8th Anniversary

Dear friends,

Greetings from DC! I am finding this blog to be a joyful place of sharing and receiving =) I hope you are too! Heidi --- thank you for the lovely poem! I love the deep intimacy of it... which speaks to my personal desire for real connection with the divine and others... Jessie-- I hope your "immobility" is getting better!

I wanted to share this article with you all on the 8th anniversay of the US's occupation in Iraq. Art is a friend of mine from the DC Catholic Worker and a very peaceful, humble (and yet prominent) advocated with his community for peace and justice. This article appears on NCR online weekend edition.

As a political science major from Boston College and original of Long Island New York, I have often wrestled with the concept of "just war" theory, and words like "responsibile transition" ... heck, post-9/11, my idea of justice was "joining the military" ... Wrestled in the literal sense (figuratively, pues), of rolling around the ideas on the ground, and in the end, one pins the other down.

Reading this this morning I feel ultimately called to the message Jesus presents us in the Gospels and the Christian call to nonviolence. If we don't testify to it, who will? Especially during these days when we remember Romero and consider what message he has for our present day lives...

I pray with you and for you for the growth of peace in our world and for the end to all forms of war and violence.

Un abrazo,
Margaret


LENT IN A WARMAKING EMPIRE
by Art Laffin
March 12, 2010

We live in a warmaking empire, where war is being waged indiscriminately in order to control and acquire resources -- namely oil in Iraq, and natural gas and oil in Afghanistan and the Caspian Sea. The U.S. continues to create mass violence in Afghanistan, bringing death to countless innocent Afghan civilians and nearly 1,000 U.S. soldiers.

The United States has also increased its military intervention in Pakistan and Yemen. According to the Pakistani newspaper, The News (Feb. 2, 2010), U.S. drone attacks killed 123 civilians in January 2010.

March 19 marks the eighth year of an immoral and illegal occupation of Iraq, which has claimed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and over 4,600 U.S. soldiers.

The U.S. goes on providing military and economic support to Israel for its illegal occupation of Palestine. At the same time, Arab and Muslim men continue to languish at U.S. military prisons in Guantanamo, Bagram and in Iraq, where they have been grossly mistreated, tortured and denied due process.

As the world's leading nuclear superpower and arms dealer, with over 700 U.S. military bases worldwide, the United States provides a budget for its military that accounts for 48 percent, or almost half, of the world's total military spending. According to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, U.S. military spending totals more than the next 46 highest spending countries in the world combined. For FY 2011, the Obama Administration is proposing to spend $708 billion on the military budget, including $7 billion to upgrade the nuclear arsenal.

Meanwhile, the poor continue to be neglected, and, in many cases, treated as expendable due to corporate greed, political expediency and rampant militarism. War, economic exploitation and global warming claim countless lives daily. The victims cry out for justice. The earth groans in travail.

What would Jesus have us do? Living under the brutal occupation of the Roman empire, Jesus declared: "The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel." (Mk.1:15) Living in the U.S. empire, we need to heed Jesus' proclamation now more than ever. During this holy season of Lent, Christians need to ask what it means to follow Jesus in a warmaking empire. Lent is a time for personal and societal repentance, a time for radical conversion, renewal and transformation. It is a time to examine what we really believe in and how we live and act out our faith.

Would Jesus support the use of drone weapons? Would he advocate a "just war theory," now a central tenet of church teaching? Would Jesus endorse the U.S war in Afghanistan, referred to by President Obama in his Nobel Peace prize acceptance speech as a "just war"? Would Jesus support the new war budget? Would Jesus support the existence and threatened use of nuclear weapons or any weapon of mass destruction? Would Jesus support any form of military intervention, occupation, torture or killing? From my reading of the scriptures, the answer to all these questions is an emphatic and absolute No! Jesus' commands are clear: Love one another! Love your enemies! Put away the sword! Forgive and you will be forgiven! Take up the cross and follow me!

Other scriptural passages that Christians read this Lent are also instructive.

In Deuteronomy we hear: "I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live." (Deuteronomy 30:19) Isaiah the prophet declares, "This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke; Setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke; Sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; Clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own. (Isaiah 58: 6-7)

It is a tragic reality that the institutional Christian church -- Catholic and Protestant -- has strayed so far from the Gospel that it offers its support for U.S. warmaking. Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the U.S. bishops'conference declared: "Our nation's military forces should remain in Iraq only as long as their presence contributes to a responsible transition." In an article "Bishops Back Obama Afghanistan Strategy", (NCR, Jan. 8, 2010) Bishop Howard J. Hubbard, chairman of the U.S. Bishops Committee on International Justice and Peace, stated that President Obama's goals of "responsible transition" in Afghanistan must serve as the overall ethical framework for U.S. actions there.

I ask: How can the U.S., which has committed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, ever bring about a responsible transition in either country? And why would the church be an advocate for U.S. military intervention which has caused the deaths of so many of God's children? Martin Luther King, Jr. made this critical observation about the efficacy of the church when he said: "So often the contemporary church is ineffectual and weak, with an uncertain voice. So often it is an arch defender of the status quo. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the 2th century."

The church should also heed the example of two its martyrs: Franz Jagerstatter and Archbishop Oscar Romero. Regarding the response of the church to the crimes being committed by the Nazis, Franz Jagerstatter, executed Nazi war-resister stated: "If the Church stays silent in the face of what is happening, what difference would it make if no church were ever opened again?" And Archbishop Romero, who was assassinated as he celebrated the Eucharist thirty years ago this March 24, declared to the Salvadoran military a day before his death: "When you hear the words of a man telling you to kill, remember instead the words of God, "Thou shall not kill." God's law must prevail. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. It is time that you come to your senses and obey your consciences rather than follow out a sinful command...The church... cannot remain silent in the presence of such abominations."

Thus, the church should be a clear and prophetic voice proclaiming the Gospel without equivocation or compromise. Instead of accommodating a warmaking empire, the church should be calling the nation to repentance, to make reparations to all of its victims, and to embrace Jesus' way of nonviolent love. It should declare that no Christian should participate in military service, make weapons, or pay taxes for war and killing.

During the Friday's in Lent, members and friends of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, Pax Christi, and other peacemakers are conducting a Lenten Witness for Peace and Justice at the White House. We vigil a spirit of repentance and humility, inviting everyone to join with us in saying Yes to life, love, justice and nonviolence, and No to violence, injustice and warmaking.

I pray this Lent that our Church will reclaim its prophetic voice and courageously speak the truth before our warmaking empire. Prophet, priest and peace prisoner, Phil Berrigan, once said: "If enough Christians followed the gospel, they could bring any state to its knees."

[Art Laffin is a member of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker in Washington.]

Poetry in Lent

These are not my words, but I want to share them because she says it so well. Enjoy. 

As we continue walking the Lenten path together, I'm continuing to keep company with poets. Poetry is all about spaciousness, saying just enough and letting the rest be. What better Lenten discipline could there be? 

- Rev. Steph

Psalm 84, adapted by Stephen Mitchell, from A Book of Psalms:

Lord, how beautiful you are;

how radiant the places

you dwell in.

My soul yearns for your presence;

my whole body longs

for your light.

Even the wren finds a house

and the sparrow a nest for herself.

Take me home, my God;

guide me to the place

of perfect repose.

Let me feel you always within me;

open my eyes to your love.

Happy are those who trust you

and merge their will in your will.

They let go of all desires

and give up everything they know,

Until they finally enter

the inmost temple of the heart,

where there is no self, no other,

nothing,

but only you.

Yellow card = broken tibia

Margaret, I hope the meeting went well! Good people working towards good things. Just goodness all around.

It's been a week since I broke my leg, and I am only now finding the motivation to write about it. It shames me to admit that I have just not found myself in a very Lenten space since it happened, perhaps explaining my absence in this forum that I was so passionate about just weeks ago. After a week or so of denial, I've found it better to just own the dryness and frustration and perhaps explore it a bit.

For me, Lent has always been a time of action and comtemplation - but what I never realized was how that contemplation was so tied into the action. It was reflection about my days - about the various situations and people I came across and interacted with, and the ways in which i was trying to more concretely serve others, in this everpresent reminder of Christ that would keep me company on walks, or penetrating work, or in social situations. But try as I may, that same comtemplation and reflection is the last thing I can (or want to) think about in this immobile prison I find myself in. And who am I to complain, 'woe is me and my immobility' - such a minor cause of suffering in this world, and amazing I've never suffered a broken bone before now to be honest... But somehow I can be entirely aware of that, aware of the reality that this probably couldn't have come at a better time, and that it is such a luxery to be able to stay in bed all day with people who love me able to take care of me, and to be able to stop working and still be supported, but aware as I might be - I still hate it.

So there is a sense of guilt, which is of course imediately followed by frustration and a minute amount of self-loathing. Pretty much anything but the motivation and inspiration I desire to accept this and use this "gift" of downtime to pray (SO needed) and reflect.

I will not pretend that I have now found that inspiration, or even that I am moving in that direction. But I will at least acknowledge that that is where I am. For better or worse.

Still thinking of you all often. And sending lots of love!

Pax Christi - DC

Dear friends,

Today a group of "us" are getting together in Washington, DC to discern the formation of a local Pax Christi chapter group. There is already a metro DC group, but we are looking to form a more localized community. We will spend the day with prayer, study, and group reflection to come to a clearer sense of what this group could be and what we could do (and who knows where that will go!?). I ask that if you are reading this that you say a special prayer for this group -- that we may be guided by the holy Spirit in building a continued community of faith and justice.

Is it true Jessie Hallerman broke her leg?!!? Prayers and love to you Jessie!

Margaret