Jesus rejected and crucified

The two main passions of this web site, nonviolence and growing power, were front and foremost in my life today. The weather was nice and I was able to get some work done in the garden. The main job was filling the worm box with compost and some worms. For more worms I need to wait for the worms in the GP box in the sun room to come up through the screen I placed on top to get the fresh compost. Compost and worms make for growing power in the form of castings.

The other passion of this web site is for nonviolence. Today was the last hour of silent witness for Marquette University to Teach War No More. Since it is Holy Week for many Christians we decided to make the 14 Stations of the Cross. We silently marched to 14 locations on campus to a drumbeat behind our sign MU Teach War No More. At each stop we read the name of the station of the cross and had a few moments of silence. We were most ignored by passers by.

Some years ago I had the opportunity to join other pilgrims to make the stations of the cross in Jerusalem, along the same roads that Jesus carried the cross. As we went past the various stores and houses in the old city we were mostly ignored. Making the Stations of the Cross was an everyday experience for the people that work and live in this part of the city. Someone pointed out to me that this was probably what happened to Jesus. In his day crucifixion was the regular Roman punishment for criminals, and probably many prisoners passed by on these roads carrying their cross. So being mostly ignored today was a normal experience of the Stations of the Cross.

These two passions, growing power and nonviolence have a lot in common, especially this week. We know the seed must be buried, die, to rise again and this week we celebrate the fact that Jesus died, was buried and rose again. Also Jesus was a ‘reject’. He made a big splash with people on Psalm Sunday when he entered Jerusalem and a few days later some of the same people rejected him and wanted him killed. In the garden we used materials that once were important, grounds of coffee and wood chips and now are rejected and waste, to make compost.

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