Jim Forest

Jim Forest
Born	(1941-11-02)2 November 1941
Movement	Catholic Worker Movement
Awards	Peacemaker , St. Marcellus Award

Jim Forest (born 2 November 1941 in Salt Lake City, Utah) is a writer, lay theologian, educator, and peace activist. Since 1989, a year after his reception into the Orthodox Church, he has been international secretary of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship as well as editor of its quarterly journal, In Communion. In 1964, while still a Catholic, he was a founder of the Catholic Peace Fellowship. In the late sixties and mid-seventies, he also worked with the Fellowship of Reconciliation, first as Vietnam Program coordinator and later as editor of Fellowship magazine. From 1977 through 1988, he was Secretary General of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, work which brought him to the Netherlands. He received the Peacemaker Award from Notre Dame University's Institute for International Peace Studies and the St. Marcellus Award from the Catholic Peace Fellowship.

As a young man, Jim served in the U.S. Navy, working with a meteorology unit at the U.S. Weather Bureau headquarters near Washington, D.C. It was during this period that he became a Catholic. His military service ended with an early discharge on grounds of conscientious objection.

After leaving the Navy, Jim joined the staff of the Catholic Worker community in Manhattan, working close with the founder, Dorothy Day, and for a time serving as managing editor of the journal she edited, The Catholic Worker.

In 1964, while working as a journalist for The Staten Island Advance, in his spare time he began the Catholic Peace Fellowship, working closely with Tom Cornell. This became a full-time job for both of them in 1965, a time that coincided with deepening U.S. military engagement in Vietnam. The main focus of their work was counseling conscientious objectors.

In 1968, while Jim working as Vietnam Program Coordinator of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Jim and thirteen others, mainly Catholic clergy, broke into nine Milwaukee draft boards, removing and burning some of the files in a nearby park while holding a prayer service. Most members of the "Milwaukee Fourteen" served thirteen months in prison for their action.

Jim had a long-term friendship with Thomas Merton, who dedicated a book to him, Faith and Violence. Jim also accompanied the famed Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh.

A journalist and writer, his books include Praying with Icons, Ladder of the Beatitudes, The Road to Emmaus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life, Loving Our Enemies: Reflections on the Hardest Commandment"", biographies of Thomas Merton (Living With Wisdom) and Dorothy Day (All Is Grace), and several children's books, including Saint Nicholas and the Nine Gold Coins, Saint George and the Dragon and Silent as a Stone: Mother Maria of Paris and the Trash Can Rescue.

He and his wife Nancy, a translator and writer, live in Alkmaar, The Netherlands.

Publications

• Loving Our Enemies: Reflections on the Hardest Commandment. Mayknoll, Orbis, 2014. (ISBN 978-1626980907)
• All Is Grace: A Biography of Dorothy Day. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2011. (ISBN 978-1570759215)
• Living with Wisdom: A Life of Thomas Merton. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2008. (ISBN 978-1570757549)
• Road to Emmaus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2007. (ISBN 1570757313)
• Confession: Doorway to Forgiveness. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002. (ISBN 1570753865)
• The Resurrection of the Church in Albania. World Council of Churches, 2002. (ISBN 2825413593)
• Praying with Icons. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997. (ISBN 1570751129)

External links

• A Short Biography of Jim Forest http://incommunion.org/articles/conferences-lectures/jim-forest-bio
• "Getting From there to Here," an autobiographical biographical essay by Jim Forest
• http://incommunion.org/forest-flier/jimsessays/getting-from-there-to-here/
• The Website of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship http://incommunion.org
• http://orthodoxwiki.org/Jim_Forest