I got an email today from that the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking was having a talk and resource fair on “Making a Living, Making a Difference”. The keynote speakers were going to talk about how “they used their managerial experience and financial expertise to rehabilitate and permanently preserve existing affordable housing for those most affected by the housing crisis.” At the resource fair “representatives from the private and the nonprofit sectors will discuss with students the opportunities in local, national and international work that serves the public good as well as learn about internships and job opportunities.” I am not sure how this all relates to making peace but it might appeal to students who want to make money and do good, at least thinking they were doing good.

As I have pointed out before the 44 years history of resistance to military training on the Marquette campus has seen a gradual lack of participation of students in peace making. Five years ago with the creation of the MU Center for Peace Making marked the beginning of the end of students in the resistance to teaching war at Marquette. As my Ash Wednesday posted asked: Where have all the students gone. The answer might be they have gone to having careers making money on “making a difference.”

The odd thing is that St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, Jesuits who founded Marquette, had just the opposite vision of what it took to “make a difference”. He prayed for the gift of taking insults, injury and being marginalized as a way for being a follower of Jesus, who suffered rejection and betrayal. Peacemaking has never been, in my view, a way of making money. If students at Marquette want to make money on the ills of other people they should go into the insurance business, where there are good profits being made on human sickness.

I was thinking about our lack of progress in 44 years of trying to resist military, ROTC, on campus when I ran across the Gandhi quote: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” It seems like we have gone backward in this sequence. Marquette used to fight us for our resistance, suspending students fighting for peace and social justice, than they laugh at us and now they ignore us, making us invisible.

We plan to start the fourth year of Praying for Peace on Wednesday in Lent from 4–5pm. Our first prayer vigil will this Wednesday, Feb. 29th, from 4–5 pm in the lobby of the Marquette Raynor Memorial library. They used to threaten us with arrest and recently just ignor us. We will see, praying for peace may be ‘dangerous’ again. Praying for Peace, even though it is illegal to do so on Marquette campus makes more sense for peacemaking than making money on peacemaking.

Comments

(:commentboxchrono:)