Thoughtful religious people are beginning to view the church as increasingly irrelevant. They are seeing the church as an institution, rather than a community of belief. Many people long to see women treated, inside and outside the church, on an equal basis with men. Others are tired of the war game, sickened by the terrible toll it takes, every day, on the poor. The United States government (using taxpayers money) spends $5 billion every week, $700 million a day, $500,000 a minute, and $8,000 a second on the military. Worldwide, 50,000 people die each day from hunger. At home, 27 children die from poverty every single day. In 1994, we spent $7 billion on child nutrition. — Philip Berrigan (Fighting the Lamb’s War: Skirmishes with the American Empire, p. 38)
“There have been loud cries for the abolition of police, for the abolition of war, for the abolition of militarism, especially from those who are activists in the nonviolence circles. But what is the root of all of these forms of violence—both physical and systemic—if not the nation-state system and its centralized institutions that cannot govern without the constant threat of coercion?”—Safoora Arbab
I’ve never heard of any community that failed because it lacked material resources. Communities fail because they lack imagination and spiritual contact and soul and a sense of others and staying power and courage to move together and to live together. — Daniel Berrigan (The Raft Is Not the Shore: Conversations Toward a Buddhist-Christian Understanding—Thich Nhat Hanh & Daniel Berrigan, p. 131)
“To be most useful and alive, our opinions—particularly our political opinions—must be in curious conversation with each other. When we’re divided, politics feels like it’s exclusively about stopping the other side. But at its core, politics is about how we coexist wisely, how we create societies that support us in all our different priorities and preferences. . . . This is how our opinions serve us: not by pushing us to defend our point of view to each other at all costs at all times, but by representing it in ongoing negotiations that both honor and transform it.”—Mónica Guzmán, I Never Thought of It That Way: How To Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times
Verse of the day
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing clearly the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
– 2 Corinthians 4:4
Voice of the day
Remember the goodness you’re working toward. Because the backlash of hate is impossible to carry if you do not remember what it is to love.
– Austin Channing Brown
Prayer of the day
Christ Jesus, we keep our eyes fixed on you, the image of goodness we are working toward.
Verse of the day
The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their ways. Their roads they have made crooked; no one who walks in them knows peace.
– Isaiah 59:8
Voice of the day
The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is a more violent world.
– Hannah Arendt, “Reflections on Violence” (1969)
Prayer of the day
Disarm us, O Lord — our minds, lips, hearts, and hands — that we may more perfectly love you. We repent from our own political violence.
All Christian action—whether it is visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or working for a more just and peaceful society—is a manifestation of the human solidarity revealed to us in the house of God. It is not an anxious human effort to create a better world. It is a confident expression of the truth that in Christ, death, evil, and destruction have been overcome. It is not a fearful attempt to restore a broken order. It is a joyful assertion that in Christ all order has already been restored. It is not a nervous effort to bring divided people together, but a celebration of an already established unity. This action is not activism. An activist wants to heal, restore, redeem, and re-create, but those acting within the house of God point through their action to the healing, restoring, redeeming, and re-creating presence of God.
“We model nonviolence by actively participating in the struggle to change the system. Our struggle does not perpetuate the status quo. For us, nonviolence is about challenging the system, and then working to change the system.”—Zoughbi Zoughbi
In light of some of the vitriol I am seeing on social media this evening, I am sharing this quote:
Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us.—Thomas Merton (Thoughts in Solitude, p. 129)
Perhaps we ought to be praying and seeking a way through the storm…
“Society has built up walls, barriers. These the new education must cast down, revealing the free horizon. The new education is a revolution, but without violence.—Maria Montessori
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