Late summer gardens up
front and close.
Close up my front lawn gardens looks crowed and disorganized. Not so from a distance when space between plants is apparent. The look is caused by some plants growing back, like the basil, some plants, like tomatoes, dying and still producing and a mix of ‘has been flowers’ and flourishing ones in the rain garden.
Life is like late summer garden at times, from close-up it seems over grown and disorganized yet from a distance orderly and doing well. Our ‘fast, leaflet and prayer” events at Marquette University the last few days have been like this. From close up, on the street level, we look like just another group of protestors. But if you step back you can see there is no or little posters and banners and the flyer is just a bunch of quotes on war, violence and ROTC, yesterday by the Pope and today by three Jesuits, including St. Ignatius Loyola the founder of the Jesuits, Society of Jesus.
Something must be getting to MU officials whereas yesterday there were no security guards in sight, today they were lurking around. After our 20 minutes of fast and leafleting four of us attempted to go to Mass in the lower church at Gesu. We were stopped by two security guards and told that if I attempted to enter the Church for mass I would be arrested. I reminded the security that Gesu church was not owned by Marquette University and thus the “order of no trespass” issued by Marquette University did not apply. They said they would get authority from the Pastor of Gesu church to have me arrested. Personally knowing the pastor I said they should go ahead and ask the pastor if he wanted me arrested for going to mass.
To be on the safe side I and the others sat in the middle front of the Church so they would have to arrest me in front of the congregation. To our surprise and delight we saw the pastor was the priest saying the mass. Although no one interrupted him during Mass I was a little concerned that I would be been arrested after leaving the Church. I asked a friend, neighbor, long time Gesu member and former district attorney to escort me out of Church. He did and we all made it safely back to the car.
This story, from close up, seems silly and distracting from our purpose of ending ROTC at Marquette University. But from a distance it reflects Marquette’s fear of students learning the truth about the military on the Marquette campus, in violates the values upon which this Catholic University was founded on. Also it reflects how Marquette fears to respond or attack our message: Be Faith to the Gospel, end military training on campus. Instead, Marquette officials attack one of the messengers, as if that would make the message go away.
Marquette, since 1968, has arrested me twice, denied me my masters’ degree on a technicality, suspended me from school, order me under Holy Obedience not to talk with African American students and fired me for standing up for the civil rights of ill. Now that they have deactivated my library card I have nothing left to lose. But I am not alone and if I died, was thrown in jail or disappeared others would continue with the same Gospel message.
Tactics, like threatening me if I go to Mass are silly and just show how morally bankrupt MU is when facing the light of truth. Like the summer garden, close up, Marquette, by threatening a person with an arrest for going to Mass, seems confused and disorganized.
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