“Think of all the beauty still left
around you and be happy”
Anne Frank
It was a rainy day again today. Hopefully tomorrow I can get some work outside in the gardens before I travel to Haiti next week with a SOAWatch delegation. I did drive my friend today to visit his mother with Alzheimer’s in a residential home. His mother seemed sharp today and before I could do the ‘tickle tickle’ routine to her she did it to me.
I was feeling a little overwhelmed about all the things I should be doing but a picture quote (see below and on the side) by Anne Frank brightened my day. Locked in a hidden room getting ready to die she found beauty in life.
Today the director of the Marquette University Peacemaking Center wrote me criticizing our efforts to get Marquette to be faithful to the Gospel and Stop military training on campus. He is a well known peace person but on this issue of teaching war and killing on a Catholic University he has not only remained silent but tried to marginalize our message. I was busy, as I said before, but took time to respond to his email. Hopefully it can be the beginning of a dialog but from past experiences I am afraid it will not.
Just after sending the email response to him I read an email I read this quote on the bottom of an email from a Catholic Worker. It is from a Jesuit who was inspirational in my life in the 60’s.
“We have assumed the name of peacemakers, but we have been unwilling to pay any significant price. and because we want the peace with half a heart and half a life and will, the war, of course, continues, because the waging of war, by its nature, is total—but the waging of peace, by our own cowardice, is partial.” -Fr. Daniel Berrigan, SJ
So, even a busy, rainy day or criticism from a peacemaking about making peace can be dealt with by seeking the beauty around us.
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