Vision of Peace

November A.D. 2004

Vision of Peace

BY JOHN DEAR

"I see no poverty in the world of tomorrow--no wars, no revolutions, no bloodshed. And in that world, there will be a faith in God greater and deeper than ever in the past." -- Mohandas Gandhi

"Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one." --John Lennon

The story is told that in the early 1980s a small group gathered in their church basement in East Germany to ask a daring question: "What will Germany look like a thousand years from now when the Berlin Wall finally falls?"

There was no question of the Wall coming down soon. Such a prospect was unimaginable. Communism was here to stay. The grip of the Soviet empire was permanent. The suicidal competition between the two nuclear superpowers seemed preordained.

And yet, they asked the question. They allowed their imagination free reign. What would a world without the Wall look like? And what must we do now to hasten that great day a thousand years from now?

I believe that asking such a question, letting our imaginations challenge us and daring to dream of a new world unleashes a spirit of transformation that can actually change history.

According to the story, the small group felt energized as they discussed their dream. They decided to meet again a few weeks later. Soon word of the meetings spread and more people began to meet in church basements to dream of a world without the Wall. Over the next few years, a grassroots movement grew. Ordinary people on both sides of the Wall pursued the vision of unity and reconciliation. They met, organized, prayed and spoke out. Then, out of the blue, Mikhail Gorbachev announced his new policy of perestroika. The Polish Solidarity movement pushed the Soviets out and a new democracy was born. Events moved quickly. Communism collapsed and the Soviet Union imploded.

The God of peace is hard at work trying to disarm the world. But God needs our help. God needs every one of us to be part of God's global transformation for peace and justice. God needs our grassroots movements of nonviolent resistance to disarm the world.

The grassroots movement begun in East Berlin by a handful of faithful dreamers made all the difference. In November 1989, tens of thousands of people marched in East Berlin to demand the fall of the Wall. Every day, more people marched. Soon, hundreds of thousands were marching. Then all of a sudden, on November 9th, the Wall fell down. It took the world by surprise. Yet the Berlin Wall could not have come down peacefully without the grassroots visionaries who dreamed, imagined, met, discussed and organized over the years. Gorbachev needed a grassroots movement to make his vision bear fruit. In other words, the Wall fell because ordinary people imagined a world without the Wall. They held up the possibility of a world without the Wall and they acted as if such a world was possible and inevitable.

New Abolitionists

Their daring vision reminds me of the abolitionists who imagined a world without slavery. "Every human being is equal," they said. "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, regardless of race. No human can be bought, owned or sold. Therefore, slavery must be abolished--now!" They were dismissed as unpatriotic revolutionaries, unrealistic idealists, and crazy lunatics. "Slavery has always existed," they were told. "This is the way things have always been and always will be. Some people are not human. Even St. Paul endorsed slavery! You cannot change the course of history."

"No," they said. "The time of slavery is over. A new world without slavery is coming." The great herald of the abolitionist movement, William Lloyd Garrison, set the tone for the movement when he published his newspaper, "The Liberator," in 1831 and declared to the world that the age of slavery is over. His front page editorial in the first issue stirred the nation. "I am in earnest. I will not equivocate. I will not excuse. I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard," he announced. With the help of hundreds of committed activists, Garrison wrote and spoke out day and night against slavery. He encouraged people to join the movement, smuggle slaves into Northern freedom, disrupt the culture of slavery and demand equality for all. These abolitionists were attacked, mobbed, threatened, jailed and even killed. They practiced steadfast nonviolent civil disobedience against the laws which legalized slavery. Their vision and determination paved the way for the abolition of slavery.

Like the abolitionists who envisioned a world without slavery, we are new abolitionists who envision a world without war, poverty, injustice and nuclear weapons. We give our lives to that vision, creating movements for disarmament and justice, trusting that one day, the vision will come true.

Reclaiming Our Imaginations

We have much to learn from these imaginative visionaries. Like them, we need to reclaim our imagination. We have to begin to dream again of new possibilities. We need to exercise our imaginations, and envision a new world, no matter how crazy others think we are. In a world of war and nuclear weapons, that means imagining a world without war or violence.

One of the casualties of our culture of war is the loss of our imagination. We can no longer imagine a world without war or nuclear weapons or violence or poverty. Few dream of a world of nonviolence. If we do, we are dismissed as naïve or idealistic. Yet without the imagination for peace, the vision of peace, we will never get out of the downward cycle of violence that is destroying us.

If we want to discover the blessings of peace, we have to renounce war and dedicate ourselves to a new world without war. Every human being has to join this global campaign for peace if we are to lead ourselves away from the precipice of global catastrophe. We need to rediscover our shared humanity and reclaim the higher principles of love, justice, compassion and equality. We need to demand food, clothing, housing, education, healthcare, and dignity for every child on the planet. We need to give our lives for a future of peace.

The Blindness of Violence

But if we want to envision such a world, we must recognize that we are blind, that we can no longer see clearly. We can no longer see our way to peace. We cannot see our way toward dismantling our arsenals, ceasing our bombings raids, supporting the world's poorer nations, ending hunger and poverty, and pursuing universal brother and sisterhood. Instead, we see only war and further wars. We can imagine all kinds of weapons of mass destruction and ever greater invasions and wars. We can dream up astonishing new weapons. We put our best minds, our time, our funds, and our energies into this vision of war. In the process, we blind ourselves to the vision of peace.

Violence blinds us. We think we see, but we have grown blind to our shared humanity. We do not see one another as human beings, much less brothers and sisters. Instead, we see non-humans, aliens, outsiders, competitors, objects of class, race or nationality. When that happens, we label people as enemies, and declare them as expendable.

If we want to see our way toward a new world without war, we need to recover our sight. We need to meet together in church basements and small grassroots communities to discuss the daring, provocative question, "What would a world without war look like?" As we ask the question, we can begin to imagine such a world. Then, we can discuss and enact ways to make that new world a reality.

In order to reclaim this vision, we need to teach each other that war is not inevitable, that war is not our future, that nuclear destruction need not be our destiny, that peace can come true for all people. We have to rekindle the desire for the vision of peace. Once we desire it, we will pray for it, work for it, and welcome it--and move our culture from blindness to vision, from numbness to imagination, from war to peace.

Since our blind leaders are driving us to the brink of destruction, we have to take the wheel, turn back, and lead one another away from the brink. We cannot expect vision from the warmakers or their media spokespeople. Only peacemakers can see the way forward toward a world of peace.

To be visionaries of peace we need to be contemplatives of nonviolence, people who imagine the God of peace, who let God disarm our hearts, who allow the God of peace to show us the way to peace. As visionaries and contemplatives of peace, we can then become a prophetic people who not only denounce imperial violence as ungodly, immoral, and evil, but announce God's way of nonviolence, justice and peace.

The Vision of Nonviolence

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s most famous speech outlined his dream of a new world of equality and justice. He upheld the vision of nonviolence. Five years later, on the night before he was killed, he spoke of being on the mountaintop and seeing the promised land. "For years, we have been talking about war and peace," he said. "But now, no longer can we just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence; it's nonviolence or nonexistence." With these last words, the great visionary pointed the way forward to make his dream a reality.

Nonviolence employs a vision of a disarmed, reconciled humanity, the reign of God in our midst, what King called "the beloved community," the truth that all life is sacred, that we are all equal sisters and brothers, all children of the God of peace, already reconciled, all one, already united. Once we accept this vision of the heart, we can never hurt or kill another human being, much less remain silent while our country wages war, maintains nuclear weapons, executes people or allows millions to starve to death.

Active nonviolence is much more than a tactic or a strategy; it is a way of life. We renounce violence and vow never to hurt anyone ever again. Nonviolence demands active love and truth that seeks justice and peace for the whole human race, resists systemic evil, and persistently reconciles with everyone. It insists that there is no cause however noble for which we support the killing of a single human being. Instead of killing others, we are willing to be killed in the struggle for justice and peace. Instead of inflicting violence on others, we accept and undergo suffering without even the desire to retaliate with further violence as we pursue justice and peace for all people.

Nonviolence is a life force, Gandhi said, that when harnessed becomes contagious and can disarm nations and change the world. It begins in our hearts, where we renounce the violence inside us, then moves outward with active, contagious truth and love toward our families, communities, nation and the world. As we practice it personally in the face of violence, we also join grassroots movements for justice and peace to organize nonviolence on the national and international level for the disarmament of the world. When nonviolence is put into action, it always works, as Gandhi demonstrated in India's revolution, as King and the civil rights movement showed, as the People Power movement showed in the Philippines, and as Archbishop Tutu and South Africa showed against apartheid.

A New New Mexico

New Mexico is one of the most beautiful, mysterious and spiritual places on earth, yet we lead the nation in poverty and military spending. If we seceded from the U.S., New Mexico would be the third largest nuclear power on earth. Our land has suffered from nuclear weapons testing and radiation poisoning. It has been scared by our violence. So have we all.

For the last few years, people of faith and conscience have gathered in Los Alamos on August 6th, Hiroshima day, to pray and keep vigil for the abolition of nuclear weapons. August 6, 2005 marks the 60th anniversary of our atomic vaporization of 130,000 people in Hiroshima. My friends and I are trying to imagine a world where this horrific violence will never happen again. We are working through the global grassroots disarmament movements to make our voice heard and welcome such a world.

This vision of peace means we have to disarm Los Alamos, the birthplace of the bomb, not far from where I live, and transform New Mexico and the entire nation from a land of nuclear violence to a land of nonviolence. I hope and pray that all of us will use this anniversary moment to help call the nation back to the vision of peace.

Shortly before he died, John Lennon was asked why he devoted so much of his time and energy to peace. "Isn't that a waste of time?" the reporter asked. Lennon answered that he believed that Leonardo de Vinci help make flying possible because he imagined it, discussed it, painted it and brought it into people's consciousness. "What a person projects can eventually happen," he said. "And therefore, I always want to project peace. I want to project it in song, word, and action. I want to put the possibility of peace into the public imagination. And I know, as certain as I am standing here, that someday peace will be."

If we dare imagine a new world without war and reclaim the possibility of peace, as John Lennon believed, we will raise human consciousness and help pave the way toward a new nonviolent world. Our mission, our duty, our vocation is to reclaim that vision of peace, and pursue the abolition of war, violence and nuclear weapons. All we have to do is open our eyes and take another step forward on the road to peace. 

Dear Vegan

July 8, 2008

Become a Vegetarian!

By John Dear

In Fort Lauderdale last week to speak at the National Convention of Unitarian Universalists, I met my old friend Bruce Friedrich, with whom I spent eight memorable months in a tiny jail cell, along with Philip Berrigan, for our 1993 Plowshares disarmament action. A former Catholic Worker, Bruce is now one of the leaders of PETA, “People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.” And he gave a brilliant workshop on the importance of becoming a vegetarian, something I urge everyone to consider.
 
I became a vegetarian with a few other Jesuit novices shortly after I entered the Jesuits in 1982 and later wrote a pamphlet for PETA, Christianity and Vegetarianism. I based my decision solely on Francis Moore Lappe’s classic work, Diet for a Small Planet, a book that I think everyone should read. 
 
In it, Lappe, the great advocate for the hungry, makes an unassailable case that vegetarianism is the best way to eliminate world hunger and to sustain the environment.
 
At first glance, we wonder how that could be. But it’s undisputable. A hundred million tons of grain go yearly for biofuel--a morally questionable use of foodstuffs. But more than seven times that much--some 760 million tons according to the United Nations--go into the bellies of farmed animals, this to fatten them up so that sirloin, hamburgers and pork roast grace the tables of First-World people. It boils down to this. Over 70% of U.S. grain and 80% of corn is fed to farm animals rather than people.

Conscience dictates that the grain should stay where it is grown, from South America to Africa. And it should be fed to the local malnourished poor, not to the chickens destined for our KFC buckets. The environmental think-tank, the WorldWatch institute, sums it up: “Continued growth in meat output is dependent on feeding grain to animals, creating competition for grain between affluent meat eaters and the world's poor.”
 
Meanwhile, eating meat causes almost 40 percent more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, and planes in the world combined. (The world’s 1.3 billion cattle release tons of methane into the atmosphere, and hundreds of millions of CO2 are released by burning forests due to dry conditions as in California or due to purposeful burns to create cow pastures in Latin America.)

And global warming isn’t the only environmental issue. Almost forty years ago, Lappe spelled out the environmental consequences of eating meat in stark relief. But more recently, her analysis received some high-power validation. The United Nations recently published “Livestock’s Long Shadow.” It concludes that eating meat is “one of the most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” And it insists that the meat industry “should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity.” 
 
Much of our potable water and much of our fossil fuel supply is wasted on rearing chickens, pigs, and other animals for humans to eat. And over 50% of forests worldwide have been cleared to raise or feed livestock for meat-eating. (A recent protest in Brazil denounced “Kentucky Fried Chicken” for clearing thousands of acres of untouched Amazon rain forest for chicken feed.)
 
As a Christian, I became a vegetarian because of the Gospel mandate of Matthew 25, “Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me”--because I do not want my appetites to contribute to the ongoing oppression of the world’s starving masses. As a Catholic and Jesuit, I want somehow to side with the poor and hungry.

But another issue arises, too Over the decades, I’ve learned that our appetite for meat leads to cruelty to animals--chickens pressed wing-to-wing into filthy sheds and de-beaked, for example. And since I’ve always espoused creative nonviolence as the fundamental Gospel value, my vegetarianism helps me not to participate in the vicious torture and destruction of billions of cows, chickens, and so many other creatures. 
 
The chickens never raise families, root in the soil, build nests, or do anything natural. Often they are tormented or tortured before they are slowly killed, as PETA has repeatedly documented in its undercover investigations--for your chicken dinner or hamburger. (All this is documented on a video narrated by Alec Baldwin, at www.Meat.org.)
 
Animals have feelings, they suffer; they have needs and desires. They were created by God to raise their families and breath fresh air; and if chickens to peck in the grass, if pigs to root in the soil. Today’s farms don’t let them do anything God designed them to do. Animal scientists attest that farm animals have personalities and interests, that chickens and pigs are smarter than dogs and cats. 

Animals figure in the Gospels. They brim with lovely, respectful images of animals. Clearly Jesus was familiar with animals, and cared for them, as he urged us to look at the birds of the air or be his sheep. He even identified himself as “a mother hen who longs to gather us under her wings.”
 
And animals figure in the Hebrew Bible. Isaiah 11, a vision of reconciled creation, dreams of a day when “the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion shall browse together with a little child to guide them. The cow and the beast shall be neighbors, together their young shall rest. The lion shall eat hay like the ox. The baby shall play by the cobra’s den and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair. There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the God of peace, as water covers the sea.” (Isaiah 11:1-9)

A vision of a nonviolent world, all creatures nonviolent, children safely at play with them, and no violence anywhere. That is the peaceful vision of creation that we are called to pursue--in every aspect of our lives, from the jobs we hold, to our use of gasoline and alternative energies, to what we eat and wear, say and do.
 
I admire the Bible’s greatest vegetarian, Daniel, the nonviolent resister who refused to defile himself by eating the king’s meat. He and three friends became healthier than anyone else through their vegetarian diet. And they excelled in wisdom, for “God rewards them with knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom.” 

In his workshop, Bruce added another beautiful image, the Garden of Eden. The Bible opens with a vision of paradise where God, animals, and humans recreate in peace together. Clearly, the Bible calls us to return to that paradise.

And Bruce reminded us that from the beginning we are directed to be vegetarians. Genesis 1:29 says, “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food.” 

Biblical images and justice issues aside, there are medical reasons to stop eating meat. Vegetarian diets help keep our weight down, support a lifetime of good health and provide protection against numerous diseases, including the U.S.’s three biggest killers: heart disease, cancer and strokes.

Dr. Dean Ornish and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn both have 100 percent success in preventing and reversing heart disease using a vegan diet. Meanwhile, Dr. T. Colin Campbell writes that one of the leading causes of human cancer is animal protein. More, vegetarians are also less prone to developing adult-onset diabetes. And then we have to contend with the spread of Mad Cow disease and Avian influenza. One could almost argue that the human body is not designed for meat-eating.
 
But for me being vegetarian boils down to peacemaking. If you want to be a peacemaker, Bruce said, reflecting the sentiments of Leo Tolstoy, you will want to eat as peaceful a diet as possible. “Vegetarianism,” Tolstoy wrote, “is the taproot of humanitarianism.” Other great humanitarians like Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer and Thich Nhat Hanh agree. The only diet for a peacemaker is a vegetarian diet.

“Not to hurt our humble brethren, the animals,” St. Francis of Assisi said, “is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission: to be of service to them whenever they require it. If you have people who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity,” he continued, “you will have people who will deal likewise with other people.”
 
So it was good to visit with my friend Bruce, and hear once again the wisdom of vegetarianism. It’s a key ingredient in the new life of peace, compassion and nonviolence.
 
* * * * *

John’s autobiography, A Persistent Peace, (with a foreword by Martin Sheen), available August 1st, can be ordered at www.amazon.com. See also: www.persistentpeace.com. John’s pamphlet Christianity and Vegetarianism can be read online at www.peta.org or free copies of the pamphlet or a free CD of John reading the pamphlet can be ordered by sending an email to VegInfo@peta.org. You can listen to or download John reading the pamphlet at www.ChristianVeg.com. See also: www.johndear.org

Living Peace

LIVING PEACE

   The chicks are nearly gone from the nest, so my wife and I began to think that it might be time to “Down Size.”  So driving around our town a couple of years ago we came across a little place that was being remodeled.  They had done a lot of work, and in the end it became too expensive for us. 

   One Sunday evening I went by the place to see how it was being finished up.  The contractor had torn out the old landscaping and piled it by the side of the house.  Not much of a pile.  Two things caught my eye.  Near the top of the stack were the roots and the tuber of an iris.  Sure enough the leaf blades were buried, and confirmed the plant to me.  The other plant I saw was a very small wood vine/Virginia Creeper.  I grabbed them both and brought them home. 

   Two years ago I planted two orphan plants in my garden.  They were trash to the contractor.  I thought we could always give them a home.  The wood vine is now growing up a trellis I made from a dead tree.  Last week the iris bloomed for us for the first time.  It is a brilliant solid color of periwinkle.  It isn’t a huge bloom.  It is the color of the bridesmaids’ dresses for our wedding, though.  I have named her Peace.

   Peace will remind me every time I look at her of my commitment to my wife 25 years ago.  It will also remind me that the worst attack on the love and peace of God is abandonment.  We must collect the abandoned creatures of God, our neighbors, and never let them feel scraped up and thrown away.  It is a step towards peace.

In Christ's love,
Fr. Robert Pax

St. Hilary on the Trinity

On the Trinity by Saint Hilary, Bishop

The Father’s gift in Christ

Our Lord commanded us to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. In baptism, then, we profess faith in the Creator, in the only-begotten Son and in the gift which is the Spirit. There is one Creator of all things, for in God there is one Father from whom all things have their being. And there is one only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things exist. And there is one Spirit, the gift who is in all. So all follow their due order, according to the proper operation of each: one power, which brings all things into being, one Son, through whom all things come to be, and one gift of perfect hope. Nothing is wanting to this flawless union: in Father, Son and Holy Spirit, there is infinity of endless being, perfect reflection of the divine image, and mutual enjoyment of the gift.

Our Lord has described the purpose of the Spirit’s presence in us. Let us listen to his words: I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. It is to your advantage that I go away; if I go, I will send you the Advocate. And also: I will ask the Father and he will give you another Counselor to be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth. He will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine.

From among many of our Lord’s sayings, these have been chosen to guide our understanding, for they reveal to us the intention of the giver, the nature of the gift and the condition for its reception. Since our weak minds cannot comprehend the Father or the Son, we have been given the Holy Spirit as our intermediary and advocate, to shed light on that hard doctrine of our faith, the incarnation of God.

We receive the Spirit of truth so that we can know the things of God. In order to grasp this, consider how useless the faculties of the human body would become if they were denied their exercise. Our eyes cannot fulfill their task without light, either natural or artificial; our ears cannot react without sound vibrations, and in the absence of any odor our nostrils are ignorant of their function. Not that these senses would lose their own nature if they were not used; rather, they demand objects of experience in order to function. It is the same with the human soul. Unless it absorbs the gift of the Spirit through faith, the mind has the ability to know God but lacks the light necessary for that knowledge.

This unique gift which is in Christ is offered in its fullness to everyone. It is everywhere available, but it is given to each man in proportion to his readiness to receive it. Its presence is the fuller, the greater a man’s desire to be worthy of it. This gift will remain with us until the end of the world, and will be our comfort in the time of waiting. By the favors it bestows, it is the pledge of our hope for the future, the light of our minds, and the splendor that irradiates our understanding.