On this 5th anniversary of the Iraq War …
“How to Live a Peaceful Life” by John Dear, SJ
(click the link at end to read more)
FIRST – Become a contemplative of peace and nonviolence.
The only way to deepen in nonviolence is through prayer. We need to become contemplatives and mystics of peace, people who sit with the God of peace, who take intimate time each day for our relationship with the God of peace, who allow the God of peace to disarm our hearts of our violence and the wars within us so that we can be disarmed and become people of nonviolence …
SECOND – Become an activist of peace and nonviolence.
Oscar Romero said, “None of us can do everything, but all of us can do something.” Every one of us is needed in the grassroots movement for justice and peace. Every one of us has something to offer …THIRD – Become a student and teacher of peace and nonviolence.
Study the writings of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. King and Dorothy Day and the movements of nonviolence in history. Learn the methodology of nonviolence as a way for social change. Then, start teaching the techniques and lessons of nonviolence to everyone, everywhere …FOURTH – Become a visionaries of peace and nonviolence.
… Lift up the vision of a new world of nonviolence. Point the way. Help lead others back from the brink of violence, and imagine their lives, their communities and the world as a place of peace, justice and nonviolence.
FIFTH — Become, like Dr. King and Gandhi, a prophet of peace and nonviolence.
Break through the silence, complicity and acceptance of our culture of war, denounce the false spirituality of violence and speak out publicly the truth of peace and nonviolence. Say the unpopular truth[s] …(read more at How to Live a Peaceful Life)
"She wrote the way she lived: on the fly, without retrospect, always on the way, climbing higher."
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Br. Dominic-Michael OHS 03.21.08 at 8:42 pm
Rehashed 1970’s Communistic bs…
Iraq has been a catastrophe. But let’s not establish Iraq as some sort of biblical “type” for all warfare. It is a modern aberration, a foolish mistake of epic proportions even. We treat our enemy not as foe, but a friend, and wonder why they detest us so. They are not to be pitied. In any war we must either triumph conclusively or surrender pathetically. The choice is ours. “Peace keeping” such as our soldiers are theoretically engaged in is sheer stupidity disguised as strategic deployment or somesuch… Boiled down, it is simply another form of human sacrifice on the altar of enervating post modernism and rationalistic liberal educational tripe warmed over from the 60’s. Idolatry of the filthiest sort…
The men who knew what war is, and how to fight, and the ground rules, have been dead in their graves for centuries.
What we have now are schoolboys still pretending that they are in some video game world pushing buttons with their thumbs in the dark…and those are the Generals. I have a lot more respect for the lesser mortals…the ones who get blown up daily.
Lord have mercy upon us.