Loving Life on the Margins • the story of the Agape community

40 years of Community, Resistance, Nonviolence and Sustainability. Read "Loving Life on the Margins: The Story of the Agape Community" available now! Order online from our website or download an order form to purchase by mail. The book covers the life of its co-founders, Suzanne and Brayton...

An Inspiring Young Person’s Anticipation and Hope

If you are looking for a handbook to hope and healing amidst the stress of everyday life, look no further than Loving Life on the Margins: The Story of the Agape Community.  This 315-page book, written by husband and wife Brayton Shanley and Suzanne Belote Shanley, serves as both a

Francis Day 2019 – A Short Video

  A short video to share while the full videos are being created:  

To Silence a Divine Voice?

by Brayton Shanley In December 2016, I spent some time at Standing Rock, in North Dakota. I felt called to the Lakota led nonviolent witness against the oil pipeline going through sacred tribal lands of the native people residing there.  Around the sacred fire a tribal leader spoke of a

Stopping Short of Emmaus

by Suzanne Belote Shanley Recently, I read a critique by Alexandra Fuller of memoir as a literary genre: “Most memoir material is best saved for the shrink’s couch. …In order to balance its innate narcissism, a memoir ought to instruct.”  I read these words at a time when Brayton and

Loving Life on the Margins: the Story of the Agape Community

by Suzanne Belote Shanley and Brayton Shanley Reviewed by Thomas Lee, PhD, retired professor, St. Anselm College Suzanne and Brayton Shanley’s compelling book, Loving Life on the Margins: the story of the Agape community goes far beyond a chronological record of the labor-intensive founding and nurture of Agape, their unique

For Future Agape Interns: 3 Things to Remember

by Natalia Luna From March to May 2019, I lived and worked alongside Dixon, Brayton, and Suzanne as an intern at the Agape Community. Partially out of necessity and partially on a whim, I left my life as a student at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester and

New Beginnings … or … Spring Has Sprung

Background: Nicole Braithewaite-Hunt, who was a major contributor, to the past two Francis Days, with her sisters and brothers in the Worcester Inter-Tribal Indian Center to the last two Francis Days at Agape is of Blackfoot and Tuscarora Native American lineage.  Nicole contacted Suzanne to see if Agape would host

Jail, an Unusually Noisy Monastery

by Mark Colville A MARCH, 2019 LETTER FROM MARK COLVILLE FROM THE GLYNN CO. JAIL A member of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, Mark turned himself back into the Glynn County Jail when on December 11th, 2019, after surgery in his home state of CT.  Judge Cheesbro accepted a motion

Michael True, a Tribute

by David O’Brien Michael True, Worcester peacemaker, poet, historian, interfaith organizer, teacher of English and model Worcester citizen is gone. He passed away last week in Minneapolis where he and his wife, Mary Pat moved just a few weeks ago to join three of their six children who have settled