Walking to and from the mailbox today I noticed that now, after the snow has finally melted, many signs of life that were evident last fall have returned. There still was a “Congratulation to Aaron in the Air Force” sign on one of the houses. There were many garden ornaments that have reappeared. Also I saw dead plants and leaves that had fallen and been covered by the winter snow. My own rain garden took on the look today of last fall, covered with wet leaves.
Spring, soon to come, pretends that winter did not happen, that death was just passing. As daylight savings time sets in this weekend, new life will spring up from when it fell last spring.
This winter I suffered the loss of family and friends. One of them, Jim Harney was a member of the Milwaukee 14. Tonight we watched a DVD made on his life that was shown after his memorial service. To see and hear the passion of Jim about the violence of war lit the fire in me to do something, as limited as it may be, about stopping war.
Right now that means stopping the teaching of war at Marquette University to students from 14 local colleges and universities. This might seem like a limited ambition but it is something concrete that we can hope to achieve. War and violence will never end until we end it in our daily lives, and we teach war no more. Marquette needs to shed the violence and teaching of war during a long winter, and spring back to where it was when it fell into this spiral of death.
This morning I attended a prayer vigil for another victim of violence. We have these Micah Holy Ground Prayer Vigils for each homicide victim. Fortunately January and February were slow, but the violence has increased in March. It is like spring, picking up where it left off last fall.
My hope and prayer is that as my rain garden this spring resumes the beauty of last summer and fall; that we can have a Catholic University stop teaching war; and that we can bring an end to violence in the city of Milwaukee.
Hope springs eternal. If we grow together we have the power to spring back to fall.
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