Where there are doctors and death it is hard to find time for new life. Today due to two doctor’s office visits, planning the memorial service for Padre Lorenzo, talking with two persons suffering from mental illnesses, and waiting in the hospital with a family for emergency surgery on my friend, Ella’s husband, there was no time for gardening. In fact I was so busy with death and doctors today that I could not attend the prayer vigils for three more city homicide victims. However, from my experience with death and dying today plus inspiration from reading an article War is Sin, a deadly but truth-full piece, I feel ready for new life tomorrow and some gardening.
The article War is Sin was not written by any church leader or theologian but by a reporter. He explains something we already know, but do not want to admit to, about violence and war. Our silence and failure to recognize this reality does a tremendous disservice to our soldiers, to our religious faith and to our country.
On one hand the article motivates me to write about the “Militarization of Society”, especially schools systems; on the other hand it makes me think “why write more about it when we all know it but choose to ignore it”. In some unusual way it makes me want to work on the gardens here and at the DMZ.
Growing one’s own food, a ‘victory garden’ as it is now once more called, is an act of nonviolence, of active resistance to war and violence. Earlier in the year I had suggested to officials at Marquette two ideas: one was an open debate on the morality of military training for war on campus, and the other was the creation of a peace garden on campus. Officials said they were interested in both but failed to follow up on either idea. I was more concerned about the ‘debate’ but in retrospect I believe I should have been more concerned about the garden on campus. Students growing food for themselves and persons in need might have learned more about nonviolence and violence than any debate about teaching military values on campus. Maybe the positive way of saying Teach War No More is to say Grow Renewable Affordable Food.
The older I get and the more death and doctors I face, the more I realize that we know everything we need to know for a world of peace, good will and harmony, if we only knew what we know.
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