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Tonight I was working in the front garden when I saw the bright orange sun setting through the trees. My first instinct was to go inside and get my camera. Then I caught myself and stopped to just enjoy the sunset for a moment. So now you will need to settle for a picture of the Graf Kids jumping on a trampoline in the sunset.
My reaction to go for the camera instead of just enjoying the sunset reminds me once again how valuable it is to live in the present fully and deeply. A picture might be worth a thousand words but living in the moment is beyond words. It is only in the present that we find God and our real selves.
If I had not been in the front garden I might have gone for the camera. Gardens, living second by second, are good reminders of to live in simply in the present.
On another front, the battle against violence, I realized today how the movement to move military bases off college campuses is similar to the movement to destroy 1A selective service files in the 60’s. I sensed this connection when I started the page Milwaukee 14 Today web page but now I can articulate the connection.
The wars might be different, Vietnam and now Iraq and Afghanistan, the means might be different, a forced draft and now financial incentives, but the goals are the same—to put young adults in situations where they need to kill or be killed. In the military then and now there is no such thing as selective conscientious objection. One must be against all wars to be exempted as a conscientious objector. A war can be immoral and one can be asked to do things that violate one’s conscience but once in the military, military values take predominance over morality and conscience.
Now I better understand why all my instincts say that it is unethical and immoral for a Christian university as Marquette University to host military training and teaching on campus. People supporting the war effort on the Marquette campus try to misrepresent the issue and say that I want to eliminate ROTC on campus. That might have been true in the past but in the present I can understand how, due to financial strains on students and the universities and the law of the land like Solomon Amendment there can be office training programs like ROTC on campus. But permitting such programs is a far cry from hosting military schools and departments on campus and allowing the military to teach values and war on campus which often contradicts Christian beliefs and teachings. (Most schools with ROTC programs send students off campus for military training and teaching.)
The connection between enjoying the moment without snapping a picture and resisting military teaching on campus while permitting ROTC programs is the difference between living in the moment or living in the past and future. We need to be selective on when we snap a picture or when we take a stand on principle. The action of the Milwaukee 14 destroying files of persons forced to kill or be killed is the same as action of the Marquette University Peace Acton (MUPA) eliminating military training and teaching on campus. In the Milwaukee 14 action of the past and the MUPA action of the present, the value of human life and conscience take priority over marginalizing life and taking orders to kill or be killed.
Enjoy the moment. Sometimes there is no need to capture it for the future or assign it to the past.
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