Diary of a Worm’s Life in a Home “Growing Power” Box and Garden
Greens Yearning to Grow
Outside
Worms
Garden 10/27/07
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Gardens Are Not Neutral - Monday, March 31, 2008
Desmond Tutu by Leo Hartshord
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” — Desmond Tutu
This quote stood out today. For some unexplainable reason I cannot be neutral on issues, especially moral issues. I need to take a stand and often act on my beliefs. A few persons today recognized my work in the area of justice, nonviolence and growing power and took it seriously. We all say and know that we do what we need to do, not for recognition but because it is the right thing to do, yet recognition feels good. It makes up for all the times you are stigmatized or, even worse, ignored. However, dealing with praise and recognition can be as difficult as dealing with shame and rejection. One of my neighbors across the street proudly displayed in his beautiful front yard garden an award for having such a beautiful garden. However, last summer he completely redid his front yard. It is still beautiful but in a whole new way. Recognition and awards did not keep him from moving on and doing another beautiful front garden. Gardens are like that, we can learn from failure and success but not from being neutral. We constantly need to plow over our fields, plant seeds, and start growing again.
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Nonviolence Vs Worm - Sunday, March 30, 2008
The point of this web site is to show the connection between nonviolence and growing power (symbolized by the worm). Well, today I figured out a major difference between nonviolence and growing power: Results. In this type of gardening, we expect results. Today I planted many seeds in flatbeds and cells to germinate in the sunroom for planting out in one of the DMZ gardens. I hope and expect Results. But also today I added a quote about not expecting results from our nonviolent actions on the Thomas Merton quotes web page. It goes like this: “Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no worth at all, if not perhaps, results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you will start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself…” In gardening we do want and desire results, while in nonviolent actions results would be nice but are not part of why we do what we do.
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The Squirrel is Back! - Saturday, March 29, 2008
Today I noticed that Mr. Squirrel is back stealing the birdseed from the birds. During the winter, while the squirrel was hibernating, the small birds were free to eat the birdseed when they wanted, as long as I placed it outside. But with spring Mr. Squirrel is back stealing their food. The squirrel, with no hair or feathers, keeps warm in the winter by sleeping in its nest and using the fat of its body to survive. He must wake up hungry so the fallen birdseed must be one of his first stops. Food is a priority for all of us animals, from the lowly worm to the mighty humans.
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Low Green Spring - Friday, March 28, 2008
Low Green Spring
“There are wars and rumors of war, poverty and plague, hunger and pain. Still, the sap is rising; again there is the resurrection of spring, and God’s continuing promise to us that He is with us always, with His comfort and joy, if we will only ask.” — Dorothy Day
Just as the March 26th diary posting, this one starts off with a green quote from Dorothy Day, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. My day today was like this quote above. It was full of news of more deaths in Iraq, feeling the pain of the homeless women and children at the shelter, a woman struggling to maintain her mental health, and hearing of the death of a friend’s mother. Yet there were signs of spring. Today I first dug into the worm compost for some enriched soil, added to the compost pile, paper, cardboard and coffee grounds, and prepared soil for inside plant starting, and planted some tomato seeds in a covered flat in the sunroom. The new plants are being prepared for outside on our new insert to the shelf below the growing power box. The tea from the box used to run down a sloping tray into a catch basin on the bottom shelf. Now it runs down the tray to the insert on the shelf below. The tea runs below the plants on the bottom shelf, and than drains into the catch basin which is now on the floor on the other side. Naturally this tea is then recycled into the box and planters. I have a lot more planting to do tomorrow in the box, part of which has been cleared for new plants, and in the planting trays on the bottom shelf. So instead of saying the sap is running, which my friend the maple syrup farmer says it is, I can say the tea is flowing down and down. The picture on the side shows the tray that drains the box and the insert on the shelf below the box that is partially full of a covered flat, some planters of herbs starting to grow and a planter of lettuce. From this low shelf and the wastewater of worm castings (tea), new life will rise. So despite the “wars and rumors of wars, poverty and plague, hunger and pain”, still the tea is running, “again there is the resurrection of spring”.
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Salad Bowl Friends Part 2 - Thursday, March 27, 2008
GP Salad Greens
In a Diary of the Worm posted on February 12, 2007 I wrote about Salad Bowl Friends. “The salad bowl is an endless network of friends who are united by the zest for life. While keeping their unique diversity, together they are Growing Power. Watch out world, here comes the nonviolent revolution of salad green friends!” Preparing a salad for our DMZ garden monthly gathering today, I was reminded of this entry. Dawn and Marna, the D & the M of DMZ have become good friends with each other over the last year or so of our association together with the DMZ Garden. I got to know Dawn from working on one of Dawn’s houses for disabled persons, and Marna from the prayer vigils and working together on the Mothers Against Gun Violence web page. Both were interested in the growing power stuff that I was enthused about and came together as salad bowl friends.
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Dorothy Day, Broadcaster of Seeds - Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Dorothy Day,
Broadcaster of Seeds
“We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt.” — Dorothy Day
My friend in Holland Jim Forest send me this quote today from one of the most influential persons in my life, Dorothy Day, co-founder with Peter Maurin of the Catholic Worker movement. Although she died in 1980 and had only one child, Tamar, who died the other day, her spirit lives on in countless Catholic Workers all over the world and with many persons, like me, touched by her life. She was the person, in my mind, who best combined the works of mercy, feeding the hungry, and offering shelter for the homeless, with the works of peace and justice, opposing war and violence, and working for human rights. With her there was no conflict with being arrested for resisting military intervention in our lives and working on the soup line at a Catholic Worker House. To find a quote from her using the planting of seeds as an analogy is a treasure. The purpose of the Diary of the Worm is to take the lessons of Growing Power and combine them with the lessons of creative nonviolence. Catholic Workers are to be found not just in houses of hospitality in urban environments but also on the farm raising food for the community and offering a retreat from the hectic environment of everyday life.
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Do The Right Thing - Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Prasad & Dianne
Today was another day taken up with a touch of India, growing power and nonviolence. Just listening to Prasad today I learned so much more about growing with nature, Gandhi and the cultures of India and the USA. Prasad, our guide in our pilgrimage of Peace in the footsteps of Gandhi, once again spoke of his reasons for our pilgrimage. He wants us, persons in the USA with Gandhi spirit, to come to India to spark the Gandhian spirit in followers of the Gandhi way of life. Strange as that may sound he repeated it again today. Gandhi is still idolized in India but his way of life, for the large majority in India, is not followed. The same is often said about followers of the way of Jesus and many Christians today. They idolize the person of Jesus, the medium, but ignore his message. Those who have “ears to hear” the message of Gandhi and Jesus have the faith and trust to do the right thing, although they might be rejected and not reach their goal.
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Mind, Body & Spirit - Monday, March 24, 2008
Mind, Body, Spirit
Today it struck me that what every person in the urban environment needs is to share in a garden, a wiki web site and a nonviolent way of life. These three things will feed the mind, body and spirit. The body will be fed healthy food by sharing in the growing power garden. The mind will be stimulated by participation in the wiki web site. The soul will be refreshed by the practice of nonviolence. For the body, sharing in a growing power style garden will offer not only healthy exercise that could be all year around but will provide each person a share of good organic food. Second, a wiki site will give each person a simple way to express him or herself and keep up with the ideas and thoughts of others in a way that can be individually designed. Third, by a nonviolent way of life I mean some type of spiritual life that will give meaning to existence and keep people living together in harmony.
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Easter New Year! - Sunday, March 23, 2008
Greens Yearning to Grow Outside
Today, Easter Sunday 2008 was, for me, the beginning of Spring and the New Year. The greens inside the sunroom are growing, yearning to be outside, on the other side of the five-pane window inserts, out with the worm depository which has decreased in size with the melting of the snow. Although the sunroom, without heat, is in the 70’s, the weather outside is still too cold and too wet with snow for planting. So today I cleaned the sunroom; tomorrow the new inside-outside tray beneath the growing power box will be put in place; the next few days many more seeds will be planted waiting, like the lettuce greens, to go outside and grow.
Today our priest in Church compared Easter to the homemade bread pudding his Grandmother used to make about once a year. She took all the leftover bread scraps and crusts, combined them with some ingredients around the house, and made this wonderful-tasting bread pudding. Easter, like growing soil in a Growing Power garden, is a putting together of scraps of life to make something new and wonderful. In growing soil we use food scraps, leaves, wood chips, discarded coffee grounds, to create compost that with the help of worms is transformed in rich soil, “black gold” as it is sometimes called.
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Diversity In Unity - Saturday, March 22, 2008
Think Spring!
The day after the storm
The garden is heavy with snow
We wait for the early dawn of the third day
When the snow will melt in the light of the sun,
And the burden of yesterday
Will melt in the ground
On which we will build tomorrow.
In unity we find diversity. However in diversity we do not find unity. Take a good garden on a sunny day. Everything seems to be related although everything is so diverse. Take a bad garden on a dark day. Weeds are everywhere and there is no feeling of relationship.
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T.M.S. - Friday, March 21, 2008
Hare, Hair and Air
Children’s Story Coming Soon
You probably have heard of TLC (Tender Loving Care) or TMI (Too Much Information), something, believe or not, I have been accused of, but now , on this first full day of spring, we have a new term, TMS. TMS stands for Too Much Snow. With the 14 inches of snow we are having now, this year season will be in 2nd place for record snowfalls. Usually I downplay the predictions of snow. The weatherman always seems to overestimate. However, not today. Spring has come in with a major snowfall.
For the Home Model Growing Power Garden this means a number of things. The soil below the mounds will be rich in moisture this year. Also it means that I will need to start more plants inside, since it might be some time before this snow melts and the home made soil around the yard is workable. It means that I need to extend the down sprouts away from the house since I can not yet put in the rain barrels. So there will be more growing inside the sunroom and more waiting to grow outside.
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We Can Wait! - Thursday, March 20, 2008
Wait Is Over
A good part of my day, about 6 hours, was spent driving a friend to a hospital and a family member to an appointment, both health related. Although these types of experiences are time consuming there is a reward, since the hour or so while they were in the hospital or clinic I spent waiting, reading, watching TV (like Marquette’s NCAA basketball game today) or just resting. Learning how to wait is fortunately something I figured out a while back and has been helpful in life. You can do a lot or nothing while waiting and still be refreshed. Gardening also involves a lot of waiting. One waits for the right time to plant the seed, waits for the seed to grow, waits for the time to care for the plant and waits for the time to harvest the fruit of the plant. Life, like gardening, involves a lot of waiting: we wait to grow up, and we wait to die, and we wait to rise again.
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Country Kids In Urban Environment - Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Country Kids swallowed
by Urban enviornment
Now I know what they mean by the old saying that went something like: ‘Once they see the city you cannot keep them on the farm.’ For the last two days we took our grandchildren (Graf Kids) to the big city of Chicago. My grandchildren are not really country kids in the true sense, since they were born in Green Bay and have only lived out in a rural area for the last few years. But as I have mentioned before, present day country kids, like the three children of similar age across the road who grew up on the family dairy farm, are very similar to urban kids: play lots of sports, go to modern schools, have busy schedules, and easy access to media and video games. Despite all this they are still somewhat fascinated by Milwaukee and were really fascinated by Chicago. A friend in Chicago was our tour guide. He knew the right buses or subways to take to wherever we wanted to go. The noise, the number of people, cars, buses, stores, tall building and screaming ambulances fascinated my grandchildren while it left me a little bit on edge. I had to remind myself that this big urban city was full of Growing Power gardens. Will Allen’s, the founder of Growing Power’s, daughter actually directs Growing Power in Chicago and this city, unlike Milwaukee so far, has made a real commitment to growing organic healthy food. For me the whole city was a large department store (we did visit the big Macy’s department store on my wife’s suggestion); it was just was too much for me to handle. However, the transition from rural to urban to big-type urban was very natural for my grandchildren. Now if only the Hancock Tower, pictured here, were a vertical Growing Power Urban Garden Tower, (a kind of building that is presently being envisioned) we would really be bringing the country to the urban. The counterpart to this would be to build affordable housing in the country and to connect the country and urban centers with high-speed affordable transportation. Than we could have urban kids growing up in a county environment in the city and in rural areas.
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Driving Ms. Carolee - Monday, March 17, 2008
Driving Miss Carolee
Driving my three grandchildren around Milwaukee today I noticed how much expression and information my granddaughter has learned from her big brother and parents. When it was her turn in the car to make the rest of us laugh, last person who does not speak out wins, she was repeating many of the same humorous things her brother and I had said. Having heard them before, her brothers did not laugh. Finally in frustration she said, “You can laugh now” and they both starting laughing. At her next turn she did the same thing, repeating what they said and finally saying “you can laugh now.” However, this time they did not laugh. Children, like teens and adults, like to be like everyone else, especially persons they feel close to. Children, like adults, do not like to offend. When they do so, even though it may not be on purpose, they are upset. They like to please, and imitation is the best form of flattery.
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Garden of the Beloved - Sunday, March 16, 2008
Beloved Son of My Friend
The first community garden I worked on in Milwaukee was started by Sister Clara, a pastor of local non-denominational church at the corner of a block that is called Gingerbread Land. This was a block that Sister Clara had carved out of the central city as a safe place with safe housing for children. Sister Clara called everyone ‘precious’. I guess it was her way of saying how special and good each person is. Another word used in literature and the Bible to indicate the value of a person is ‘beloved.’ A ‘beloved’ is someone that is loved for who they are, an unconditional love like that of a mother for her child or God for us. Last summer I was in another kind of garden, a flower garden, that a friend from church had created in her backyard to honor her son who was a victim in a senseless homicide. I took some pictures of the garden of the beloved but never got around to putting them on the Mothers Against Gun Violence web page. Since that time the family of this woman and her son have suffered all kinds of setbacks, a sister or daughter whose mental illness left her unable to care for her two children, one now an teen unwed mother; another son or brother who got in with a bad group and now is imprisoned for a longer time than is just, because he could not afford a good lawyer. During this years she has found solitude and peace in her beautiful backyard dedicated to her slain son.
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Relief - Saturday, March 15, 2008
St. Joan of Arc Chapel
This morning I caught a glimpse in my mind of what is bothering me and in the light of the sunroom and the garden wrote these words.
Words, voices, emails, signs, noise, music, radio, lights, products, cars, news, newspaper and TV,
Come at me from every direction, all vying for my attention.
Some I need, but many I do not.
They give me a headache like the one I get from being in a shopping mall too long.
These days they follow me around from rising to sleep and perhaps even in my sleep.
In medication I find no relief, just more coming at me.
Fighting it gives it strength and makes it worse.
All I can do to stop this commotion of mind is to step into the sun, be silent, let the commotion go and feel the gentle breeze.
In the quiet garden with the silent growing plants there is the peace of mind and the food of mind and body to fill the soul.
Than it was off to two more events commemorating the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq. The first one was prayer service for peace at the St. Joan of Arc chapel on the Marquette University campus. Joan of Arc prayed in this chapel before going into battle. This is the same chapel that nearly forty years ago Marquette students occupied in the beginning of the 40 year history of resistance to Military at MU. Some of us held up on sign saying: “MU Be Faithful to the Gospel, Stop Hosting Military Training.“ All the good Catholics saw our sign as they came out of the prayer service and for the most part just ignored it. Christians related to Marquette do not want to know about the social sins of the school in their support of an unjust and immoral war.
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Just Checking! - Friday, March 14, 2008
Worm Depository 03/14/08
The snow melted enough today so the worm depository pile was visible. However, when I took a pitchfork into the pile to check on the worms, the top layer was still frozen. So that check on the worms below will need to wait till another day. Another checking today was also frozen. After six years, thousands of dollars of repairs and lots of checking with officials, Dawn of Foundations Dwellings and of the DMZ Gardens learned today that she was not qualified for the home rehab loan she applied for in 2002. Actually they said she was disqualified in 2003 but, I guess, they never got around to telling her. I asked them to put this decision in writing this time, for until today Dawn and many others were led to believe she was qualified except for signing some papers she never was asked to sign. There is something fishy about the decision since Dawn’s file was lost or destroyed since last May when the Mayor of Milwaukee asked the department to look into the matter. We will need to check on this. One thing I did not check on today was the condition of the plants in the sunroom. With the sun out again today I am sure they were nice and cozy and are hopefully growing tonight. Of all the checking I do or do not do, checking on the garden is probably the most important.
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Love Your Enemy - Thursday, March 13, 2008
“We have met the enemy and he is us” — Pogo. How true that is: often we are our own worst enemy. In nature, creatures have enemies but rarely is the enemy themselves. For example, robins eat worms, as do fish, but worms do not eat worms or even their own castings. There are many examples in nature of predators who have other creatures as their predators, but not themselves. We humans kill each other, and in the good old USA we seem to specialize in violence to other human beings. Sometimes it is under government orders and sometimes it is just out of greed, but we do violence to each other. In nature, creatures have violence done to them by humans and other creatures but seldom by like creatures. (This is a generalization and not 100% true.) However, we humans have a major advantage over creatures in nature. We can love, and when we love our enemies they soon cease to be our enemies. Not that “loving your enemies” is easy to do. On the contrary is it is harder than hating or harming your enemy. It takes a deep faith in the good of human beings, especially our enemies, to “love our enemies. This is especially true for the enemy within. If we are the enemy, then love of self is essential for peace. However, if we do not love ourselves — not in a selfish way, but in a way that sees the good in ourselves and thus in others — we cannot love our enemies or our friends.
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Move Ahead and Back - Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Today Marna of the DMZ gardens had scheduled a meeting with the principal of the elementary school across the street from our DMZ garden vacant lot. All went well except Marna was not there. Her son and her nephew were victims of a shooting last night. Her son survived but her nephew, like her other son some years ago, was a victim of a senseless homicide. Dawn and I still went on and had a good meeting and came up, with the principal, of a way to involve the children and hopefully their parents in this community DMZ garden. However, afterwards, I felt this deep sense of sorrow. My friend, Marna, co-founder of Mothers Against Gun Violence had lost another family member to senseless violence. I was happy for the children of the elementary school to have such an understanding principal, but sad for Marna and her family to lose another member to violence. However, we need to move ahead with the children of this school, working in the DMZ garden, from respect for the young man, Marna’s nephew, who died early this morning. Talking to the reporter in charge of the The Milwaukee Homicide Report this evening, I observed how there has been a lull in violence when it has been exposed as it is, senseless, but that it comes back again.
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Why Do Children Like Growing Power? - Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Many children have visited Growing Power or have been involved in the growing power style of gardening and really like it. Witness the success of Growing Power with school children in Chicago and Milwaukee. I need to think tonight of the reasons Why children like Growing Power, since tomorrow afternoon Dawn, Marna and I are visiting with the principal of the elementary school across from our DMZ garden. Here are some of the reasons that I have come up with.
Children love the idea of waste materials, like banana peels and leaves becoming fertile soil for growing. When I do my Uncle Bob’s GP Magic Show, the magic is just speeding up the time-line from collecting waste to growing good food to eat. When I speed up the progress from waste to compost, worm enrichment to “black gold” soil to food, children are amazed. Some schools use their lunch-room waste to make compost.
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Good News of Worms - Monday, March 10, 2008
Today I took a look at the numbers my friend sent me about the five-pane Air experiment in the Sun Room. At a quick glance, it seems that the five-pane windows save me about $400 in heating cost each year as compared to a sunroom with just single-pane windows. The sunroom is about 80 square feet, so you can see how significant the savings would be in a larger area like a greenhouse or even a house. There are much more details and numbers to come, including a spreadsheet that can be very useful in measuring savings and potential savings with this method of insulation. This area of math and science has been foreign to me since my high school days, but for my interest in Growing Renewable Affordable Food it is essential. So I will relearn some science and math. Another good news development in growing organic and affordable food occurred today when it was confirmed that we have an appointment with the principal of the elementary school across the street from the DMZ garden vacant lot space. The commitment of the community is essential to growing good food in the DMZ community garden. With the neighborhood children on board, collecting waste material, caring for the garden and enjoying the food, the garden has a good chance of truly being a community garden. So this is the good news on the Growing Power side.
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Long Snowy Road - Sunday, March 09, 2008
Long Snowy Road
The long snowy road runs through fields into the bright blue sky. It runs through rural and urban land. It runs through each of us. It is cold on the outside but warm inside the blanket of snow. The sun and the blue sky keep us moving. It is the only clear path before us so we must travel it wherever it may go. We may fall down and the walking may be tough at times. But what can we do? There is no going back and to stay still would mean we would freeze. So we move on with the sun, the road and ourselves as our guide. We are but pilgrims on the way to holy ground. There is no basking in the sun allowed. The road is long but it is going where we want to be.
Time: 11:13 p.m., Office Temp.: 67, Sunroom Temp. Average: 60, Outside Temp.: 30, KWH: 232
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Lay Down Your Weapons - Saturday, March 08, 2008
St. Ignatius
Surrenders His Weapons
Today many parts of my life came together. For starters it was sunny. This is always good, especially when it is so cold. The sunroom made it up to 65 degrees today while it was in the low 20’s outside. Also a group of people of peace, that I am blessed to know, did a skit today in front of the Marquette Library that brought together some history, Ignatian Spirituality and our efforts to get Marquette to be faithful to the Gospel and No Longer Host Departments of Military Science. We had cut-out buses bring in students from the eight campuses that train and are indoctrinated by the military departments at Marquette. They were commissioned and got their weapons. Nearby we had a cross, covered with our MU Petitions, and a black-robed Jesuit playing St. Ignatius. After some marching around, the soldiers came upon St. Ignatius and the cross and surrendered their weapons. St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, was a soldier. After his conversion to a deeper faith he traveled to the shrine of the Black Madonna at Montserrat and surrendered his weapons. His first symbolic act on his pilgrimage to a new life as a companion of Jesus was to surrender his weapons as a soldier. We pray that Jesuits can return to the charisma of their founder and end the military training and teaching of military values that goes on at this School for the Army (SOA), Navy, Marines and Air Force at Marquette
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Cut, Eat and, Grow - Friday, March 07, 2008
Salad Greens in GP Box Today
Checking the lettuce greens in the GP box today, I noticed it is time to cut, eat and grow. After I cut these greens I may need to plant some more since they have been cut and eaten and grown again several times. Certainly the conditions for growing salad greens in the sunroom is just right. It is 19 degrees outside but 65 inside. In fact it is nearly 80 degrees in the container that was just planted with basil seeds. All this warmth is due to the sun and AIR. Someone pointed out to me the other day that sun and air are two valued energy saving ingredients that the big corporations have not figured out how to privatize yet. I am sure they are working on it. Our affordable AIR insulation system may be more vulnerable to privatization and we should work to keep in the public domain. John, the true designer of the system, has been too busy working on his day job to do much about it. However, last night he did look at the numbers his dad, my friend, in Madison, crunched for us on our test. His preview is that we were more effective than we said we were on energy saving cost for the five-pane window inserts. Soon he and his dad will explain all this to me and I will write about it on this web domain. For now I am just happy to cut, eat and grow.
Time: 2.33pm Office Temp. 62, Sunroom Temp. Average 65 Outside Temps. 19, KWH 184.
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Don’t Miss the Bus - Thursday, March 06, 2008
Bus to SOA
Early this evening we had a small rehearsal of the street theater we have planned for our nonviolent action Saturday starting at 12 noon at Marquette University in front of the Union. The cut-out buses will represent the busing of students from eight local colleges and universities for military training at Marquette University. After the recruits go through their training we have a surprise for them. St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits who run MU, will be asking them to lay down their weapons as he did after his conversion to a deeper faith. As history has told us, Marquette University will eventually respond to calls to follow the Gospel. (Read some of the 40 year history of resistance to the military.) Researching that history I saw a picture of a friend of mine, a student leader in 1968–69 who was bloodied by police for just observing an ROTC activity. It reminded me how in those days the University used to expel students, have them arrested, and punish them in other ways for disagreeing with a policy of the university, such as teaching military values over Gospel values on campus. As students in those days we needed courage to stand up for our beliefs and values, the very ones the Jesuits and Gospel taught us. Today the University just ignores students’ protest and no longer reacts to them. In the history you can read about an occupation of the ROTC building by Catholic Workers in 1997 when the university did nothing to remove them. However, today students are more afraid to do anything that might be seen as contradicting the administration. As the administration they can talk a good game and even take action as long as it is not connected to the campus. For example, students from almost all Jesuit Universities make the annual trip by bus each fall to Fort Benning to protest what they used to call the School of the Americas (SOA), an army-training base for Latin American soldiers. Yet on their very own campuses the same Army Manual and values are taught. Yet they fear to confront this SOA, School of Army at home.
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Nonviolent Cross - Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Nonviolent Cross Book
Today someone who read this posting the other night reminded me of a valuable lesson: You can be against a war that you think is unjust and immoral but still love and respect the soldiers who fight the war. Unfortunately I was reminded of that lesson a few years ago when an early USA soldier killed in Iraq was a young man that I had known when I was a youth minister in his church. I had been gone from the parish for a number of years when I heard of his death in Iraq. He was one of those kids that you could not help but like. He was mischievous but with a great sense of humor. I heard of another local soldier on TV tonight. When I think of the brave young men and woman dying I am saddened and more determined to bring the troops home from Iraq. I also feel for all the Iraqis who have died and been made refugees since the USA invasion and occupation of Iraq. I pray for them too but somehow knowing a person makes it hurt more. When death by senseless violence be it in Iraq or on the streets of Milwaukee is personal one becomes more determined to stop it and prevent it. That is why I am so pleased at the new Milwaukee Homicide Report blog. The more death is personal the more one is determined to end the violence that caused it.
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Be Not Afraid - Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Photo Credit: Eileen Melton
Convict Lake in the Sierra Nevada
At the end of a long day, when I was tempted to react not respond, a friend sent me a “ray of hope” picture and message: “Courage is very important. Like a muscle, it is strengthened by use.” (Ruth Gordon) The picture naturally was of nature, a picture of “Convict Lake” in Sierra Nevada. On a day when a betrayal of an ally momentarily led me to loose focus, not work on the garden or do silent reflection, this quote and picture grounded me again. As hard as men and woman may try to throw obstacles in one’s way, the beauty of creation, if you can only see it, shines. With courage and conviction we can see this beauty and not let ourselves be tempted by the negative. St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, says in a prayer in his “spiritual exercises”: “I deeply desire to be with you in accepting all wrongs and all rejections and all poverty…” (Spiritual Exercises #98) I have had a hard time understanding this desire but now see it as something Gandhi or Martin Luther King talked about — as a way to practice creative nonviolence. To “Be Not Afraid” takes real courage, the kind we can only find in the silence and beauty of nature.
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Cry of the Worm - Monday, March 03, 2008
Today I heard that 100 persons were killed in Palestine yesterday, many of them ordinary citizens. I heard on the radio today how disabled military men and women, injured in battle, must prove on their own before they are discharged that they are disabled and deserve benefits. They are assumed not entitled until they prove otherwise. I see grown men and women in a University deny or ignore that they are supporting an unjust war and teaching values that contradict their own values. I was in contact with a woman today who seeks to help the disabled but is suffering financially at the hands of government bureaucrats. I was reminded today not to be bitter even when I am ridiculed and ignored and to love my enemies even when they are my friends. I saw young men today afraid, with heads spinning with what might be. I saw today in myself anger that is not justified and is hurtful to others and myself. I am confused and no longer know the difference between the food plants and the weeds. I am tired and just want to cry but cannot. My posting tonight is the “Cry of the Worm.”
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Brief Warmth - Sunday, March 02, 2008
Today the temperature outside hit the mid forties. My wife and I took the opportunity to chop away some of the ice on the driveway. Because we did not plow and shovel the driveway adequately during one snowstorm, we have had a layer of frozen ice since then. One slip-up like this and you slide down the driveway the rest of the winter till it warms up. Tomorrow the weatherman says it is back to the cold, rain and snow. Waiting for winter to end is like waiting for your time in prison to end — the more you think about it, the longer the time is. Warm times will come one of these days. For now my gardening work needs to focus on the sunroom plants, adding more and growing what I have.
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Planted - Saturday, March 01, 2008
Plants just planted
The new month began planted. This morning I went to the monthly plant sale at the commercial plant store on North Avenue and purchased from $1-$5 five planted plants. Four of them are in the picture above. Upon arrival at home I replanted some of the plants and placed them around the house, hopefully in the right spots. Some of the plants at this sale are inexpensive because they are not healthy. But with a little TLC they can bounce back and thrive. Compost, castings, tea, offer just what houseplants need. The rest of the day was also planted as, among other things, I got a solid base to the 40 History of Resistance to Military at Marquette University. Combining research, personal stories and pictures, this history exercise is proving to be interesting. I hope others find it this way. There is much more to go on this project but tomorrow I will send out what we have so far to some peace groups.
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