Paper Cranes — A Brief Reflection

Denise, my beloved sweet wife and partner in life, love, and ministry is doing some studying as she prepares for the sermon she will preach next Sunday. During her studying she told me that she had found a poem written by Thomas Merton, titled “Paper Cranes.” I was not familiar with the poem and she chuckled and said that she was surprised that she found something that Merton had written that I wasn’t familiar with!

As she read the poem it struck me how it spoke to what is going on in the Middle East today. For 26 years as a USAF Chaplain, I watched metal warbirds take off around the world with their payloads of death and destruction.

A retired USAF B-52 pilot once told me that when he flew a mission he prayed that he would never have to drop the bombs. He knew that the nuclear payload in his B-52 would rain down death and destruction and that his family would be killed in a retaliatory strike.

Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD as it was known, would not leave any winners. It would only leave destruction on a regional if not global scale. I imagine Merton would often reflect on the bizarre fact that as he prayed for peace in his Hermitage, he would hear and often see the B-52’s as they flew over the Abbey on their nighttime training missions with their payloads of death and destruction. The irony could not have been lost on him.

I have been thinking about Merton a lot as the events unfold over in the Middle East and the rhetoric of the politicians escalates. He often said that the root of all war is fear. He felt as though this focus on war and destruction was destroying society and even the church. And now, here is the poem.

Paper Cranes: (The Hibakusha Come to Gethsemani)

How can we tell a paper bird

Is stronger than a hawk

When it has no metal for talons?

It needs no power to kill

Because it is not hungry.

Wilder and wiser than eagles

It ranges round the world

Without enemies

And free of cravings.

The child’s hand

Folding these wings

Wins no wars and ends them all.

Thoughts of a child’s heart

Without care, without weapons!

So the child’s eye

Gives life to what it loves

Kind as the innocent sun

And lovelier than all dragons!

In the Darkness Before Dawn: New Selected Poems of Thomas Merton, p. 119

In these difficult times, my prayer is that the Paper Bird of Peace will indeed fly and that minds focused on destruction and hatred will instead seek the path of peace. From our lips to God’s ear, may we pray…