DOVER SHERBORN PRESS
Kristina Olsen sings songs of peace, a call to understanding.
By Casey Lyons/ Correspondent
Thursday, February 12, 2004

SHERBORN - For those who have been inside the Peace Abbey in Sherborn, for those who have walked through the building and seen the sculptures of Gandhi or JFK, the pictures of cardinals, saints, sisters or monks, all dedicated to peace, or seen the walking shoes of the Peace Pilgrim, it is not a far stretch to say the Peace Abbey is like the Hard Rock Café, except peace is the message here, not rock.

Last Saturday, the Peace Abbey furthered the analogy by hosting two singer/songwriters to play in the Coffee House in the Conference Center.

The stage was dimly backlit by white lights, and raised about a foot above crowd level. In the spotlight, one chair, one guitar and a mike stand waited for noted peace musicians Kristina Olsen Tynes and Jonathan Tynes.

Of the roughly 50 people in attendance, Dot Walsh, Abbey Program coordinator, wondered why she did not see more people from Sherborn, and she invited residents take part in the peace movement that is deeply rooted right in town.

Walsh and Tynes met at a peace conference where Kristina Tynes was performing songs she had written in the wake of Sept. 11. Having lost a sister in the attack, Tynes did not call for revenge like many Americans did that day. Instead, she called for her guitar.

Kristina is an active member of Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a group of people who lost family members on 9/11 and now travel the world advocating peace.

In February 2002, many victims' families did not like the response they were seeing to the terrorist attacks. Rather than a call for bombs, Families for Peaceful Tomorrows wanted to look deeper into the real problem, and nonviolently fight war and terrorism, she said.

Four months later, Tynes spent two weeks in Afghanistan as part of an 18-member Peace Delegation who traveled the country denouncing innocent civilian causalities of war and calling for peace.

"My message is about understanding and compassion," said Tynes, "I want to reach out to people who are suffering. That is what drew me to Peaceful Tomorrows." I don't want further suffering to be justified by bad decisions, she added.

Tynes, who with her husband, Jonathan, live in Newburyport, has been to the Peace Abbey before, but never to perform.

"It feels like home when I come back here," she said in her soft-spoken voice. "The work [the Peace Abbey does] is supportive to people who are working for peace. It's a place to come home to," she said.

Both Jonathan and Kristina played like they were at home, each reaching out to the audience and connecting. After nearly every song, someone in the audience would gasp softly in awe and delight.

Jonathan opened up the evening playing original compositions. Sometimes picking, sometimes strumming, he sat swaying back and forth with his eyes closed, and sang in a voice somewhat resembling James Taylor. His message ranged from a political song, entitled "Prisoners," to songs about friendship and advocating peace through understanding.

"I know that you understand," sang Jonathan Tynes. "You and I together can make this a better land." Once Jonathan had finished, Kristina took the stage and pleasured the audience with her skillful guitar progressions, and high, pure-sounding voice. She played a variety of songs that sounded anywhere from bluesy to redemptive. One song, that Tynes called "A Prayer for the Earth," asks us to stop and listen to the earth, and to listen to each other.

"Come back to the earth/ Come back to ourselves/ And listen to the voice of the earth/ And hear the cries of her children," Tynes sang.

Attempting to understand each other, the evening's message went, is the true way to peace, both inner and outer.