Block Island: My Place of Shelter, Rest and Renewal of Faith
An hour "off the coast of America" is a place I have been coming for many years, where the FBI once posed as bird watchers to catch Father Dan Berrigan.
Our family just landed on Block Island. An hour off the coast of Rhode Island, it’s a place I have been coming for many years, first on my own for rest and retreat, and then with Joy and our boys Luke and Jack for vacation. What brought me here in the ‘70s was my mentor William Stringfellow, the lawyer/theologian and author who had moved to the island from East Harlem for health reasons. (Bill used to call Block Island’s location “an hour off the coast of America.”) Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan, another mentor, often came here to visit with Bill, and once, while hiding out on the island after stealing and burning draft files to protest the Vietnam War, was famously arrested by FBI agents posing as bird watchers.
In this week’s column, I’d like to share a short documentary by Susan Hagedorn called “Seeking Shelter: Faith, Place, and Resistance,” about Block Island as a place of beauty, rest, resistance and spiritual renewal – with wonderful stories of Bill and Dan. I hope you’ll see why this place keeps drawing me back again and again. You can watch the film by following this link: https://www.seekingshelterblockisland.org/seeking-shelter-the-film.html
Thanks, Jim, for sharing this. It was very, very good. I'm glad you've got that table!
I enjoyed this video focusing on the Block island community and the life of Bill and Dan - two men with strong convictions, courage and great insights. They were thinkers and change agents/activists, the kind of people we need - but also the kind of people that some find disruptive and threatening.