2010 Sugar Creek
Catholic Worker Gathering

Today is the 41st anniversary of the Milwaukee 14 action, the burning of selective service records in Milwaukee in 1968. The story I have to offer today is from the Midwest Catholic Worker gathering I attended last week in Sugar Creek, Iowa.

Many Catholic Worker families brought their children to the gathering. There was a small room in the basement with lots of legos for the children to play with. One time I walked into the room and there was only one four-year-old boy playing with the legos. He had built a small figure that had knives as arms. I asked him about the toy figure and he said it was a good guy who fights bad guys. Thinking of this as a teaching moment I said that I liked bad guys. As we were talking I noticed he built another lego toy person. I asked him who this was and he said it was the bad guy. I started to grasp the bad guy and say how much I liked him. He told me, No, that the bad guy was really a good guy. I asked him what he meant and he said that in ‘war’ the good guys fight the bad guys and the bad guys are really good guys who fight what they say are the bad guys.

Later at lunch I saw him sitting next to his mom and proceeding to say as best as I could what this four year old had told me. He smiled and said: “Do you know where I learned this from?” His mom said where did you learn it from? He named a TV cartoon show, one that clearly his mom did not want him to watch. She said where did you see that show. He said at Grandma’s house. Oh, the wisdom of a four year old.

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