HAMDEN, Conn. — In the back lot of the Grace & St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Hamden, the pounding and hammering are front and center.
Behind the church, you’ll find Bishop Jim Curry working with a hammer, an anvil, and a forge, taking disassembled gun parts and turning them into garden tools.
Curry is one of the hammering hands behind “Swords to Plowshares Northeast”, an initiative that is meant to send the message of transformation.
“What we do is we transform gun parts into garden tools, but we are also trying to help people understand that we can transform our society, our lives, and ourselves,” Curry said.
The gardening tools are hand-made and then given to community groups to better their flowers and vegetable crops.
Swords to Plowshares in Hamden
Swords to Plowshares, a reference to a biblical prophecy, has been around since 2017, and now, Curry said, they are bringing their message and mission beyond Connecticut.
“We’re mobile, we have a trailer, we’re doing demos this fall in Bath, Maine and in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We were in New York just last week,” Curry added.
Pastor Bob Bergner from the Grace & St. Peter’s Episcopal Church said the program is “a symbol of reality of the transformation that’s possible.”
“We’ve all been affected by gun violence, whether directly or indirectly, so the chance to hammer at these (disassembled) guns on an anvil on a porch is amazing,” Bergner added.
“As people use these tools, they can remember that they were once potential weapons of harm – they’re now instruments of hope, nurture, and peace,” Curry said.
To learn more about Swords to Plowshares click here.
Jimmy Altman is a reporter at FOX61 News. He can be reached at jaltman@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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