Our message today, yesterday
and tomorrow

We are back with more of the “same old, same old” but it is fresh. Today a group of us marched from the Frontier Center, where the Call To Action, conference is being held to 12th and Wisconsin, the Marquette Administration building and across the street from the landmark Gesu Church. Call to Action is a movement of Catholics working together for justice and equality in the Church and society and this year’s theme was “Living the Gospel of Love.”

The message of our march up Wisconsin Avenue, the main street of Milwaukee, was the same: “Marquette, Be Faithful to the Gospel, Stop Hosing Military Training” on campus. The reaction was the same: we were ignored by faculty, staff and most students. There is a joy in the walk and afterwards feeling a little disappointment in the lack of results. But as Thomas Merton said we should not take political actions for results but because it is the right thing to do.” What is the alternative: Join the masses who feel hopeless and frustrated with the lack of any real democracy?

If we are awake and alive we cannot feel sad that we are not achieving results. Today I heard about the US drone raids kill over 120 in 2 days. I felt sad and outraged at our congresspersons, President and all of us who allowed this terrible killing of human life to happen. But then I thought of our efforts last summer to make people aware of “Killer Drones” and our march today to stop military training on this one Catholic campus. Hopefully soon we will be able to take nonviolent action that cannot be ignored.

I also thought of last week when I was in Florida with my wife. The sun and water was great but when I did hear some news like Israel using ‘killer drones’ one Palestinians I was upset but had no action to turn to. It was deeper darkness that I wrote about in a few poems below.

So we can feel sad about world events but have hope we can change by our nonviolent actions, we can stay asleep in life or feel the pain with nowhere to turn. I will take the darkness that moves one to act. Read More for Poems

When all else fails,
When there is no place to run,
When there are no more games to play,
We need to stop and stare death in the face.
Be it wars, homicides, violent words, suffering or ignored,
We must move through the darkness,
Only believing we will see the light,
The veil will be removed
And we will see and hear and feel
Life once more.

Only in America,
A country as an overeater,
Consuming more than necessary,
America is stuffed
And still want More.
The greed of big business,
In this type of environment
Makes sense even if it is immoral.

When young we heard it was a “dog eat dog” world.
We would smile and laugh it off,
But is it not true?

Over consumption is rewarded with more consumption,
Or said another way,
“The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.”
In Churches we hear about money and God,
As if they were tied together.

Blessed are the poor is something
We do not want to hear.
The poor, ill and those who remind us of our condition
Are Marginalized and objects of disdain?
We give to the poor
But never learn from them.
Only in America!

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