CoodeIndigo

  A baby shower in Pensacola followed by an extended stay in New Orleans due to a freak snowstorm, RSV, art museums, Jimmy Carter's lying-in-state, work, cooking, baking, bridge walks, author talks, visits to Marie C's "lake house," ESL classes, brunches, lunches, margaritas, movies, cross-stitching, pedicures, street art and protest posters, prayer vigils, a cardinal's installation, flowers and trees and starry skies, staff retreat, a graduation, funerals, a dead pope and a new pope, ice cream, nice dinners, out-of-town visitors, high school reunion, cross-country drive with stops at the Grand Canyon, a New Mexico pueblo, Oklahoma City, St. Louis and Nashville, sunny days, rainy days, new babies, the lantern fly, doctors' visits, holidays, birthdays, yoga, the national conference in Detroit, a trip to Tuscany, sisters' getaway to Monteagle, Thanksgiving, making an apron, Christmas, and mah jong ...

Written for the American Catholic Studies Journal, vol. 133, no. 4 (Winter 2022). Pax Christi USA, 1972–2022: The evolving Catholic peace movement in the United States Judy Coode Judy Coode is the incoming communications director for Pax Christi USA. Since 2016, she served as the project coordinator of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative, a project of Pax Christi International; she previously worked 20 years with the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns. For further comment please contact the author: jlcoode@gmail.com. In early August 2022, more than 300 people gathered at a hotel in Northern Virginia to celebrate 50 years of Pax Christi USA and Catholic peacemaking in the United States. The weekend included workshops on the Doctrine of Discovery, the U.S. military budget, justice for Palestinians, the nuclear weapons treaty, and Thomas Merton, to name only a few. The conference space was decorated with peace cranes, doz...

 I was grateful to be asked by the Dorothy Day Guild to write this reflection on how Dorothy Day has affected my work. It was published in the June 2023 issue of the Guild’s newsletter. Breaking bread, the crust of companionship Communications director for Pax Christi USA  Judy Coode  reflects on the persistent presence of Dorothy Day in her life. From her Facebook page after college where she immediately placed a signature quote to her office now in Washington D.C. 20 years later, Dorothy is a staple in her efforts to fight “this filthy, rotten system.” It’s 2007. I’m creating an account on Facebook, the social media platform that recently opened itself to people who are not active university students. (At this point, it has been almost 20 years since I graduated from college.) I fill in the contact information—not everything, but some basics—and add a profile photo. My personal page offers a space to include a favorite quote. I know exactly which one I will use. I do n...

I wrote this. It's posted on the Pax Christi USA website here.  My life in late 2002/early 2003 was full-on anti-war demonstrating. Constantly. Every weekend. It was exhausting. Not sure if it made an iota of difference, and I'm not sure anti-war activities will look like this again. Twenty years ago, March 2003, the United States attacked Iraq, an offensive military action based on fraudulent information, fomented by a need for revenge and grievance, and cheered by those who made themselves wealthy in the arms trade. March 19, 2003 prayer service in Lafayette Park, which began with about 100 and grew to 200 during a demonstration in front of the White House. After the service 26 people climbed over police barricades and offered themselves for arrest in witness against what they considered an unjust, immoral and illegal war. Photos are Iraqis taken by Voices in the Wilderness. Scott Wright is on left, Judith Kelly on the right. (c) Rick Reinhard / Impact Digitals 2003 Throughou...

  On my way You said return to me so here I am skin and bones held together with memories and a little bit of duct tape. I am bringing the worst of me, consider yourself warned— the furrowed brow, the achy back, the slew of judgments, a pocket full of assumptions, the track of negativity that runs laps in my head. I am bringing it all because you said return to me, edits not required, so return I will. And not all of it will be bad. Some of it will be lovely. I will bring a wagon full of nostalgia, a melody that won’t let me go, a million stories that start with the words, “Oh it was beautiful!” I will bring a mended heart, a glass half-full, two lungs, out of breath from dancing too long, and dreams that taste like honey. I will bring my whole messy human self because I know, I just know, deep in my bones, that you are already running to meet me. There are no cuts on this team. You said you’d take it all, so here I come. Me and all my humanity. We are on my way. Poem by Rev. Sara...

Originally published on the Pax Christi International Peace Stories blog, May 8, 2021 On January 6, [2021] many watched in horror as thousands of people stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. in a furious, chaotic, and deeply misguided attempt to nullify the November 2020 election of Joe Biden as president of the United States. The insurrectionists broke windows and furniture, swarmed offices, menaced members of Congress and their staff, stole property and inflicted a sense of terror on those who work in and near the U.S. Capitol. In the aftermath, five people were dead, at least 140 injured, and unknown more were traumatized. The January 6 attack was violent: in attitude, language, action, and result. Rather than stabilizing our democracy it has painfully accelerated social divisions. The United States has a history and culture of nonviolent demonstrations, most of which are peaceful. As the nation’s seat of power, Washington, D.C. is accustomed to protestors, both ...

When I was growing up, a bunch of boys lived in our neighborhood: my brothers Joe and Phillip were part of a pack that included Ricky Ray; Donny and Jimmy Loftus; Timmy Nave (who was the only bilingual one of the group because his parents were deaf and he used ASL); Billy, Joey and Paul Breen (whose fourth brother, John, was too young to join the play); and the star of N. Wilson Boulevard, Kurt Page. For a brief time, Kurt was famous, at least in Nashville and the SEC football world: in the early 1980s,  he was the quarterback for Vanderbilt University  (still holds the record for most yards passed). My Kurt Page scrapbook is around here somewhere. All or some combination of these boys, along with my father, often played basketball and baseball together, and some of them (not our father) played with their Johnny West and Geronimo action figures. (Remind me to tell the story of when I and my Barbie doll were invited to join the activity; it was the scene of my first feminist ou...

This article appeared today in the Health section of the Washington Post. Made me smile remembering how we were allowed to roam around our neighborhood without too much interference. I don't think I ever went too far, maybe a half a mile from home at most, but it probably would have been OK if I'd gone farther. I don't remember being asked about my wanderings -- maybe I was asked where I went, and it was never a big deal. I was just in Brussels for 10 days; on Saturday and Sunday (Aug. 14-15) I wandered around a bit, and decided to try different streets just for the hell of it, just to see where they would go. It made me think about how my father used to do that too, sometimes, when he was driving long distances -- just take another route to see what it would be like. Related: One thing I despise since the rise of the GPS is people's absolute dependence on the little suckers. They can be super helpful, certainly, but there comes a point where it is ridiculous to get ad...

In April 2016, I was sitting in a hotel lobby in Rome. I had been working with Pax Christi International for several months at that point, organizing the Nonviolence and Just Peace conference . We were expecting 85 theologians and peace practitioners from around the world. My previous weeks had been a whirlwind of visa applications, logistics, negotiations on every small details ... And now it was Sunday afternoon, less than 24 hours before our meeting was to begin. Folks were arriving from the United States, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America. One of our participants, Jean Jacques from the Democratic Republic of the Congo -- who had already endured significant obstacles to get a visa to enter Europe -- sent me an email to tell me that his flight had been delayed so he had missed his connection and would miss the entire conference unless he was able to buy a new ticket on a different flight to Rome. So I'm toggling back and forth between Google Translate and email to communicate...

Comfort food, soothing radio voice, bright blue sky and cool breeze. Full of gratitude. 

The biggest fight I had with my father was about the U.S.’s bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — he, a veteran of the World War II European theater, believed that the bombings had been necessary to protect U.S. soldiers from what he had been told would have been a ghastly invasion of Japan, and I thought (and still believe) the bombings are the worst thing humans have ever done. The fact that 100,000+ people were killed or injured is terrible enough, but tragically the world powers, over the past 75 years, have spent trillions of dollars on weapons of extraordinary destruction, money that could have been spent actually improving living conditions and protecting the earth. But no, it was all wasted. 75 years of waste and fear and distrust.  Today the Washington Post’s Style section has an article about John Hersey who wrote “Hiroshima,” originally for The New Yorker. I’ve never seen a photo of him before: Holy smokes, was he gorgeous. Reminded me of another gorgeous guy who wore fati...

'Tis the season to remember those who have died. Here are those on my virtual altar: Daddy (Jack Coode) Mama (Mildred Sharp Coode) Michael McKenzie, my nephew Jack McKenzie, my brother-in-law My cousins:  Vincent, Peter and David Coode, all brothers -- doesn't seem fair for one family to lose so many at such young ages Annelle Shelton Foster Larry Luster Lynne Jones Daue (a dear cousin-in-law) Uncles Joe, Victor and T Coode Uncles Jesse, Tom, Jack and Bill Sharp Aunts Mag, Austin, Sr. D Coode Aunts Dorothy, Ebbie, Frances and Peggy Sharp And their spouses Roy, Bill, Ray B, Liz, Ellen, Peggy, Mary Margaret, Ray D, Billy and Hugh My dear friend Lynn Holmes who was so good to me And now my cousin Margaret Brandt Carruthers, who died yesterday at the age of 61. She had waited a long time before visiting the doctor about her stomach pain, and then was told she had stomach cancer. It metastasized into her spine and she died in the middle of the night, November ...

Last year I downloaded and started using 1SE, One Second Everyday. Since November 1, 2018, I managed to take a brief video or live photo almost every day -- missed a few here and there, didn't bother on days when not much happened -- and now I have this almost 10 minute video of a year of my life. Going to lectures, drinking, sitting in airplanes, going to book group, eating, drinking, looking at trees, listening to live music, drinking ... Watching it, it's clear that was taking 2-3 second videos the first few months, and then I switched to one second live photos the last few months. The change seems a little abrupt. Anywhoo, here it is . Not a bad year. Maybe I'll say more about it later.

This morning I joined several Catholic Workers and others -- about 18 people total -- at the Pentagon for an hour long prayer service to commemorate the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. We prayed for forgiveness for that action, for the 200,000 people immediately killed, the untold number of people who did not die right away but who were affected for the remainder of their lives, for the trillions of dollars that have been spent on the nuclear arsenal rather than on programs that protect and enrich human life, for the damage that nuclear testing has done to the earth, for the fact that humankind now has the terrible ability to eradicate us all. Shadow on the rock by Daniel Berrigan, S.J. At Hiroshima there’s a museum and outside that museum there’s a rock, and on that rock there’s a shadow. That shadow is all that remains of the human being who stood there on August 6, 1945 when the nuclear age began. In the most real sense of the word, that is the choice before us. We shall e...

Seen about 30 kilometers from Santiago: Amazingly enough, we have found ourselves in Pedrouzo, which is about 20 kilometers from Santiago. Apparently this crazy adventure -- the dirt, sweat, sore feet, limited personal items, shared living space, beautiful views, long uninterrupted time for reflection -- will be over soon. Judy to Gina, about an hour ago: "What have we even done? I can't even remember what we DID." Gina: "The first couple of days, I was like, 'Three weeks of this? Are you kidding?'" Camino thoughts: Day one: OK, this will be fine. This is interesting. This is different.   Day four: What the hell have I done. WHEN WILL THIS BE OVER? Day seven: Seriously, how can these people be smoking? Does every European smoke? Day 10: Whose stupid idea was this? Are my feet broken? DO I HAVE STRESS FRACTURES? Day 13: I wonder if I will ever wear truly clean clothes again. Day 20: My God this will never end. I will share a ba...