A recent vigil in Langhorne following the terrorist attack in Orlando.
Credit: Ingrid Sofield/NewtownPANow.com
A prayer vigil followed by discussion on recent violence in our nation will be held Tuesday in Newtown.
Langhorne Borough-based The Peace Center will be holding the vigil and discussion Tuesday from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Centre and State streets in Newtown. At the conclusion of the vigil, the group will walk to the Friends Meetinghouse on Court Street.
The organizers said the event will be to mourn the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, along with the five police officers killed last week in Dallas and all the others who were victims of violence.
Below is a statement from The Peace Center:
We recognize this violence as being rooted in a long history of trauma, mistrust and systemic racism stemming from chattel slavery, colonialism, and Jim Crow laws. We cannot continue to put temporary bandages on this open and festering wound. We must urgently address this poisonous climate and transform the violence by building trust, justice and community in every way we can.
Violence ultimately hurts all of us, and we each have a responsibility and a role in interrupting the cycle. The first step in transforming some of the intense pain we are witnessing right now – pain which has gone ignored for far too long – is to listen to one another: to listen to our neighbor’s experience of pain, of discrimination, of fear. We must learn to love one another by first hearing one another, and attempt to realize how deeply interconnected we all are.
At The Peace Center, we are moved to redouble our efforts in building safe, equitable communities for all people. We will continue to work to this end by teaching our young people how to identify and interrupt racism and discrimination, how to resolve conflicts peacefully, and how to take on the perspective of others in an empathetic way. We have seen the tragic fruits that the seeds of violence have borne to us; now we all must begin planting the seeds of peace.
