I have been reflecting a lot on this journey called life and the importance of my introduction to and immersion in the writings and the world of Thomas Merton in 2014. Even though I was introduced to him after I had retired from the USAF Chaplain Corps in 2011, he has been a mentor, friend, and companion as I have continued to reflect on and process my journey in uniform.
In 2024 Denise and I attended an emerging scholars retreat sponsored by the board of the International Thomas Merton Society. I wrote this free form poem on the last day of the retreat. Now, almost two years later these words are even more relevant as I watch the destruction being wrought by christian nationalists in this country and in the military and specifically in the chaplaincy. The cornerstone of the chaplaincy was the one of the First Amendment’s guarantees—freedom of religion. I believed in that guarantee and throughout my career I did everything that I could to fulfill that guarantee.
So, once more I read these words to myself and share them with you as an offering of encouragement and prayer, dear reader.
Do you see the irony, Fr Louis?
Military Chaplains study the Geneva Conventions
We study the Law of Armed Conflict
You wrote about peace
You challenged the Council of Bishops and the church at large
You wrestled with just how to nonviolently resist
We were called moral and ethical advisors
We were supposed to be the conscience of the war machine
Yet chaplains wrote scripture verses on bombs
Do you see the irony Fr Louis?
How do we reconcile the calling to follow the Prince of Peace
When churches give away AR-47’s at raffles
When politicians wear automatic weapon pins as jewelry
Do you see the irony Fr Louis?
Help me my trusted mentor
Help me my spiritual advisor
Help me my friend
How do we walk through the irony
How do we speak against the government and even the church
I see the irony now
Show me the way
Walk with me as an instrument of God’s peace
22 June 2024, Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani
My hope in these turbulent times is found in the words of the Gospel of John: the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (Jn 1:5) May it be so…
“The quote, ‘Let our hearts overflow with the inexpressible delight of love’ . . .expresses the overarching spirituality of the Rule and Benedict’s first intention for living the spiritual life. Our practice is always rooted in a love which overflows with delight.”
–Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics
What roots your spiritual practice in love?
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“Conversion for me means to always allow myself to be surprised by God. It invites me to a sense of wonder and awe and recognizing that God’s imagination is far wider than my own.”
–Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, Monk in the World: An Online, Self-Study Retreat
Where do you feel your imagination restricted, and how can you allow yourself to be surprised by God?
It must however be stated quite clearly and without compromise that the duty of the Christian as a peacemaker is not to be confused with a kind of quietistic inertia that is indifferent to injustice, accepts any kind of disorder, compromises with error and with evil, and gives in to every pressure in order to maintain “peace at any price.” The Christian knows well, or should know well, that peace is not possible on such terms. Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience. The Christian fight for peace is not to be confused with defeatism. — Seeds of Destruction, Kindle Edition, location 1223)
Verse of the day
Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place.
– Jeremiah 22:3
Voice of the day
If an act of injustice doesn’t provoke anger in me, it could be seen as indifference, passivity. It’s injustice that motivates us to do something, to take risks, knowing that if we don’t, things will remain the same.
– Digna Ochoa
Prayer of the day
God who abides in righteousness, let any initial lack of motivation to act against injustice quickly yield to an outpour of defiance and deliverance.
“We labor together to build the beautiful community we long for.”
—Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, The Love of Thousands: How Angels, Saints, and Ancestors Walk with Us Toward Holiness
Who can you join with to envision and create the community you long for?
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It is the most human of all human acts, it is also easily perceived as the most superfluous and superstitious activity. Still, we have to keep speaking about prayer as we keep speaking about love, lovers, art, and artists. Because when we do not stay in touch with that centre of our spiritual life called prayer, we lose touch with all that grows from it. When we do not enter into that inner field of tension, where the movement from illusion to prayer takes place, our solitude and our hospitality easily lose their depth. And then, instead of being essential to our spiritual life, they become pious ornaments of a morally respectable existence. — Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life
He [Isaiah] knows, at the least, that the people, including the religious system, “know nothing….” Where are the Isaiah’s of our day? Could they be found among the outsiders—a prisoner or a widow or an orphan or a homeless one or an “illegal alien” or someone driven mad by the system? The vision often starts among such persons who can cut to the essentials in matters of life and death, of compassion and right judgment, while the rest of us know nothing. (Isaiah; Spirit of Courage, Gift of Tears, p. 8)
Fr. Berrigan’s words are difficult for me to read. He challenges me to recognize and remove my lens of white male privilege and truly open my eyes and ears to look beyond myself. To look beyond myself and truly hear the voice of the prophets speaking; to see those whom this authoritarian regime vilifies as my siblings; to raise my voice with them, and to hear their cry for justice. We must not stop until the word of the prophet Amos becomes reality for all of God’s people—Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. (Amos 5:24)
Verse of the day
And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
– Hebrews 10:24-25
Voice of the day
Working for social change, to me, means to make visible in time and place that which has already been accomplished in principle by God Himself. This makes it possible to struggle for a better world not out of frustration, resentment, anger or self-righteousness but out of care, love, forgiveness and gratitude.
– Henri Nouwen
Prayer of the day
God who acts under the mantle of care, may your presence be revealed through our conviction to love and serve the world.
I began reading Daniel Berrigan’s commentary on Isaiah this past week. My hope is that I will find spiritual sustenance for the long hall in the fight for true freedom and democracy. Hopefully Fr Berrigan will also give me inspiration as I find ways to be a counter-cultural witness in the midst of the mess that is this country and government.
It is personal for me. This corrupt regime has attacked the state I was born in (California), the country that was my late Mom’s home and native land (Canada), and now the state (Minnesota) where my parents raised me! Minnesota was where my Mom became a US citizen by giving up her own lifelong Canadian citizenship, and where I went to seminary and served as a pastor for three years before going into full-time ministry with the Air Force. It was in Minneapolis, during my second year of seminary, where I first raised my right hand and swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic as a Chaplain Candidate, Second Lieutenant.
The illegal, immoral, unethical, and frankly un-constitutional actions of ICE, CBP, and DHS along with the other abominable actions by the so-called Department of “War” have been absolutely devastating. When you protest this administration in Mobile, Alabama as we have, you quickly realize that you are in a distinct minority. Either through the silence of complicity or the loud voice of support for this administration, it can really feel like you are all alone. With all of that in mind, I hope and pray that you, dear reader, will find inspiration for the living of these days and making a difference in ways large and small.
Over against those who would separate the pastoral from the prophetic, I offer here an exercise in pastoral prophecy. Isaiah and his school would have us read aright the signs of the times and, in the light thus gained, would urge us to render judgment on the times. The prophetic-pastoral concern permeates the book of Isaiah with moral clear-sightedness and courage under the threat of disaster…. (Isaiah: Spirit of Courage, Gift of Tears, p. 1)
From Isaiah’s time to ours and in every year in between, there has been war—a continuum of war with the swagger and braggadocio of the powers of death, declaring themselves the molders of human fate, the giver of all good. In their wake is a procession of of slaves and loot—and the dead…. (p. 2)
Isaiah lived in a time of whetted swords and rusted plowshares, of immense violence and social conflict and neglect of the poor. Then the oracle came to him—swords into plowshares! What does Isaiah have to say to us? (p. 4)
Isaiah and Daniel Berrigan have a lot to offer us if we will take the time to truly listen and learn. In the words of Thomas Merton who was a mentor to Fr Berrigan, Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us. (Thoughts in Solitude, p. 114) May we always be disturbed by violence and may we never lose our voice!
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