Wisdom from Daniel Berrigan

After a morning spent dodging raindrops (a slight understatement) on Granville Island, Denise and I retreated to our hotel to warm up and enjoy a drink while reading. I discovered this book yesterday and bought it (on Kindle) last night.

As we continue to process what happened in the United States last week, Fr. Berrigan seemed to be the perfect writer/prophet/poet to spend some time with.

We met some protesters last night on the way to dinner and had a great conversation with one woman in particular. They were protesting the lack of transparency that surrounds the city decision to remove 20,000 – 30,000 trees from Stanley Park. The trees are dead thanks to a hemlock hooper moth infestation that has killed a lot of trees in the park. She asked where we were from and when we said the United States, she offered her support and encouragement in the same way that we offered her ours.

So as we spend time in my late Mother’s hometown, we continue the process of rest, reflection, and seeking our way forward in the mess that continues to rise following the elections and will only get worse in the US. For me it is something as basic as how to respond as a retired military chaplain and pastor. In both my writing and my preaching, there is so much to address. These words from Fr Berrigan make sense to me in this reflection:

What we are living through in the United States is so irrational and so incomprehensible to the majority of our people that one constantly has the sense of being in the middle of a nightmare which has no termination and no inner coherence.

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One cannot level one’s moral lance at every evil in the universe. There are just too many of them. But you can do something and the difference between doing something and doing nothing is everything. (The Trouble With Our State, p. 11)

Daniel Berrigan died on April 30, 2016. He had spent his whole life as a priest working for peace, justice, and equal rights for all of God’s children. He wasn’t afraid to speak as a prophet and spent a good bit of time in jail as a result of his work for peace. My hope and prayer is that he will teach me how to be such a voice and a presence in these disturbing times where the rights of so many are being squashed by the privileged elite.