...It becomes eminently clear to me that we are not separate, or even “separate but equal”, but part and parcel, the yin and yang, bone and sinew of one charism.

Martha and I; any resister in prison or jail I like to think, are merely magnets in our several cells (an interesting word to conjure up a vision of bodyness).  We draw to ourselves arrows loosed from the bow; arrows of good works, suffering, despair, joy, loneliness, war, deprivation, solace, comfort and love.  Each thought for us; each prayer, brings with it the life lived by the pray-ers.  Our cells are filled; bursting.

We breathe with the Spirit toward that evil spawned in the desert “downwind” of our anchor hold clasped to this poisoned sand.

Who knows what happens when this passover of peace falls gently on those who work at the Test Site?  We’ll never really know.  But I believe we are all one creature, a creation for peace, and we can’t do anything without each other, and our several gifts.

[Joyce Parkhurst is serving a nine month sentence at the Detention Center in Tonopah, Nevada, along with Martha Scarborough.  The two women cut down a portion of the fence surrounding the Nevada nuclear weapons test site on August 10, 1997.]