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.
Then it was off to the major, area-wide rally against the war. Speaker after speaker decried the war and called for an end to it, as they have done for the last five years. One Catholic priest, the same one who led the prayer service at Marquette, made mention of a nonviolent action, takeover of offices, but all except one person knew we would not do it. The one person who believed him tried to track him down at the end to volunteer for the takeover. He did not get it; we say a lot but do little. Again, a few of us held up our sign calling on Marquette to end its support for training in war, but we were just another sign in the crowd of signs.
All this talk of peace and protest, even the nice prayer service at the chapel, seems to be a rerun. We pray, protest and talk some good talk but do very little. If it were not for the beautiful sun outside today I might have got another one of those “mall headaches.” However, now I know where to find relief.
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