A friend and I attended a workshop on the new cosmology combining religious and science about the beginning of the universe and the consciousness of life in all creatures. We watched three parts of a video talk by Richard Rohr, Franciscan Spiritual writer and speaker. As usual Richard Rohr stimulated a lot of creative thought and small and large group discussion. Somehow during the talk and discussion our experience with three families in crisis at our St. Vincent De Paul home visits yesterday came to my mind and consciousness. Probably because I was sitting across the table from a friend who I discovered today, was the co-founder of Community Advocates, an organization that “helps people meet their most basic needs — like a roof over their heads, the lights and heat on at night, and healthcare for their kids.”
Richard Rohr made a comment if we become conscious of God’s life in all creation we could not kill other creatures because we are one with them in many ways. He quoted Pierre Teilhard de Chardin as saying, “God manifest spirit through matter.” If spirit of God is manifest in creatures, especially human beings, the easy and unconscious killing of a human being, as the military at Marquette University teaches, is against our nature as creatures of God. This may explain how the suicide and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome has risen significantly in the military and with veterans as the military more effectively teaches reflexive killing, killing with conscience.
At an open discussion at the end of the workshop someone was praising the speakers, especially the president, at a memorial service for the victims in the Boston bombing. The president condemned the killing of each of the three victims and said that “justice will be served” on the people who did this killing. I could hear my friend nearby quietly say, as the evil of these murders was mentioned, “as long as they were Americans.” I felt compelled to raise my hand and speak up saying how the same president that mourns the loss of the eight year old child in Boston will return to his officer to sign off on the CIA weekly kill list for Killer Drones on Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, counties that we are not at war with. I mentioned how these children killed, like an eight year old boy, were just as precious and loved in God’s eyes as the eight year old boy killed in Boston. I said it is not just the President but all of us are responsible for allowingthese Killer Drone and other military attacks to kill men, women and children. The consciousness of all these deaths affects us and as long as we allow it to happen to others it will happen to us.
Richard Rohr mentioned that in his best writing and speaking words just flowed from him. I have had this experience and had it this morning. My heart bleeds for all victims of homicides be it an eight year boy in Boston or an eight year old boy in Pakistan. We are all one.
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