Servant Song | Agape Community

Ethnic and Racial Diversity: A Challenge to a White Community

Posted on August 26, 2018

by Suzanne Belote Shanley (an excerpt from a chapter in Loving Life on the Margins: The Story of the Agape Community by Brayton Shanley and Suzanne Belote Shanley, to be released this fall by Haleys, Athol, MA) Attracting students to Agape from diverse ethnicities and economic backgrounds has always been a struggle. Students from urban […]

Following Jesus in a Post-Truth World

Posted on August 25, 2018

by Brayton Shanley “Ultimates have to be seen for what they are; namely, ultimate.” This statement from Thomas Merton drives a clarifying wedge into the post-modern age of today. Pondering the truth of things has captivated me for as long as I can remember. Where is God? What is the truth? If I have one […]

Incarceration in a Rural Georgia County Jail

Posted on August 24, 2018

by Martha Hennessey In southeastern Georgia, it is near the end of May, and the seven of us who participated in the Kings Bay Plowshares action of April 4th are in our eighth week of incarceration at Camden and Glynn County Jail. We chose the day of Dr. King’s murder because of his linking of […]

New Energy

Posted on August 23, 2018

by Aria Killough-Miller “Can everyone halt?” Brayton asks. We pause from clearing lunch dishes and discussing afternoon tasks. He begins to sing “The Earth is Our Mother”. Having no idea what is going on, we nevertheless follow Brayton, who leads us into the basement toward the solar monitor. He decrescendoes the song to silence, then […]

May 2018 Stonehill College Rural Immersion

Posted on August 22, 2018

by Rachel Riani At the end of May, eight of my fellow classmates at Stonehill College along with two faculty members went on an H.O.P.E. (Honoring our neighbor, Organizing for Justice, Practicing Peace, and Encountering God) trip to Hardwick, Massachusetts to serve the Agape Community for six days to learn about sustainable living and gardening. […]

Prayer Before a Driftwood Cross

Posted on August 21, 2018

(in gratitude for a visit to Agape Community) by Marjorie Corbman In the morning light, thick as golden ribbons from the window to my eyes, I notice: my fingernails are still caked with dirt. The soul in the body is like sap in the tree, — said Saint Hildegard of Bingen — the soul in […]

Pray With Our Feet: A Kairos Moment in Charlottesville One Year Later

Posted on August 20, 2018

by Eric Martin Life in Charlottesville tends to normalize what may seem dramatic or outlandish elsewhere. Amidst the violence that has become synonymous with our town’s name on August 12 last year, DeAndre Harris suffered a concussion, a broken arm, a spinal injury, and a chipped tooth in an assault by six men, yet he […]

News Notes

Posted on August 14, 2018

Ali Mahmood whom we have known since he arrived at Agape for a visit in 2007, graduated from high school, Another Course to College in Hyde Park and will go on to Bunker Hill College in the fall. Photo: Ali on the left; his father Sabah Kader, middle; friend Mounirou, right. Brayton and Suzanne have […]

Excerpt from a remembrance of Paul Hood

Posted on August 14, 2018

by Jo Connelly It was 1983 and I was at Friends Meeting at Beacon Hill, having just settled into worship Sunday morning, when a man with a Quaker-looking beard stood up and gave a message about feeding the hungry and nonviolently fighting for peace with such love that I had to speak to him. I […]

Jeanelle Wheeler: Agape Lifer Graduates from Brown

Posted on August 14, 2018

by Brayton Shanley and Suzanne Belote Shanley Jeanelle has been coming to Agape since her mother Teresa Wheeler carried her here in her womb. Teresa has been a regular volunteer since the early 1990s and served The Agape Mission Council since 1992. Twenty-six years of service! One of the greatest gifts Teresa and her husband […]

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