The Current
We're seeking inspiration toward deeper discipleship through conversations with people working toward justice, cultivating deep spiritual practices, forming community and connection in significant ways, and helping one another heal from trauma. As we follow Christ to the margins of society, to the wounded and grieving, and into the hard work of peacemaking, we find that we are not alone on this journey. Join us to resist despair, and to regain some hope in the world, in the church, and in Christ.
Most weeks, Pastor Chris Nafis is talking with scholars and practitioners who are inspiring and faithful, and some weeks Pastor Chris is engaging with the book of Acts. Each week, we find the Spirit calling us deeper into the death and resurrection of Jesus, into a life with God, and into loving one another well.
This is a ministry of Living Water Church of the Nazarene, which gathers in San Diego's East Village, the epicenter of homelessness in this city. We are committed to meaningful worship, community formation, and service. Join us sometime :)
The Current
Beyond Division: Building Peace in a Fractured World with Jer Swigart and Osheta Moore
A conversation with peacemakers Jer Swigart and Osheta Moore reveals a profound alternative to our increasingly divided religious and political landscape. As founders of Global Immersion, they've dedicated their lives to training Christian leaders in the art of transformative peacemaking.
Their journey began with a realization that the Christianity they inherited "promoted domination more than restoration." Through experiences in conflict zones and learning from marginalized communities, they discovered a Jesus who was "magnificently defiant against systems that dignified some while denigrating others" yet "indefatigably nonviolent."
What makes their approach unique is how they combine big-picture vision with everyday practice. While Jer brings strategic thinking about global conflict, Oshita brings spiritual direction and embodied practices that help peacemakers sustain their work. Together they create transformative experiences that don't just inform but awaken participants to the question: "Who must we become?"
Their flagship program takes Christian leaders on a six-month journey culminating in immersion trips to places like Belfast, Northern Ireland. There, participants learn directly from those who have navigated sectarian conflict—and surprisingly, find these experienced peacemakers expressing concern about America's growing divisions.
The parallels are striking: in both contexts, groups "cloistered with people who thought just like them" and became convinced that "building enough power to crush the opposition" was necessary, all while claiming divine blessing. Against this mindset, Global Immersion promotes a vision of community that includes ideological "others," pointing to Jesus's own community of former enemies.
Perhaps most compelling is their emphasis on "companioning" rather than converting. "It used to be that clergy made their living being certain," Swigart notes. Today's faith leaders must instead create "environments where people can be incomplete, imperfect, and in process."
This conversation offers hope that even in our fractured world, another way is possible—one that builds bridges rather than walls, that restores rather than dominates, and that finds in faith not a weapon but a path toward healing.
Hey and welcome back to the Current. This is Pastor Chris Nafis, living Water Church, and really grateful today to have Jer Swigart and Oshita Moore joining me. These two were the leaders of our cohort where we went to Belfast and had a whole long process of learning to become better peacemakers. I've shared a bit about that on the podcast. Jer is the co-founder of Global Immersion, which we're going to talk about a bit on the podcast today, training and building peacemakers and a community of peace fellows who are doing this kind of work in the world. Oshita is his fearless companion in it.
Chris Nafis:She's a spiritual director and an author of books like Dear White Peacemaker. They're a killer combo and both of them have been amazing, amazing influences and inspirations in my life. I hope that you'll find a little bit of inspiration in the conversation here as well. Here it is, enjoy, hey, jer and Oshshita. Thank you guys so much for making time for me. Uh, thank you for all the things that you've invested in me over the last I don't know what eight, nine months or whatever, and then for doing this little extra bit of coming on the podcast. Thanks for being here oh, of course, totally.
Chris Nafis:What a gift yeah, oh, you guys are the gift, um, you know, for many of most of our people. Know that, know me, know that I got to go on this amazing global immersion trip this year. We went to Belfast and kind of got immersed in the troubles and got trained formally in the art of peacemaking, mediation. These are the two people that led the group and put it all together and hosted us and facilitated all these great gatherings, and so, yeah, I just wanted to come, bring you guys on and talk about, like, how did this all come to be? What do you do? Why are you doing it? All those kinds of things. So maybe can I just ask first, like, how did you end up training peacemakers? Like, how did that become your vocation?
Osheta Moore:I'll let you start, Jer, and then I'll jump in.
Jer Swigart:Yeah, yeah, sure, I mean, I think it's the kind of occupation that I think found me more than me going out and searching for it. You know, I think I had some unique experiences in our global village that put me proximate to pain and injustice and conflict, and I realized that I really didn't have a solid theological foundation that would fuel me toward repair. I was socialized into a form of Christianity that promoted domination a bit more than restoration, that promoted domination a bit more than restoration. And you know, and then when you're in proximity to some significant pain in the world and recognize, oh, I don't know that I have a theology that fuels repair or restoration, that became problematic for me. And then you know, simultaneously I didn't really feel like I had the skill set either. So I was lacking theology, I was lacking skill, and so I went to work in the streets and in the seminaries to grow a more robust understanding, and that put me in proximity to folk who had been marginalized by the religion that I had inherited, and they introduced me to a Jesus that was so unbelievably compelling, and a Jesus that was compassionate but magnificently defiant against systems and structures and ideologies and theologies that dignified some while denigrating others, but also a Jesus who was indefatigably nonviolent, a peacemaker through and through. And so I just started to discover a Jesus like that that was really worth my life, and the practices and the rhythms of Jesus that were quite restorative, and began to explore and experiment with those things.
Jer Swigart:And I did it with my faith community at that time, the San Francisco Bay area and my colleague John was doing some similar things down in the San Diego area, and we just started to recognize man. There's something here about a theology and practice of peace and reconciliation that we were learning from marginalized communities that might be for our communities, the ones who had inherited a similar religion to us, and so we knew that we weren't going to be able to talk people into the way of peacemaking, that we were going to have to live people into the way of peacemaking. And that's really where Global Immersion was born nearly 15 years ago. And in all of that time I personally have been on a nonstop search for other people who are like-minded, who have taken different journeys to arrive to this kind of theology and share our passion to train people in the peacemaking way of Jesus with us. And that's where Oshita came into the story.
Osheta Moore:Yeah, so I have been writing and leading and equipping peacemakers for I want to say, 15 years now, or over 15 years. And so I got into this because my husband and I met in New Orleans and we both moved into an intentional community that was focused on, like CCDA, john Perkins principles and one of the one of the important things that we wanted to bring into that community was, like, conflict resolution and de-escalation of violence. My husband used to be a gang member. This neighborhood that we moved in with two was known for its gang violence and so we we were doing peacemaking work on the ground in different ways. He was working at the community center, directly with these kids. I was hosting meals and gatherings in my home. I was teaching dance at the community center, like we were really embedded in doing the work of peacemaking.
Osheta Moore:My dad was a Marine for almost 20 years. He did two tours in Vietnam and the PTSD that my dad experienced and the ways that it shaped him as a man and as a father I directly correlate that back to the trauma he experienced being participating in violence and like it's it's so deep for my dad. He will, he will. He never spoke about his experiences over there. He was a very angry man, very, very wounded man, and so I was always curious about the peacemaking ethic of Jesus. And then I added that to our work in New Orleans.
Osheta Moore:But then when we moved away from New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina which, like at the time of this recording, it was 20 years ago we moved away I realized that the ways that I was formed as a peacemaker were really rooted in, like the sensational big practices of peace, but like when you are called to a specific space or a specific moment or a crisis of deescalating and peacemaking.
Osheta Moore:I was so trained and comfortable with that. I was not so comfortable with everyday peacemaking. And what does it look like to take the peacemaking ethic of Jesus into my everyday life as a young mom, as a new wife, as a Black woman, mostly white spaces? And so that's when I started writing on my blog about the intersection of Jesus' peacaking ethic, the Hebrew concept of shalom, in my everyday life and wrote one book at that point by the time Jer and I met, called Shalom Sisters, which is for women exploring peacemaking in their lives up and started working together and from our work, and while I was working with him I released my second book, dear white peacemakers, which is looking at that peacemaking ethic and the current conversation of anti-racism and moving towards a vision of anti-racism peacemaking yeah, thanks, you guys are like a killer combo, because you know we got jare, jare.
Chris Nafis:You're like a charged kind of person going like I mean it's, this is going to sound ironic the word I was about to use. I was going to say go conquer the world, but that's like the opposite of what we're working towards here. But, like you know what I mean, like you're, you're like go in and go for the big stuff. And then, oshita, in my experience with you, you know you're actually was really cool to see how many of the practices that you brought to our meetings were very similar to some of the stuff that we've been developing in our trauma work here locally at Living Water. Because you know that everyday stuff that you're talking about like it's apparent in like the spiritual practices that you're trying to teach us and the way that you're using art and music and sort of embodied practices to kind of bring about the everyday. And so I feel like we kind of got both with you guys because, um, because there's this like kind of big picture, like hey, let's talk about global politics and uh, like huge conflicts, and then there's like this is how we do this, this is how we come into the space already at peace, um, so that we're prepared to do the work. Um, so could you share a little bit about, like, global immersion?
Chris Nafis:I obviously participated and I know all about it, but could you share a little bit about like what is it? What do we do? What, what do y'all do? Maybe, jared, you want to start?
Jer Swigart:Yeah, sure I mean, and even to interact with what you just said. That's very meaningful um, that that you see the um, the nuances between Oshita and I, and I think that's something that we really celebrate and work really hard at nurturing, both in our unique fingerprint in peacemaking, but also in recognizing in our shared leadership, when is the moment that we need a little bit more motivation and inspiration and strategy and possibility and possibility, and when do we need to spend more time considering what we're anchored to and how we take good care of ourselves and one another, tending to peacemaking within our wingspan? You know, and I think that's part of what has always been the ethos of, of global immersion is like we're, we're not, you know, we, we're not involved in um, we're not overtly or directly involved in geopolitical peacemaking at an advocacy level, but we certainly are when it comes to forging communities of people who are daring to live a better story and um, and these are folk who are learning what it means to be reconciled within as well as reconcilers among and around us. You know, and so, yeah, and so, and if you're Enneagram folk, I'm an eight and Oshita's a two and I live like if you could see my hair. It looks like a flame, honestly, and I live with that kind of spice. It's not an exaggeration. And Oshita is one of the absolutely most profound pastors, especially pastors in the peacemaking movement, that I have ever met, and so what a gift to have, like a prophet and a pastor, kind of side by side, guiding the way we form everyday peacemakers. That's what Global Immersion does, and we do it primarily by reaching leaders and transforming Christian leaders into conflict competent leaders.
Jer Swigart:Our flagship program is a six-month cohort where we're bringing in Christian leaders across sectors, and so they're in academic institutions, they're in congregational leadership, they're in non-profit leadership, they're in healthcare, they're in politics, they're in art. You know they're all over the place, but they're folks who want to be fueled by their faith to deploy their influence restoratively. Lead is a six month long program, that is, it's relatively robust and it's wraparound. You know it's. You're learning from some of the best peacemakers on the planet through the miracle of technology and live conversations with, with folk who have, who think very, very deeply about these things, and our practice is informed deeply, or our thought leadership is informed deeply by our practice, you know. And so when, when our cohort is working with um, with us. It it's seasoned and it's not universal. It's real time, because the world is not liquid, and neither are we Um but uh but where it's also wrap around in terms of it it being one-to-one. And so with Oshita, there's spiritual direction provided and with me there's coaching's coaching provided around formation or organizational renovation or programmatic innovation.
Jer Swigart:And the program culminates in an immersive experience in a conflict space or a post-conflict society where we're learning again from some of the best peacemakers in that given conflict, whether it's in the deep South of the United States or it's in Northern Ireland, in the midst of the troubles. And then, by the end of that experience, people are recognizing not only the depth of the transformation in their own lives, love and leadership, but the strength of connection. We're no longer alone. We're in a kindred community where we're co-creating and championing one another. We're holding each other's arms up when we're exhausted, we're celebrating when there's things to celebrate, we're grieving when there's things to grieve with one another.
Jer Swigart:And then there's an invitation into the Global Immersion Fellowship, which is a long journey that we get to continue to embark upon together, as colleagues and peers, raising up peacemakers all over the country and all over the planet. And in addition to that, we're investing into this conversation at a public space and the country and all over the planet. And so, and in addition to that, like we, we were investing in into this conversation at a public space and the writing and the podcasting, and there's coaching and consulting and workshopping. That happens, I think, Oshita, again from a spiritual direction standpoint and from her pen. If you haven't, if you, if you haven't had an opportunity to listen in through the pen of Oshita Moore, like that's the way in which she's guiding the movement pastorally, you know, and so we're, we're putting these contributions into the world and we're inviting others into that space with us to inform a collective consciousness and grow a muscle for the work of repair. Oshita, what would you add to kind of what we do and how we do it?
Osheta Moore:You know, you said so much that I agree with, and I have worked with a lot of nonprofits and a lot of peacemaking leaders. One space that I feel my most comfortable being my full self, being who God created me to be as a peacemaker, as a brown woman in mostly white spaces, like I said, and I think that that is what we really try to. It's baked into the friendship here and I have. It's baked into our own individual ethoses around peacemaking and being at peace within yourself, shalom within yourself before you make shalom in the world. And so what I would say is like one of the things that we do together really well and that became a hallmark for the way that we want to do the cohort, is that we are asking the question who are you becoming Like? Who is the peacemaker that God has in God's mind when they look at you?
Osheta Moore:Like your unique makeup, your unique context, who you are as a peacemaker and what you bring to this work is more important than the calls to action, because you need to know how you're wired so that you can respond to the calls to action appropriately and authentically, so that you can do this work sustainably, and so you know one of the things that we really focus on is that, like self-awareness, is that tending to your soul is the like we have this covenant that we do that you've done with us several times, chris. Or we talk about like it's important for you to know your boundaries and know yourself and take care of yourself, and and for you to know your boundaries and know yourself and take care of yourself and and to communicate to us your needs, because that's how you grow as a peacemaker being that, having that level of self-awareness, and that's a huge part of what we do with our cohort.
Jer Swigart:And I would just add to that too, like I love.
Jer Swigart:I love that, this notion that the outcome of our work is not to replicate Jair and Oshita into the world.
Jer Swigart:The outcome of our work is to come behind leaders like you, chris, who already have a unique fingerprint in this work, and help you understand it more fully and add some fuel to it, some oxygen, some tinder, add some relationship and some community of people who believe in you, with you, for you, in terms of the unique contribution that you're making into the world, and like that's the community that we're building. So you know when it's hard for me anymore to answer the question what is global immersion? Simply with a mission statement and some programmatic deliverables, because, chris, you are global immersion. We have 56 peace fellows across the country. We, collectively, are global immersion because we're committed to cultivating peace and peacemakers around the country, and I don't care if anybody knows my name. I want people to be so infected by the restorative revolution that we get to be a part of because they've been in contact with you, chris. Like that, that is global immersion and that's that's what we're trying to do.
Chris Nafis:Well, you guys are doing really well, because that's how I felt going through the immersion.
Chris Nafis:You know, I feel like many of us are so hesitant to kind of like follow someone else's program and get in line with what someone else is doing. And what you guys have done is not that, it's really like you've just kind of brought people together who are in similar spaces in their theology and their process and their vocation and what we're interested in, and then, as you said, like you've just kind of given us some fuel, some connection. You've helped carve out some space for us to reflect on what we're doing and and really just send us back to our work, kind of fired up and energized and equipped in a new way to um, to go back to what we were doing before. So cause it is interesting, like when I think about global immersion and what's kind of coming out of this, it's not like it's not its own thing. I mean it is because but what it is is more of a community full of people who are doing these other things.
Chris Nafis:You know what I mean and and you all are just like making, making, uh, others more effective and helping us to kind of fend off the loneliness and the isolation that comes in this work sometimes and, uh, and you're doing a great job at it. So, uh, yeah, thank you for all that you're doing. It's been like really like I I went into the to the immersion like very I don't know skeptical is not the right word, but just like.
Jer Swigart:I'm just wary, it's okay. It's okay If you're a skeptical man.
Chris Nafis:Well, but I don't think I was skeptical, but I just, you know, like I just I'm always afraid to get my hopes up too high with any of these kinds of like going to a conference or going to be a part of a group, because I just, you just, I don't know, I just don't want to be let down and it was, it was great, like I just have had a thoroughly great experience all the way through, even into last week, when we had our first thing that I was a part of as, like, a peace fellow. So so, yeah, I love what you're doing. I'm going off on just, you know, complimenting what you all are doing. So I guess my question for you is like you know, let me, let me set this up.
Chris Nafis:Sorry, I'm talking a lot here, but we're in the process of looking for a staff person right now and you know, one of the things is is like okay, well, how do we find someone who's got a deep faith and spiritual journey and spirituality, but is is kind of like, shaped in this narrow way of justice and peace that seems so rare these days, like, and part of the question for me is like, how do we bring more people into that space. Like Jerry, you kind of described almost like a conversion experience in your early days of like coming to see this Jesus who's not trying to conquer but who's trying to like invite and carve out, make, make spaces for peace and those sorts of things. Like how do we, how do we kind of get people to like open up to that different way of expressing our faith? Is that, do you feel like that's part of your calling? I mean, in some ways, where are those people in us, are in this group, are already kind of on that journey?
Osheta Moore:That where those people in us are in this group are already kind of on that journey. That's a big question, but so I think I will. I'll kick this off because I think this is the question that I asked when I wrote Dear White Peacemakers, because I was dealing with sort of the same, a similar angst that you're dealing with, of like, how do I take good people who are, who are genuinely good like and are curious but like, skeptical and they don't see how their own life or their own spiritual formation intersects with this idea of anti-racism and then they are complicit to racism in their context simply because of lack of knowledge and lack of work. And I think that one of the things that was so impactful for me at the very beginning of moving from a faith that was very rooted in the do's and don'ts and the ins and outs of Christianity and that's how I defined myself as a child of God is who, what am I against and who am I against? Moving from that into a definition of child of God is made in the image of God and eventually, beloved.
Osheta Moore:Moving to that deeply humanizing space in my own spiritual formation helped me have an imagination for what that could look like for other people and an imagination for, like, what are the obstacles that prevent people from identifying and sensing that they are made in God's image or that their first name is beloved? And so I think that you know, whenever I'm thinking, whenever I am looking for partners or people to hire or things like that like who we're looking for in this cohort the thing I'm looking for is, like, do you have that inherent curiosity and drive to find a way to proclaim belovedness and to bestow the image of God upon people? Because it comes from a place of like, deep, from that well within yourself? Like you are grounded in that your name is beloved and you just can't help but move through the world and say you're made in the image of God. So it is not okay that you're being forced. There's a forced famine where you live. Like you are made in the image of God, it's not okay that you don't have health care. Like and because you experience famine or starvation and because you experience illness in your body, you cannot believe that you're beloved. So it's because you're terrified to take your kid to school because of gun violence that's preventing you from experiencing an identity or awareness that you're made in God's image. You're worthy to be protected, and then you don't believe that your name is beloved, and so I think for me as a peacemaker. Those are my two things that I'm looking at and the two calls to action when I show up in spaces. Yeah, thank you.
Jer Swigart:Yeah, I, I I'm finding, chris, that there are more people growing skeptical. There are more people in the Christian movement in the United States that are growing skeptical of the religion that they've inherited than we could have ever imagined, and I think they're waiting not only to hear but to see a better story and the religion that I inherited, you know, position God is loving but militant, you know, and so this God endorsed the use of violence to accomplish his outcomes. And, um, and when I look back on my theology, you know I, I'm, I look back with generosity, um, with with, you know, I've done my work of grief and lament and the things there. But, like, I also now look back with generosity because those who gave me that religion were doing the best that they could with what they had. They weren't unkind people, they just were discipling me like they had been discipled. And you know, it took for me a couple of moments of paying attention a little bit different. Like, I remember it was 9-11 for me when I heard Christian leaders that I really respected endorse revenge rather than reconciliation, and that was that sounded so off-putting to me that I asked questions like who is this violent Jesus that endorses the violent demise of my constructed enemies, and is this Jesus worth my life? And I think there's a lot of folk right now asking those questions.
Jer Swigart:But I also had to wrestle with the fact that the God that lives at the center of that religion endorses my accumulation of wealth, power and safety, regardless of the cost of others, and the use of force, whether that's in arrogant certainty or it's exclusion, or maybe even the endorsement of elimination of other people. That's not like a bad idea. That's righteousness, that's like faithfulness, and I think there's a lot of us right now who have been socialized into a similar religion that looks more like a God who wields crosses rather than where is them, and are asking, are at a place in their life where they're saying if there's not a better version of this, then I'm not sure that it's worth my life at all. And again, I think these people are dying to hear and see a better story lived out.
Jer Swigart:When we talk about forming conflict-competent leaders or peacemakers, part of that work involves companioning these people on a journey from a religion that dominates to a faith that restores. I want to see the leaders that we're working with living a better story and then narrating it, and as they're doing that, they're actually helping others begin to see a hopeful alternative to this religion of dominance that they had inherited. So I actually, from my vantage point, I see a growing community of people, just even in the 56 Peace Fellows that we're working with across the country. I mean they have direct influence collectively over tens of thousands of people in the country on a weekly basis. The Jesus that they're following and the story that they're narrating is really good news and it's contagious and I think it's infecting people in communities across the country.
Chris Nafis:Yeah.
Osheta Moore:Yeah.
Chris Nafis:Yeah, I mean, I think you're right about all that. I guess I just see a lot of people who have kind of come to see the kind of what you saw just the violence and the inconsistencies and some of the things that have been taught to us by the generations before us, especially in evangelicalism. A lot of people just walking away. You know, and I think, like you know, I'm also a hospital chaplain and I see people in later years who are trying to return to the roots of faith because they've walked away or they've just not kept up on their spiritual practices or whatever.
Chris Nafis:And I just think, like people like our, our, our faith communities are meaningful you know what I mean and like our spiritual lives matter and the, the ways that we find meaning in the world to make connection, I could think I gotta think people are gonna be coming back to those things if they've left at some point and rethinking like all right, have I thrown out everything when there's something really beautiful here? And so I love the idea of like living, like telling another story, that um sort of invites people back or invites people to stay or just kind of invites people into an alternative vision of what it means to be a christian, um, and that's I mean part of, that's why I'm doing this podcast at all. It's partly why I enjoyed global immersion so much, so I get to see people doing that in all these different settings, um, it's just good. You know what I I mean.
Jer Swigart:Yeah, yeah, I agree, go ahead.
Osheta Moore:Well, I was going to say I think that those who have left their faith traditions or their faith spaces that are now looking to come back. I think one of the cause that that the church where I pastor roots Moravian we're made up of a bunch of people like that who are have left for a variety of reasons, have deconstructed and then, like, reconstructed their way back in and now they're trying to figure out like what does my spirituality look like now and like a key driving principle for my husband and me is that we will choose humility over certainty every time.
Osheta Moore:And so like. There are certain big rocks that we're like are important to us. But even in the way that we talk about these big rocks, we're also incredibly generous and give space for pushback and questions. Not that we're like we don't. We're going to like push off of this concept, like Jesus is at the center of our faith. So you're not going to come to roots and not hear about Jesus, but we want to hear why Jesus is difficult for you to interact with.
Osheta Moore:Like I'm a spiritual director and I, one of the first questions I always ask when I am in consultation is what are the names for God and the pictures of God that are meaningful for you right now and which of those are problematic? And the reason why I ask that is because I recognize that that level of humility and space is for people to just say it out loud and not be judged by it is the. It's a really important on-ramp back into owning their spirituality and back into, like a life-giving, love-fueled relationship with God, because they have not been formed in spaces where they can say, like I don't understand the violence of the God in the old Testament, and then now you're telling and then Jesus died a violent death. And now you're telling me he's the Prince of peace. What is that? Because we just explain it away and we're like no, no, no, we'll sit with that. So I think that that is what people are craving.
Jer Swigart:It's not necessarily all the right answers, but spaces to ask the questions in a loving and gentle and humble space. Yeah, and that's why I feel like the verb that is really important right now for faith leaders in our country is companion.
Osheta Moore:Yeah our country as companion.
Jer Swigart:Yeah, you know, like it used to be that that clergy or faith leaders, pastors they made their living being certain, and and certainty, I think, is a hard reality to live in. Cause number one I'm never fully right, I'm always partially wrong, and we all know that, like we all know that we all actually know that our perspective is not 20-20 vision. But I mean even the education that I was provided during my Masters of Divinity journey in seminary trained me to lead a church in 1980. Predictable in a world that asked for their pastor to be a spiritual CEO and give them answers, when, in fact, I think that one of the most important tasks of the pastoral ministry right now is to companion people in an Emmaus Road kind of way, which gives people all the permission in the world to be exactly where they are. And companion doesn't mean that you don't have conviction, but I think it does mean that that you're creating the kinds of environments where your people can be incomplete, imperfect and in process in their pursuit of a better story.
Osheta Moore:You know, and and it because otherwise we're just gonna, we're all we're doing is like convincing and converting, which I think are actual activities of power and even tools of violence at times yeah, you know the the word companion is often used for spiritual directors like we are spiritual companions, but like a word that I really gravitate toward as a pastor is this idea of being a shepherd.
Osheta Moore:Like I know enough, like I know enough, like I know enough of the terrain that I can get us from point A to point B.
Osheta Moore:But I'm walking with you on that and I am on the out, I'm looking out for the pitfalls and the dangers and like I have this like deep sense of, like compassion and care for you, like I think so many of us were raised in informed and faced spaces where there was no compassion, there was no empathy.
Osheta Moore:It was like very much like you're right, you're wrong, we're right, you are like sinners in the hands of an angry God. You're a worm, you're a scum, like all these kinds of things that when we talk about sin, we take all the hurt, angry, dark feelings we have around sin and we throw that onto image bearers, and so we haven't been encouraged to have our faith formed in spaces where we're like, no, no, no, no, you're made in God and the image of God, you're a child of God and you're beloved. So we're going to talk to you and treat you like that. In that space, I'm going to shepherd your heart towards a more beautiful um pasture and a more beautiful space with God, like that's my job as a pastor and I think that's what people are craving right now.
Chris Nafis:Yeah, I mean I, I feel the same. I think that's that's part of how I see my job as a pastor also is is not uh, and I don't think I could do the other job Like I, I just like cause, because I don't, I don't have this level of certainty that's required to like speak with this authoritative voice all the time, like it's just, it would be disingenuous, for me at least, and maybe there's others that that's, that they're so convinced that they're right about these specific, you know, theological points or whatever, that they can speak with that voice. But I, I just I don't feel like I can, and I and I don't know that I want to, and I hope that that's, I think, at least for our little community. I think that's kind of what we need in in our little corner of San Diego right now. I think you guys are doing that great.
Chris Nafis:So, as you're talking, I'm thinking about the way that the program kind of plays out with this immersion experience that we kind of journey on together, because I feel, like you're, that that is really what it felt like it was. This companion'm almost kind of beginning to see some of that, of like the, the. The whole purpose is to kind of go and experience something together and sort of process it together. But I don't want to put words in your mouth Like why, why, why is this the method of, of kind of teaching and experiential learning that you're taking?
Jer Swigart:on. That's a that's a great question. I'm actually really grateful that you see there's something there around immersion. I mean it's in the name, right Global immersion. It's in the pores of our souls, like the practice of intentional displacement into environments where we had no answers and we have power and influence because of our social location, as both of us, being white, tall, eloquent it in a way where the outcome are relationships of costly solidarity, where suddenly suffering is shared Like I. I. I not just am aware of the ways in which I've contributed to this, but we are in a kind of relationship with you where your pain is my pain. Now I can't look away anymore, I can't not be deployed by you. That's what I mean by costly solidarity. Nothing has ever been more transformative in my life, and I think we see this in incarnation itself. I mean, if God put on flesh and displaced God's self into relationships of costly solidarity and invites us to do likewise, maybe there's something in the pedagogy or the method of immersion that we need to pay close attention to. I think the last thing I'll say on this, for now at least, is, like the, I also think that in the early days we probably overestimated what immersion could do.
Jer Swigart:And what I mean by that is, you know, we probably imagined that if we just immerse a group of US American leaders into Israel and Palestine, if we immerse them into the borderlands between San Diego and Tijuana, if we immerse together into the trenches of the continued struggle for Black liberation in the American Deep South and other places around our country, if we immerse people there, then the kind of transformation that will be necessary will occur in the course of the immersion. But what we've learned over time, chris, is that immersion is transformative in that it awakens us to the question who must we become? I think immersion is awakening. That's the potency, that's the transformative potency of an immersion. It's like an immersion brings us to the precipice of the next level of transformation and we have to then step off the precipice into the great beyond, fueled less by the question what do I do? And more by the question who must I become? And so, in everything that global immersion does, we are immersive through and through.
Jer Swigart:There's not a single thing that we do that isn't immersive, because it opens the pores of the souls of people and gets them to the place where they're asking the question who must I become? When they're there Now we can companion you into the transforming journey of what you do, you know. And so that's why, and and then the last thing, last thing I guess I'll say is it's, it's in the immersion that the relationships develop with the people who, like the solutions to what plague them and their people have actually been germinating in their souls for generations. We just haven't been close enough and present enough to listen. And it's only in immersion where those relationships start to get brokered. And then immersion that transforms immersion into like an event or a project, into a habit, into a way of life. So that's why we call immersion the second practice of everyday peacemaking. Displacing ourselves into relationships of costly solidarity becomes a rhythm of our life.
Osheta Moore:It's work with, we work with leaders, we work with people who are already doing the work of peacemaking. We are working with people who are creating immersive experiences for others and so to be able to do this for them, to create a space for them to pull out of, the pull away from the rhythms that pull at them, that maybe cause stress, that keeps them from that creatively generative space to where the thing that's been germinating in them hasn't been able to make it up, because you're like dealing with emails and progress reports and hiring and da, da, da like to pull them out of that. And then also there's just like a humanness, like a, a human connection and vulnerability and like realness that happens when you are exploring some place new with other people. Like I tripped and fell on the sidewalk while we were walking and that's like something that I had to like do in front of other people and I got helped up and you know, and people are like, oh, I'm a night person, I go out, you get to experience like their humanity and that.
Osheta Moore:Or like I'm an indoor person and I'm gonna stay at the restaurant with three other women and just chat, because we'd rather just be here in this, like there is a, there's a unique way of being with others that reminds you of your humanity and like the richness and fullness of life that keeps you in this work. It pulls you out of your rhythm, that pulls you into, like the minutia of peacemaking and leadership, where you can kind of just be there. And then we as leaders, jaron and I and Maggie we create this for you, like we tried very hard to cover as many of the logistics and make it easy for you to just show up, step into that place and just let your soul and your mind just be curious for 10 days together.
Chris Nafis:Yeah, and that last part was one of the best parts of the trip for sure. I mean, we had so many conversations of like man, it's so great we don't have to, we just get to go where they tell us to go eat, like we're just going to go eat lunch where they picked and we're just going to do that. You know, because so many of us are the ones that are usually responsible, whether it's in family life or in church life or organizational life, we're the ones responsible for planning everything. It's really nice to be off the hook, which is maybe this is maybe less of a dynamic there.
Chris Nafis:But I think there's also something about getting into someone else's conflict that's kind of foreign and far away from yours. That really illuminates the conflict in your own backyard because you can see things there that you can't see elsewhere. So, like I've sometimes wondered if some of the stuff that you know the current administration was doing, if we just describe that and place it somewhere in some faraway country, if people would be like, oh no, that's not OK, we shouldn't be, they shouldn't be doing that, that's like an authoritarian leader trying to come in and take over. If people could see it differently because they can see it somewhere else. You know what I mean and I feel like you know.
Chris Nafis:For us it was Belfast and seeing the dispute between you know, the Republicans and the man I'm on the spot, I'm blinking on just the Protestant Catholic divide and the way that community is so divided over politics and whose land is this and whose heritage belongs here and all those kinds of things. It just kind of like brought to light some of the conflicts that are happening here and how we talk to each other and the potential future that we have here. There's something really powerful in that also just having that escape and being able to like enter into someone else's thing and come back and see your own thing with fresh eyes.
Jer Swigart:That's right. I think too it's. You know, when you're over in a place like Northern Ireland and you're, you're exploring the reality of sectarian violence that is deeply fueled by Christian theology. There are few places on the planet right now that are more relevant for us as US American leaders who are dealing with partisan divides that are equally informed by theologies, and this notion of God is making a world in a way that I want God to make it. So I think that you bring up a really important point, chris, that it's in immersion.
Jer Swigart:It's phenomenal to be in a space like Northern Ireland, where these folk are living in a post-conflict society.
Jer Swigart:I wonder if they would use the same language to describe their experience.
Jer Swigart:Granted, the violence and the bombings and the terrorism coming from both sides has subsided drastically, but the peace in Northern Ireland is a tenuous peace. It continues to require people, fueled by their faith, to move toward one another with the tools to heal rather than win Right. But then, when you're, when you're sitting with them like we got to be there for you know, um, nearly eight full days in this place when they are the ones looking at us as us Americans, saying we are really concerned for you and for your people and your land, and here are some of the things that have been helpful for us, that we want to impart to you as you think about allowing your faith to be the high-octane fuel of your restorative leadership, rather than fueling more injustice. Like wow, we have colleagues who have lived a future that it seems like our country is moving toward, who now are coaches for us, moving us back into the trenches of the front lines of our own conflicts with lessons that they've learned. What a gift. That only happens with immersion.
Chris Nafis:It's a gift and a bit of a wake up call, because we heard that a lot on the trip. We would introduce ourselves to people and they'd be like, oh, you're coming from America, meanwhile there's riots happening 20 minutes away in the place that we are and they're concerned about our place. And it kind of wakes you up to be like, oh no, the things that we're going through these are pretty serious conflict, and when we're seeing con like conflict, that is sort of uh, that has an absence of like overt violence but is still there, like being able to see that there and being able to recognize like, oh, that is kind of what we're going through here. Um, was, there was something very profound about that.
Osheta Moore:sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off no, I was just gonna just going to say I was curious how that landed for you, because I felt the same way of like for me hearing other people say, oh my gosh, america, like, wow, like it was actually oddly comforting to be to know that like we're not alone. American exceptionalism makes us think like we're like we're it, we're not alone. American exceptionalism makes us think like we're like we're it, we're not alone. But I was really curious how that landed for you when that came up so many times.
Chris Nafis:For me. Yeah, it was. I mean, it was again like. It was like oh yeah, we I think this whole immersion and the people that we brought in and talked to that are doing analysis of you know, kind of like sociological analyses of things. You know, it's just kind of like see this get kind of freaked out, do the internet freak out thing that everybody's doing, doom scroll for a minute and then go back to regular life and just forget all of it. It can't be that bad Things are going to work out and to kind of be like no, we actually need to take the divides in our society very seriously, because they are serious. They're going to have very real consequences for us ourselves, for our kids and the next generations. So I guess that's how I I took it. It was like, yeah, we gotta, we gotta wake up. We can't just kind of like assume that somehow it's all just going to work out because, like, we're the ones that are called to make it work.
Chris Nafis:You, know what I mean, if not us, then who's going to do it?
Jer Swigart:Yeah, yeah, if not us, then who's going to do it? Yeah, yeah, and I mean you look at that conflict in Northern Ireland and you have two people groups who cloistered with people who thought just like them and believed just like them and were allegiant in particular ways and they wanted to build the world that they wanted and they convinced themselves that that would require building enough power to crush the opposition.
Chris Nafis:Yeah.
Jer Swigart:And they did it in the name of God, yeah, and they claimed it as an act of faithfulness, literally killing their kin in the name of God, as though God blesses these things. God blesses these things. And you know, in here, in our own country, you've got Republicans and Democrats, you've got progressives and conservatives, who are cloistered up in groups of people who think just like them, and they want the world that they want, and they believe that the only way that they're going to get it is by building enough power and crushing their opposition, and they have a theology to justify it. They see it as righteousness and as faithfulness. When you know, the imagination that we're trying to evoke in all of us is this idea that we need each other.
Chris Nafis:Yeah.
Jer Swigart:That even Jesus. You know the community that Jesus built involved mortal enemies. They hated each other. I mean, peter and Matthew grew up in the same tiny village. They hated each other. I mean, peter and Matthew grew up in the same tiny village. They hated each other. And so if Jesus is forging a community of ideological others, irritants and enemies and that's the way we're going to usher in the world that God is making, maybe we need to take that seriously. And I think that was some of the when you're sitting with, like a Harold Good who created the conditions for the peace accords to be signed in Northern Ireland. That's what he's saying to us. Like you, bring your mortal enemy around a table If so long as don't don't place yourself in unwise danger. But like, how do we use the tools that are in our hands to do some of the more contagious, unlikely work of bridging across difference? That feels like more in the way of Jesus than dominating people.
Chris Nafis:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know we got to wrap here in a second. I wanted to ask one last question, if you all have time for it, Give me one bit of fruit that you feel has come out of your work over the last several years with global immersion. One, one thing that that maybe was an unexpected like wow, this came from what we did. I know there's probably more than one.
Jer Swigart:I mean I could. I could tell dozens of stories, like I think, about two of our peace fellows who are pastors at a church in Bend, oregon, who guided their congregation on a journey toward becoming the first gun decommissioning site in Central Oregon. Not because they were anti-Second Amendment, but because there was an attempted mass shooting in their, in their city and um, and they began to recognize that there were people, um burdened with gun ownership in their city, that, um, that didn't have a creative option, and so, um, they became a gun decommissioning center, um, so that they could uh, people could turn in their guns and decommission them and then transform them into garden tools. You know, it's like that's the kind of beauty that I would like, like things are happening like that that I never could have imagined. Or there are books and there are podcasts. There's a one of our peace fellows, katie Calvert, in Alabama, is doing a public art display right now where she's got a blue chair and a red chair and a video camera and an opportunity for people who are ideological, others to sit down and have a conversation and rediscover each other's humanity.
Jer Swigart:You have folk who are building immersive programs in their own cities to raise up peacemakers in their cities for their cities. There are people like you, chris, like you are the fruit of what's happening here, somebody who came in skeptical and a bit cynical, wondering about all of this and recognizing. Well, I feel like I may be rediscovering a faith that's worth my life and and it's the way that it's rejuvenated some of your life, love and leadership in in in fueling the beautiful work, especially around around trauma, that you're doing in San Diego. Like that it's. I could tell you 56 different stories, not to mention the hundreds and hundreds of others of people who have interacted with mentioned, the hundreds and hundreds of others of people who have interacted with um, with our programming. You know, people whose imaginations have woken up, uh, and are now deploying the tools in their hands and all sorts of creative and collaborative ways to to cultivate peace and peacemakers around the country.
Osheta Moore:Yeah, I would say, um, peacemaking is really lonely. The eagerness, the earnestness of our cohort members and our peace fellows to be with each other and to make room and space with each other and to play with each other and to partner with each other, like I was surprised that we did. What we created or what we're creating together is not just a like training ground, um, and a playground for peacemakers, but it's community and it's that being held and seen as beloved. And when we were creating a unique expression of the beloved community.
Osheta Moore:And I just didn't expect that, because so much of my peacemaking training has been and formation has been like the outcome, focus, like what are we doing in the world, and not like who are we becoming again and who like what?
Osheta Moore:Who are we becoming? This is why we, at the beginning of our time together, we said we're going to name this space and this time, like this is what we're doing. And I just didn't. You know, it was a good idea that Jer and I had a few years ago to like do these covenants and like name this space and like it felt very woo, woo spiritual director for me, like yeah, I get to show up as like a odd peacemaker with Jer, but like really seeing how that has bloomed into this community of people who genuinely care about each other is something that I did not expect at all and it's why I say like this is one of my favorite things that I get to do as a part of like building a life for me and my family and using my gifts as a peacemaker is because I it's not about what we do, it's about who we are together.
Chris Nafis:A hundred percent. Yeah, we belong to each other and we need each other, and that's the I mean. I came in hungry for that community and I feel like I'm coming out richer for it because I have all these new friends and people, including you two and others that now are part of my, my larger community. So it's just not quite so lonely. So thank you all for your work, Thanks for all you do. Any any last word before we shut it down? All right? Well, I'm very grateful to know each of you and again, thank you for the time and for just all that you do to pour into the leaders around the country and around the world. Really, Blessings to you.
Jer Swigart:And to you, man.
Chris Nafis:I may see you, I think, maybe next week, I don't know. Well, I'll see you, I think maybe next week. I don't know. Well, I'll see you sometime at some fellowship soon.
