I have been reading (slowly because of work and schoolwork) John Dear’s book, Thomas Merton, Peacemaker: Meditations on Merton, Peacemaking, and the Spiritual Life. Fr John combines his own journey as a peacemaker with Merton’s interior journey of faith and its witness to the world. The fact that Merton’s writings are just as relevant and timely today as they were when he was writing in the 1950’s and 1960’s never ceases to amaze me. Discovering Thomas Merton in early 2015 was a watershed moment for me and he played a major role in the launching of my Doctor of Ministry in Public Theology studies which I began this past summer.
Sadly, just as it was in the 1960’s for Merton, I see too often the church being complicit in justifying violence in the nation and world. Yes, that struggle is still very real for me and I am far from the nonviolent peacemaker that I desire to become. These words from Fr John struck close to home for me:
In contemplative violence, oddly enough, we can be quite peaceful with ourselves—as we go forward in our unconscious support of violence and empire… A nonviolent person often does not feel centered or peaceful, because he or she is attending to an inner violence as well as the world’s violence. It’s a long-haul, ever-deepening awareness, a daily surrender of our violence to God, so that over time we are transformed by God’s disarming love and sent into the world of war as God’s peacemakers. Merton underwent and taught about this journey, a journey that few really want, yet that God requires of us all. (Thomas Merton, Peacemaker, p. 15)
As we approach the holy day commemorating the birth of the Prince of Peace, may we also heed his call to be peacemakers. In the words of the Prophet Micah: He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
(Micah 6:8)
This Sunday on the Second Sunday of Advent we will light the candle of hope and the words of the Psalmist will be shared: Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet, righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky. (Psalm 85:10-11)
Help us, Lord, to be peacemakers as your children. Give us the courage and the strength to stand with you as a counter to violence. Amen.
The sun has set and the Vesper Lights flicker and glow
It was a wonderful day today, Lord
Opportunities to get to know parishioners
A final meeting with my seminary small group
A time of reflection and sharing
A lovely evening with my sweetheart
For these blessings I am thankful
Now as my eyelids grow heavy
I lift this humble prayer to you
Dona Nobis Pacem
Grant Us Peace
A wee prayer from the heart of your Padre…
“Nonviolence is to be an artist of your humanity. To bring the best of you, not just by solving problems but also by living, by experiencing, by practicing. It’s about your humanity is my weapon and I have to be able to bring you to that place. . . . One of the core principles of nonviolence—this core worldview of nonviolence—is the unwavering faith in humanity and in the goodness of people, no matter how much harm someone may have committed, that the possibility of transformation and the possibility of resilience is there.”—Ali Abu Awwad
This powerful reflection from Janet M. Peterworth on the 40th anniversary of martyrdom took me back to my seminary days when Liberation Theology and Central America were a central focus of our classes and discussions.
My thoughts today come from Isaiah (58:1-9a) on the kind of fast that our God wants.
I was musing about this in the context of my trip to El Salvador in 2015. The background of that trip started many years ago. A brutal civil war was raging in that country. The military was propping up the government and the two together were truly oppressing the indigenous people and the poor by confiscating their land for big multinational corporations — land that had been theirs for many years. The government was using the scorched-earth policy. That meant the military went from village to village burning everything so that the people would have nothing to come back to. And with monetary help and training from our United States government, they murdered over 71,000 people in that civil war... read more at https://www.globalsistersreport.org/news/spirituality/column/40th-anniversary-martyrdom-we-fast
The sun has set and the Vesper Lights flicker and glow
It has been a day of reflection and worship planning
Recording Sunday’s sermon on Wednesday
It has been a day for schoolwork
In the evening it was a time of fellowship
Time watching a movie together virtually with Colorado friends
What a blessing that was
Now as my eyelids grow heavy
I lift this humble prayer to you
Dona Nobis Pacem
Grant Us Peace
A wee prayer from the heart of your Padre…
“Our society is so inured to violence that it finds it hard to believe in anything else. And that phrase believe in provides the clue. People trust violence. Violence ‘saves.’ It is ‘redemptive.’ But when we make survival the highest goal and death the greatest evil, we hand ourselves over to the gods of the Domination System. We trust violence because we are afraid. And we will not relinquish our fears until we are able to imagine a better alternative.” — Walter Wink
The sun has set and the Vesper Lights flicker and glow
Thank you for a day of ministry
Thank you for time of worship preparation
Thank you for fellowship with classmates on Zoom
Thank you for a wonderful gathering for a short course we are offering
Thank you for your love and your guiding light, Spirit
Now as my eyelids grow heavy
I lift this humble prayer to you
Dona Nobis Pacem
Grant Us Peace
A wee prayer from the heart of your Padre…
“Nonviolence is first and foremost a kind of energy that resides within an individual human being. We do not need different individuals in power so much as we need a different kind of power in individuals.”
—Michael Nagler, The Search for a Nonviolent Future
The sun has set and the Vesper Lights flicker and glow
Thank you for your Spirit’s guidance this Lord’s day
Thank you for a wonderful virtual worship service
Thank you for ministry preparation and work completed this day
Thank you for good fellowship this evening
Now as my eyelids grow heavy
I lift this humble prayer to you
Dona Nobis Pacem
Grant Us Peace
A wee prayer from the heart of your Padre…
The sun has set and the Vesper Lights flicker and glow
At the end of the day I thank you, Lord
For my sweetheart and our puppy
For a home to enjoy
For a calling to serve
For your light that shines even in the darkness
Thank you for understanding prayers that are unspoken
For hearing our groans and sighs too deep for words
Now as my eyelids grow heavy
I lift this humble prayer to you
Dona Nobis Pacem
Grant Us Peace
A wee prayer from the heart of your Padre..,
