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.
Today I attended a Peace talk sponsored by some of the same peace groups that have ‘problems’ with the campaign to end Marquette University’s support of the military and its values. Kathy Kelly, a women I deeply respect and admire used the words: “burdensome knowledge” in her talk. It means that once we know something, we carry a burden with us that only can be relieved with action. I almost fear hearing her talk because her talks about her experience in Iraq are truly “burdensome knowledge.” But I did listen to her again and now I am more determined than ever to end the military violence at my beloved school of Marquette University. Paradoxically, MU is sponsoring her for a week in Milwaukee to sit on the “peace chair.” Maybe the “nonviolent worm” is another paradox that will finally come together.
Also today, at the same talk, I heard that my friend Jim Douglas has finally finished his book connecting the assassination of Martin Luther King with the two Kennedy’s. I remember many years ago meeting Jim and Shelly Douglas on my friend’s Mike Cullen’s farm at a “Jesus camp”. Jim told me about the seed of the book that he was planting and planning. It was so long ago that I almost figured he gave up. But he did it and the seed planted so many years ago is now being published and Jim will be in Milwaukee in April to talk about the book. Since Jim and Shelly also have a Catholic Worker House of Hospitality down south, maybe the worm and nonviolence will get closertogether.
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