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In These Times, A Prayer for Peace
I’d like to share a prayer that attendees—from across our city and from all walks of life—lifted up at our recent Fourth Annual Peacemaker Breakfast. What a vitally important time in our city… our country… our world… [...]
Four Blessed Peacemakers
It was a great joy to gather at Clara Brown Commons last Friday in celebration of peacemaking—and four beloved Denver peacemakers in particular. We were so inspired, challenged, and encouraged! Afterward, among many appreciations, I received one [...]
Our People Share Healing
Click images for just a few of our inspiring voices…
Rhiannon
I LOVE This Place
Rhiannon Middleton is a Family Advocate at Joshua Station. “I love this place. I especially love when I get to help people find something within themselves they didn’t know was there, and support people whom others have given up on.
“For instance, our former resident Hilda didn’t think of herself as especially special or strong. But when she had kidney failure, amazing qualities came into view. She lived every day as if she wasn’t dying. She made the most of every day—working hard and enjoying life. But I also think dying gave her perspective—she refused to engage in silly things like gossip or fighting. She set an example for all of us, and I got to be part of it.
“I first arrived at Joshua Station at a low point in my life in 2006. After experiencing major life challenges, I regained custody of my children on condition of stable housing. I couldn’t imagine how this would change my entire story.
“Several years after graduating from the program, when I had truly gained stability, I was hired as volunteer coordinator. From the start I told Penny, our program director at the time, that my firm goal was to be a family advocate. Eventually, I was!
“I love to travel, and of course there are places I’d like to see in the world. But there is absolutely nowhere I’d rather be than at Joshua Station. I feel at peace in this place. It is home to so many people, including me. I LOVE this place. Did I say that strongly enough?”
Rhiannon
Resident
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Denise
Denise / This Human Life
Denise Vaughn is a Family Advocate at Joshua Station. “I love sitting with our residents and developing relationships. Much of my work is very practical. But it’s always amazing when we sense we are both simply doing this human life thing together, and in that way we’re ‘the same.’
“A resident showed me a picture of herself on her phone. It was from 2013, and she looked full of life and confident. She looks 20 years older now. She had a bad accident that broke her body. She was divorced. She’s had trauma and depression that she can’t talk with me about yet. But she tells me about being in the grocery line with a full cart, finding out she has no money on her food stamp card, and being overwhelmed with embarrassment. She was literally stroking the picture on her phone as she spoke. I told her, ‘That picture on the phone is still you.’ And the embarrassment is me; I’ve known that kind of shame.
Denise
Resident
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Our Ingredients
Presence
Presence
We are followers of Jesus from different streams of the Christian tradition. Just as God was embodied in the human person of Jesus of Nazareth, the great gift of divine love is continually embodied, touch-able, and experienced. We participate in this lived reality joyfully.
Prayer
Prayer
In our often-intense urban context, we are learning the value of quieting our hearts and minds in order to listen for the voice of God. Prayer is itself a kind of presence: being present to God; trusting that God is fully present to us.
Peacemaking
Peacemaking
Seeking the peace of the city means unplugging from the violence of rivalry and exclusion that come so naturally, pursuing instead relationships and collaboration, including with people whose worldviews may differ from ours, for the shared joy of building healthy and welcoming communities.
Place
Place
The movement of God is an inner reality, a matter of “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.”* Yet, this inner reality is made manifest in the external, tangible experiences of life—all of which happen… someplace!
Playground
Playground
Let’s be honest, sometimes as religious folks or activists we are too quick to see the city as a battleground between good and evil—where everything becomes a win/lose proposition, filled with zero-sum competitions and endless rivalries.
Power
Power
We hope to imitate the way Jesus used his power, not clinging to self-validation or importance, but “emptying the self” to enter fully into a humble place of powerlessness and vulnerability.
Plenty
Plenty
Peacemaking is rooted in an asset-based vision of life, trusting that there is enough—enough of all the ingredients for human flourishing. Our task is to pay attention to how the Spirit is already at work in our world.
Prophetic Imagination
Prophetic Imagination
Prophets of old told stories, wrote poetry, and lived in peculiar ways that called out the idolatry and injustice of their day. We sense a call to name and engage the idolatry and injustice of our own time and place.
