Published: Oct. 16, 2020
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We seek to live our lives in reverence for all life on Earth, encompassing right-sharing of the world’s resources amongst all people and all species. Friends are called to enter into right relationship with Earth and the community of life it supports.
— Strawberry Creek Earthcare Testimony 2010
Strawberry Creek Monthly Meeting unites with Honolulu and San Francisco Friends Meetings in their support of the Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Supported by a majority of the world’s nations, the Treaty is a fitting international effort in response to the 75th anniversary of the US bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The process of signing and ratification is active. As of September 30, 2020, 84 nations have signed; 46 nations have ratified. The US currently has backed away from its former commitments to nuclear non-proliferation and reducing its nuclear arsenal.
Britain Yearly Meeting’s Meeting for Sufferings stated in 1955 that “to rely on the possession of nuclear weapons as a deterrent is faithless, to use them is a sin.” US continued development and testing of new nuclear weapons are endangering life on earth.
While support of long-term efforts such as US ratification of this Treaty are needed, we encourage Friends to do locally what we have been doing over time: witness and protest at the Lawrence Livermore Labs, Vandenberg Air Force Base, Nevada Test Site, Lockheed Martin’s big plant in Sunnyvale, and with the Regents of the complicit University of California; financially support anti-nuclear organizations such as Livermore Conversion Project, Tri-Valley CARES, Western States Legal Foundation and Friends Committee on National Legislation among others.
While all cannot do everything, we can work and pray for peace and for a nuclear-free world.
from Carl Anderson, Strawberry Creek Monthly Meeting (10/11/2020)