman, professor of Old

Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary, and they took its message

of prophetic ministry to heart.

In the book, Brueggeman writes, “The task of prophetic ministry is

to nurture, nourish and evoke a consciousness and perception

alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant

culture around us.”

In an unjust and violent world, the alternative that Theriault and

Zwaans hope to evoke is justice and nonviolence.

Theriault, a 5-foot grandmother who petite and speaks in a voice

barely louder than a whisper. Brueggeman, she explained, “talked

about how most people cannot even imagine a world of peace [because

the are] too many injustices and too many bad people” in the world.

Zwaans, who Theriault calls a dynamo, has a voice that booms. “The

whole JustFaith experience opened my eyes,” she said. “To me, doing

something is [now] mandatory.” Both women have families. Both work

full-time. But each makes time for strangers.

On a recent Wednesday evening as they spoke about their commitment

to justice and peace, they had just finished serving dinner to

several men and women who were staying at Sts. Simon and Jude

Catholic Church through a program called SHIP, an interfaith ministry

that provides shelter, meals, showers and budget and job counseling

to homeless adults.

In the months since Sept. 11, 2001 and the ensuing wars in

Afghanistan and Iraq, Theriault and Zwaans’ dedication to peace has

taken on additional aspects. Following the terrorist attacks two

years ago, Zwaans signed up with the national Catholic peace movement

Pax Christi’s “Friday Fast from Violence, for Peace, Shalom, Salaam.”

“I love to eat,” said Zwaans with conviction. “When I’m hungry,

every time my stomach growls, when I smell food, I remember to pray.”

She also writes letters.

To her, they are voices speaking for the powerless.

Theriault, who believes over-consumption in the United States

leads to inequality of resources throughout the world, began riding

the bus to work at least once a week. It takes her an hour and a half

to make the same trip by bus that takes 20 minutes by car. The walk

from the bus stop to her office takes another 30 minutes.

“It helps keep me humble,” she said.

Both women believe that the smallest of actions, combined like

raindrops in a river, can make a big contribution to world justice

and peace.

In March, before the war in Iraq began, Theriault and Zwaans

attended an anti-war rally at Pier Plaza along with about 60 other

people who decided to return to the plaza every Sunday night. The

group got cheers and jeers and, as the war wound down, fewer and

fewer people showed up.

That’s when Theriault and Zwaans became determined to continue

their vigil, but with fresh tactics and a new sign: “Visualize world

peace; it’s up to you.” Their goal was simply to encourage people to

consider the possibility of peace.

One evening as three teenage brothers passed Theriault and Zwaans

at Pier Plaza, the youngest of the brothers broke rank and came to

stand in front of their banner. “What’s that mean?” he asked the

women just as one of his brothers came back and collared him.

“Sometimes war is good,” he said, pulling his brother away.

“Sometimes war is good.”

But, on another Sunday evening, when a father walked past with his

two young daughters, one asked, “What does that say, Dad?” And he

read the words aloud. “Visualize world peace. It’s up to you.” Then

he said, “See, it begins right here between you and your sister.”

For Zwaans it was an exalted moment.

“That’s exactly what we’re talking about,” she said. “It’s got to

start small and grow in each individual [until] it’s like a ball

rolling down the hill. It won’t be able to stop.”

To those who share in their dream and wonder how they can help,

Theriault and Zwaans tell them to imagine, through meditation or

prayer, a world at peace; to be positive, to talk as if peace is

possible; and work for justice.

To those who tell them their dream is “a nice concept that will

never happen,” they offer the words of Archbishop Oscar Romero, who

was martyred in his defense of Salvadoran peasants.

“We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in

realizing that. This enables us to do something and do it very well.

It may be incomplete but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an

opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.” --

Archbishop Oscar Romero

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at [email protected].