Journal of daily reflections on the progress of my home-based agriculture experiments, mixed with observations about life, peace, justice, faith, family, community and friends.
This “Diary of the Worm” author has returned from El Salvador, the land of barb wire and flowers. It will take some time and reflection to digest my experiences, but for now I can state that El Salvador is a land of contrast. On one had we have all the death and torture of the people by the American financed military government during the long civil war. Yet we have the survivors rising up from the remains of the many martyrs with hope and promise. We have a newly elected president from the party of the FMLN, who were the guerrillas in the civil war. Yet the neo-liberal party of the death squads still holds sway in the legislature and courts. We have uniforms for USA state employees and Disney workers made in sweatshops by woman working for $5.79 for a nine hour work day. We have a country rich in fertile land importing food from other countries. We have the American dollar from the richest country in the world as the currency of this poor country. We have a sweet and loving people yet gangs roam the streets. El Salvador is a land full of rivers and on the ocean, yet people thirst for drinkable water.
El Salvador is a country still seeking its own identity. The USA has dominated this country as can been seen in the fast food chains and shopping malls. Yet when a professional in one of the largest public hospitals for the poor was asked the one thing she would ask of the USA, it was not medicine or equipment sorely needed, but a plea for the USA to “not interfere.” First Europe and then the USA has bled this country and used and misused it. Now amidst this small country of contrast the cry goes out “Do Not Interfere”. Let them be.
The barb wire is everywhere to keep the gangs and criminals out. Yet there are flowers growing freely in this land of sun and water. Reviewing the pictures, my notes and reflection on experiences, I will try to learn from this land of contrast, barb wire and flowers.
See the full list of articles in the Diary of a Worm.
Quotes
Various quotes
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.(Edmund Burke).
Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is the numbers of people all over the world who have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. And our problem is that scene in All Quiet on the Western Front where the schoolboys march off dutifully in a line to war.
Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world, in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem. We recognize this for Nazi Germany. We know that the problem there was obedience, that the people obeyed Hitler. People obeyed; that was wrong.
They should have challenged, and they should have resisted; and if we were only there, we would have showed them.
Even in Stalin’s Russia we can understand that; people are obedient, all these herdlike people. — Howard Zinn
There can be no joy in living without joy in work. – St. Thomas Aquinas
What is a merciful heart? It is the heart’s burning for the sake of the entire creation, for men, for birds, for animals, for demons, and for every created thing; and by the recollection and sight of them the eyes of a merciful man pour forth abundant tears. From the strong and vehement mercy which grips his heart and from his great compassion, his heart is humbled and he cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in creation. For this reason he offers up tearful prayer continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm him, that they be protected and receive mercy. And in like manner he even prays for the family of reptiles because of the great compassion that burns without measure in his heart in the likeness of God.
— St Isaac of Syria
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King Jr.
If there were no God, there would be no Atheists.
— G. K. Chesterton
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” Elie Wiesel
“Don’t fight forces, use them.” — Buckminster Fuller
“I am not trying to abolish conflict. There is great value in healthy conflict. And the dangers of group-think are real. Conflict can inspire creative leadership. Where there are fundamental conflicts over values, they should not be ignored in a sentimental yearning for consensus. The problem in our communities today is not that we have conflict, but that we manufacture conflict and exaggerate differences to the point where it is very difficult to make meaningful change. Too often we abandon basic civility and cannot disagree without questioning the motives of our adversaries. Our standard as we debate should be similar to doctors’ Hippocratic Oath: “Do no harm.” Disagree, but don’t tear the community apart as you do.” Frederick Douglas in a speech in 1857
“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.”-Albert Einstein
“We live in a deranged age, more deranged than usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing.” — Walker Percy
“Everyone believes the Theory, except the man that makes it. No one believes the Data, except the man who takes it.” —from a friend David Kruschke
“The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. This new type of criminal … commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he is doing wrong.” — Hannah Arendt
“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.” — Feodor Dostoevsky
I find it strange that the last place I can really quote Jesus these days is in American churches. They don’t want to hear ‘overcome evil with good.’ They don’t want to hear ‘those who live by the sword die by the sword.’ They don’t want to hear ‘if your enemy hurts you, do good, feed, clothe, minister to him.’ They don’t want to hear ‘blessed are the merciful.’ They don’t want to hear ‘love your enemies’.”- Tony Campolo quoted in Christian Week magazine
“If we don’t change direction soon, we’ll end up where we’re going.” — Irwin Corey (Corey is an American comic and actor who is perhaps best known as “The World’s Foremost Authority.”)
Jokes
Retirement
I wish this were true.
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Nonviolence
The movie Soldiers of Conscience brought to attention how student soldiers in the Army officer training programs at military host universities like Marquette are trained to ‘kill reflexively’, without use of conscience or considering moral justification. More…
Marquette University Hosts the Catholic Worker Archives and Departments of the Army, Navy/Marines and Air Force. Although Dorothy Day lived before the Solomon Amendment of 1996, forcing colleges and universities to offer military training Catholic Workers have been on the forefront of resisting military training and teaching war, especially on Catholic universities.
Sign of ContradictionLocator
Is your local college or university a Partner ROTC school or does it Host military training on campus? Just type or click on your State for a list of all partner and host ROTC schools.
Army, Navy/Marines or Air Force.
Host schools like Marquette University are military officer training bases where partner schools send ROTC students.
(This is a recent letter to the editor of Marquette University Tribune that went unpublished.)
Brief History of Reserved Officers Training Programs and Universities
In response to the Letter to Teachers of Morality and Ethics at Marquette University, Doctor Maguire of Marquette University Theology Department made this statement on the morality of military training and teaching on campus.
This letter was written to four faculty members that teach ethics and moral theology at Marquette. The occasion was the announcement that Father Massingale had won an award as the outstanding teacher at Marquette. This event reminded me of the 1960′s when another theology department at Marquette supported efforts to fight institutional racism. Now that we are engaged in a struggle against institutional militarism at Marquette and the Theology Department is silent. As sadly expected, none of the four parties responded to the letter. However, their ignoring the letter does not change my opinions expressed or the urgency of my message, so I have decided to share the letter. Bob Graf
Marquette University, A Jesuit Catholic University, Hosts Four Departments of Military Science That Teach War to Students from Fourteen Local Colleges and Universities.
Marquette University is Host for Military Training for 14 local colleges and universities.
See MU Air Force ROTC site.
How much money does Marquette gain from hosting military departments on campus?
by Archbishop Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, ret. National Commander, “The Patriots” & Primate, United Catholic Church
by Katie Millar in Sign Of Peace ~ Journal of The Catholic Peace Fellowship EASTER 2003, Vol. 2.2 Explains Moral Or Money Questions for Catholic University
MU Students Take Action
On Dec. 7, 2008 a group of about 10 MU students, during the peak study time for exams, handed out in the Marquette Library over 1000 small pieces of paper with “What Would Jesus Join?” on one side and the link to the Debate Forum on the other side: Debate Forum
Committee on Values and the ROTC
In Sept. 1982 the President of St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN., Father Hilary Thimmesh, O.S.B., commissioned an ad hoc “Committee on Values and the ROTC” to answer the question: “Does the sponsorship of ROTC at Saint John’s University constitute endorsement of values opposed to the Christian and Benedictine character of the University?”
In their May 1983 final report the Values Committee by a 6 to 2 majority answered affirmative to the original question put to them. A copy of the full report is available. (Editor’s note: Despite an extensive 2 year campaign by members of the Ant-ROTC community using this report ROTC remains at ST. John’s.)
Debate Forum Is it moral or ethical for Marquette University to host military training on campus?
A friend, who did not know who Father Emmanuel Charles McCarthy is, sent me this article saying he thought of me when he read it. I do know who Father McCarthy is, a Melkite Catholic priest and author on Christian Nonviolence.
by Father Emmanuel Charles McCarthy
“Chaplains and psychiatrists are not only spiritual counselors: Americans also perceive them, rightly or wrongly, as guardians of the spirit, as guides to right thinking and proper behavior (in this way psychiatrists resemble chaplains more than they do other physicians). The veterans were trying to say that the only thing worse than being ordered by military authorities to participate in absurd evil is to have that evil rationalized and justified by guardians of the spirit. Chaplains and psychiatrists thus fulfill the function of helping men adjust to committing war crimes, while lending their spiritual authority to the overall project.” (HOME FROM THE WAR: LEARNING FROM VIETNAM VETERANS —ROBERT J. LIFTON, MD, DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL)
Every bishop, priest, minister, deacon, or pastor of any Church has a binding moral obligation to teach, properly, all that that Church teaches to those for whom he or she is spiritually responsible. If a Church teaches that there are seven sacraments, a bishop, priest or minister has no business teaching only about the four he or she likes and relegating the remaining three to oblivion, or giving them a short-shrift, tip-of-the-hat presentation, so puerile and shallow that all listening could not but agree with the assessment that these three belong in the realm of the ridiculous.
I am a Catholic priest, and the Catholic Church at the present moment teaches a Just War Theory as a moral option within the Catholic Communion in union with the Petrine Episcopal Ministry of Rome. Therefore, I teach, in all required detail, the content of the Catholic Just War Theory as an ethical option within Catholicism, in the year 2010, for any Catholic wishing to avail himself or herself of it.
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