All from Thomas Merton in a pamphlet by Jim Forest, Thomas Merton's Struggle with Peacemaking--available from Pax Christi USA
Botanical drawing by Kathy Brahney
Monday, November 30, 2015
Monday, November 23, 2015
AN ABOUT-FACE TO THE GRIM FACE OF TERRORISM
A rising tide of fear and reactionism has become the routine response to terrorist acts, near and far.
But the rush to war is opposite to the way of Jesus. War is hell, therefore from the devil, just
or unjust it doesn’t matter to him. Stir
it up and God’s children inflict terror, lethal pain upon each other. That war can lead to peace is a lie—the intrinsic
evil of justified violence, killing in the name of God & country. Never has, never will. War leads to the next war. God sent his only begotten son Jesus to bring
us the living message that is the opposite of war—truth, justice, mercy and reconciliation.
To deepen understanding of the dilemma that faces us in our
response to radical Islam, and the greater Muslim community worldwide, at this
time of post Paris terrorism, I add these resources to last week’s posting.
Thoughts in the Presence of Fear
by WENDELL
BERRY A farmer, writer, ecologist born & bred in Kentucky, who knows the value of work close to the land.
I. The time will soon come when we will not be able
to remember the horrors of September 11 without remembering also the
unquestioning technological and economic optimism that ended on that day.
II. This optimism rested on the proposition that we
were living in a “new world order” and a “new economy” that would “grow” on and
on, bringing a prosperity of which every new increment would be
“unprecedented”.
III. The dominant politicians, corporate officers,
and investors who believed this proposition did not acknowledge that the
prosperity was limited to a tiny percent of the world’s people, and to an ever
smaller number of people even in the United States; that it was founded upon
the oppressive labor of poor people all over the world; and that its ecological
costs increasingly threatened all life, including the lives of the supposedly
prosperous.
Read the rest of his 27 points. https://orionmagazine.org/article/thoughts-in-the-presence-of-fear/
And by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, head of a synagogue in NYC, who preaches and promotes peace & justice for all, across all faiths and cultures.
After Paris, Where and How? Sustaining Abundance & Sharing Justice -- Not Imposing War
Dear friends,We must mourn the dead of Paris. Later in this letter you will see a Mourners Kaddish in Time of War and Terror, in Aramaic/ Hebrew and in English, with an invitation to all of us to draw on it, to use it in our own tongus and teachings..We must affirm and join the overwhelming majority of the Muslim world in utterly condemning these atrocities. Below you will also see statements issued by the President of Iran and by the US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), a coalition of leading national and local Muslim organizations.And we must also, as quickly as possible, assess what to do now to prevent such atrocities.In that assessment, we must take into account what terrible mistakes our government and people have made in the past that served to sprout the seeds of terror that already existed in the Muslim world -- as in other worlds, including some hyper-nationalist and hyper-racist Americans.There were two such profound mistakes. One was broader than the Middle East, and has not received the focused attention it deserves. It was the failure of the US and other governments to respond to scientific warnings of impending disaster from global scorching. As the NY Times has reported (March 2, 2015; see <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/science/earth/study- links-syria-conflict-to- drought-caused-by-climate- change.html?_r=0>), “Drawing one of the strongest links yet between global warming and human conflict, researchers said that an extreme drought in Syria between 2006 and 2009 was most likely due to climate change, and that the drought was a factor in the violent uprising that began there in 2011. …“They cited studies that showed that the extreme dryness, combined with other factors, including misguided agricultural and water-use policies of the Syrian government, caused crop failures that led to the migration of as many as 1.5 million people from rural to urban areas. This in turn added to social stresses that eventually resulted in the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011.”So one urgent lesson for the future is that the US and other governments must take swift and vigorous action in the forthcoming Paris international conference on the climate crisis. Without such action, we can expect more such civil wars, millions of refugees, and desperate acts of war and terror as food and water vanish in many regions of the Earth. More ...
An interfaith prayer card from Pax Christi USA
In Thanksgiving for abundant blessings received in the USA. May we share equitably and graciously with all, the many immigrant cultures and indigenous who make us who we are today.
Deo gracias
Monday, November 16, 2015
THE GRIM FAMILIAR FACE OF THE TERRORISM vs WAR BUSINESS
When our media pundits escalate the carnage of terrorist
attacks to the level of full scale war, where we can further unleash our
sophisticated air-power and drone assassinations, we only lock ourselves deeper
into a war addicted society. The common
U.S. citizen rarely sees what war and violent death really look like up
close. The recent killings by
terrorists in France appear to bring it closer to our Western society, but as
long as our war industry and homeland security dominant institutions seem to
keep it at bay, far away in foreign lands, we are willing to pay protection
money federal taxes, and look the other way.
Perhaps 130 now the recent Paris victims, maybe a Syrian refugee among the ISIS assailants.
Shots start at the Bataclan, a concert hall with a capacity of 1,500
people, three men attacked a sold-out performance of the Eagles of Death Metal,
an American band. 89
died – from NYT
People wounded are taken away by emergency personnel near
the Bataclan music hall, Paris
Terrible, but also predictable, and now we can mount even
more disastrous wars in Iraq & Syria, where sprouts the Islamic State, out
of our previous invasions & interventions.
The collateral damage of our war-making response to the 911 attack,
spilling from Afghanistan to Iraq and ever onward, continues to mushroom. We pay
attention to Paris, but every day every week, comparable innocents die, at the
hands of terrorists, and often times immolated by our own hi-tech weaponry
efforts to destroy those we’ve labeled terrorists and their communities.
Forty in Lebanon, the day before the Paris attack—Arab
innocents largely ignored by the regular media. Just try doing a google search of
international news stories that focus on the Middle East—the casualties of
terrorism & war occurring daily country by country. You will not be able to keep count. No one is accurately compiling these
numbers. These deaths are of minimal
importance. In the 15 years since the
turn of the Millennium they are most likely in the millions. And the victims often get blamed, “You lived
in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
151112-Beruit attack 40 killed - twin suicide bombings in the Burj al-Barajneh neighborhood of Beirut, Lebanon. Photo - Bilal Hussein-AP
“When my people died, no country bothered to light up its
landmarks in the colors of their flag,” Elie Fares, a Lebanese doctor, wrote on his blog. “When my people died,
they did not send the world into mourning. Their death was but an irrelevant
fleck along the international news cycle, something that happens in those parts
of the world.”
At daily mass today our local parish priest gave a
beautiful strong homily, on the need to put Christ in the place of our reliance
on war as the solution to terrorism. He
made the practical point that the terrorist attacks in Paris needed to be countered
with clear investigations, and rounding up the perpetrators—not by sending
attack jets to inflict collective lethal presumptive judgement, on far away villages
in the Middle East. He knew this is not a popular view.
Yet God is father of us all, and the rush to war is opposite
to the way of following His Son, Jesus.
And once again global oil dependency enters into the war
equation.
Monday, November 9, 2015
ANOTHER VETERAN, OF CHRISTLIKE COURAGE - SEARCHING FOR THE STORY OF OTTO SCHIMEK
Please read of my quest to write more below, pass the
word of my yet unpublished article on him, and if you know anyone who might be
able to help with his story please contact me, as we head off towards Vienna.
***********************
Dear Fr. Seibol and Mr.
Kandutsch,
St Brigitta Church,
Vienna, Austria
Pardon my English.
It was wonderful to talk
with you about Otto Schimek of Vienna, born May 5, 1925 and baptized at your
church, who at 19 years old, on Nov. 14, 1944, was executed by Wermacht firing
squad for refusing orders in Poland.
I am a freelance writer,
coming to Vienna, December 17 to Dec. 23rd, to further research the story of
Otto Schimek [see Wikipedia entry]. Very
little has been published on him in English. I've been searching for more
verifiable sources, and hope to be able to find and interview some of Otto's
family members, or Wermacht unit fellow soldiers, if some can still be found. I
would like to come to your church, and prior to that, enlist the help of
your parishioners and friends, to see if those people can be located for
interviews when I come to Vienna, or if you have any new sources, well
attributed, that I've not yet seen.
If possible I'd like to
employ someone capable of acting as a translator/investigator in this project.
I've been working on this story for 18 months [a rough introductory draft is
below], and would very much appreciate your help in expanding and lending
greater credibility, to enable publication here in the U.S. Otto has
been considered for sainthood, though the process is stalled. The story
of his life and death is a good example for us it seems, in a world too long at
many wars, awash in refugees. Thank you for your consideration, and all
the help you can be.
Yours truly,
Michael McCarthy PA-C
Faith Perspective on War
and Peace
Blue Water Pax Christi
2714 Stone St., Port
Huron, MI 48060 USA
Please consider
translating this for your parish newsletters, and announcements.
And you may also do this
for my draft article below. Thank you again.
THE SELDOM TOLD STORY OF
OTTO SCHIMEK
There were
pilgrimages to the parish church in the area where he died, twice a year during
the period when Poland, and all Eastern Europe, were breaking free of the
Soviet Union and Communist control. His name was celebrated in many
circles, from the most devout to the purely political. Lech Walesa of the
Solidarity Union, leading the way to freedom for Poland in those times, praised
Otto Schimek’s witness, that of a 19 year old Nazi soldier who wouldn’t kill
Polish peasants in World War II. Pope John Paul II wanted to visit his
grave, but was at the last moment dissuaded by advisors.
Now
Otto Schimek’s story is buried, as well as his body missing—no reliable
gravestone—an unknown soldier, who, as his last letter before he was executed
for “deserting” testifies, was a courageous Catholic, a person faithful unto
death. He had refused to be part of Hitler’s lethal acts against Polish
citizens.
Very little of his
life has been written in English. We know from German army records that
he was born May 5, 1925 and died on November 14, 1944, for refusing to serve
Hitler’s Wermacht forces. Two books in Polish, and the website of the
Catholic Church in Machowa Poland, give some detail to his short life, relying
on his family’s accounts of his early life in a poor district of Vienna
Austria, and the problems he had with recruitment into the German
army. He was raised to practice his faith, to do good for others,
to go to mass on Sunday. He missed some school helping his mother’s small
sewing business.
When conscripted into the armies of Hitler he told his family and others that
he couldn’t kill anyone. Then before his death he said again he couldn’t
kill, “the war was provoked by the Germans and is not Christian." In
his final letter before his execution he said, "I am in a happy mood.
What do we have to lose? Nothing, only our poor lives, as they cannot kill our
souls. What a hope! Today, I am going to heaven, where the Father is waiting.
May God guard you so that you will join me."
An Austrian Cardinal wrote
in support of his cause, an Austrian Jesuit writer against. A few
journalists have investigated and are divided. Most all Polish authors
are convinced he was a hero of faith—a remarkable young man who followed his
conscience.
Padriac Kenney, a
Professor of History and International Studies at Indiana University, and
Director of their Polish Studies Center, has assisted in this effort to make
better known to the U.S. public the story of Otto Schimek’s life and
death. He has this to say after reviewing the most relevant book [The
Debate About Grenadier Schimek by Lech Niekrasz], published only in
Polish.
“Niekrasz devotes the
book to debunking, quite effectively, the writings of those who say Schimek was
an ordinary deserter. And he does track down one old peasant who recalls the
whole story and appears to confirm that Schimek really did hide two partisans,
was found out and ordered to shoot them, refused, and was eventually executed.
Niekrasz points out that execution was usually not the punishment for
desertion, except in exceptional cases.”
A young Austrian soldier
died by firing squad in 1944 for refusing the orders of an unjust war.
May we discover more of his story, which has similarity to that of the recently
beatified Franz Jagerstatter who also wouldn’t fight for Hitler. What a
hope this gives in today’s world so wearied by wars without end, to all of us
who take courage in the saving mercy of our God, whose justice transcends all
borders.
************************************
Today’s Epistle from daily mass. In celebrating the foundation of one of
Catholicism’s early church buildings, Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, we
come to the surprising truth that each of us is a sacred place, God dwelling
within us.
Brothers and sisters:
You are God’s building.
According to the grace of God given to me,
like a wise master builder I laid a foundation,
and another is building upon it.
But each one must be careful how he builds upon it,
for no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there,
namely, Jesus Christ.
Do you not know that you are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
If anyone destroys God’s temple,
God will destroy that person;
for the temple of God, which you are, is holy.
You are God’s building.
According to the grace of God given to me,
like a wise master builder I laid a foundation,
and another is building upon it.
But each one must be careful how he builds upon it,
for no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there,
namely, Jesus Christ.
Do you not know that you are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
If anyone destroys God’s temple,
God will destroy that person;
for the temple of God, which you are, is holy.
When we kill someone, even enemy, what temple have we desecrated?
Monday, November 2, 2015
ON ALL SOULS DAY – LOVE REMEMBERED - ALL INVITED
Mom {Mary P. Oleary McCarthy, Died Sept. 19, 2011} and Dad {Joseph F. McCarthy, Still very much with us}
On date at Iowa State Union.
I believe we have all known at some time or other that
all-present unconditional merciful unmerited love. We have experienced it. Someone has shown it to us. It may have seemed too brief. We wanted more. But to have this, we then must give it on to
another. This love is worth living for,
and is even to die for, as we all will someday, and into the arms of Jesus who
has already and forever done this for us.
The hope is that each and every one of us can remember this, and be part
of this beloved community as often as possible, moment to moment on earth as it
is in heaven—where we’ll all be back together again. And surprised by the multitude we might have
thought could never make it.
Celebrated today in Mexico : Dia de los Muertos - Home altar
Remember in prayer the 43 Mexican students of Ayotzinapa, disappeared, missing now over a year.
References
Also will forward on to you the beautiful eulogy homily given by Fr. E.C. McCarthy for a long time friend, soldier, who became life-long peacemaker.
Illumination by Kathy Brahney
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)