In the late 1970s, we spent two years on the staff of Pendle Hill, a Quaker-sponsored study and retreat center near Philadelphia. Then in the 1980s and 1990s we began teaching at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver. Throughout that time, we considered it our calling to gather together veterans of the southern movement and other spiritually based peace and justice workers, artists, teachers, and healers from this country and overseas. We encouraged these carriers of hope to share their stories of struggle, transformation, and healing with students, colleagues, and community members.
At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, we led a series of intergenerational summer workshops in Colorado. The retreats brought together veterans of earlier movements for democratic social change (especially in the southern struggle) with younger people. The young people were just beginning their careers as change-makers, and they were seeking to understand the role of religion and spirituality in their work and to connect to the earlier struggles for change. Afterward, both younger and older participants expressed a deep desire for continued opportunities to gather in retreats and workshops for healing, refreshment, and the renewal of hope.
The Veterans of Hope Project is a response to these urgent calls. The Project began in 1997 as an experiment in education for humane, spirit-grounded social change. Based at the Iliff School of Theology, we sponsor courses, a series of videotaped interviews, lectures, retreats, and other programs that address the links between religion and social transformation.