a revered elder of the American peace movement was sentenced on today on justice june 8 to time served for her part with six other Catholic peace activists in the April 4, 2018 Kings Bay Plowshares nonviolent direct action for nuclear disarmament… Elizabeth McAlister, age 80 and the widow of Phillip Berrigan, had already spent more than 17 months in Georgia county jails following her arrest…

Elizabeth McAlister told the court that she had spent much of her adult life speaking and writing against weapons of mass destruction as contrary to life and destructive of life on every level. The action she took to address this crime against humanity and the earth “came out of years of training in the ways Jesus taught us,” and as instructed by the prophet Isaiah, to beat swords into plowshares.

“I’ve tried to faithfully follow the prophecy of Isaiah – learning how to live humanly with other human beings in a humane environment…”

she concluded by saying that it’s because of her children and grandchildren that she feels compelled to act. “I don’t apologize for it. I had to follow my conscience and my faith.”

i want to conclude this posting on a culture of peace with liz’s daughter’s statement to the court and the cosmos:

“Good morning, friends, My name is Frida Berrigan and I am here to speak on behalf of my mom, Elizabeth McAlister, one of the co-defendants in the Kings Bay Plowshares. I’m here in New London, Connecticut with my husband Patrick and our three kids, Liz’s grandchildren – Madeline, 6; Seamus, 7; and Rosena, 13. My brother Jerry is also here, with his wife, Molly and Liz’s other 3 grandchildren, Leah, 10; Jonah, 13 and Amos, 16. My sister Kate and her partner Karen are also here. They are now Liz’s roommates and live up the street a few blocks.

We are all here to love and support and stand with (sit with, here anyway) Liz as she has sat and stood, loved and supported so many over the last 45-50 years of her life as a nonviolent anti-nuclear activist, ally to those struggling against oppression and advocate for civil and human rights. Last night, we all logged on to zoom to pray with more than 100 friends and family from around the country. We shared bread and wine and stories and drew strength from one another.So many of the names that blipped up would be familiar to you; friends who have written letters of support and love from literally every corner of Liz’s life; her family members, her fellow sisters from her time as a Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary sister, people who have broken bread and broken laws with her over the last 4 or 5 decades, who lived in community with her — in and out of prison. Each of these letters attest to what you, Judge Wood and you, Prosecutor Knocke, know in your hearts and see with your own eyes: that our mother is a good and holy person whose only crime is to attend to the thrum and whisper of her conscience and not allow that still, small voice to be drown out by the blood thirsty screams and desperate caterwauling of nuclear preparations and constant war making. 

As her daughter, I could wish that her hearing was not quite so good. As her kids – my brother, sister and I – wish she had not spent 17 months and 9 days in your county detention centers. We would like to say enough is enough. She has paid too high a price already, and we who love her have paid that price too. But as a 46-year-old white citizen of a nation that is going to spend $720 plus billion on the military this year, even in the face of an economy smashing pandemic that has killed 100,000 people and laid bare the stark inequity and fundamental brokenness of every fiber of the social safety net, I am grateful that people like my mother are willing to stand up and say: “Trident is a crime.”As a 46-year-old white citizen in a country where white supremacy and militarized policing are so emboldened that Derek Chauvin can crush George Floyd’s life out of him in front of a crowd, in front of cameras, where the McMichaels father and son can gun down Ahmaud Arbery in broad daylight as he jogged through the streets of a quiet Georgia town, I draw hope and inspiration from white people who continue to invoke Dr. King’s framework of the giant triplets of racism, militarism and materialism… these weights that cripple our collective humanity.

I draw hope and inspiration from my mom and her friends who declare that “Black Lives Matter”, who wed their anti-nuclear analysis with an anti-racist ethos, and declare that the ultimate logic of Trident is omnicide.So, I am here as a daughter who doesn’t want her 80-year-old mother sent back to jail, and a human being who wonders how anything ever changes if people like my mom aren’t willing to take that risk.I’m hoping you agree with the government that Liz McAlister has served enough time in jail already and you’ll help our family close this long and challenging episode of our lives today by sentencing her to time served. I also hope that you will recognize that as a person who owns nothing but the clothes on her back and the water colors she uses to paint with her grandchildren, you will waive all fines and restitution. Thank you.”

may we all listen deeply to the still small voice inside and act accordingly to create a culture of peace…

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
~ Wendell Berry ~

~

let’s meet in a field

seeing true nature everywhere

being lovingkindness

~

yes, today let’s celebrate the full moon in the buddhist way with metta, lovingkindness, a practice so called for in these turbulent times for it involves involves concentrating and reciting, either silently or out loud, phrases of good wishes, good will toward ourself and others to purify us of hatred, ill will and enmity…

when we practice good will, we remove fear and negative reactivity from our mind re-membering at some point everyone has been our mother…

so let’s begin the practice with good will toward ourself… May I be safe and protected from physical and mental harm. May I be strong and healthy and enjoy well-being. May I be peaceful and truly happy. May I live my life with more joy and ease…

now extend those good wishes to those whom we like, family, mentors, good friends, and others… May you be safe and protected from physical and mental harm. May you be strong and healthy. May you be peaceful and happy. May you live with joy and ease…

Thay has said, “While it is easy to love the lovable, it may be the unlovable who need our love more.” so the next stage is to express good will, to the extent you can, toward someone who has caused you some slight injury; to the extent possible, extend these good wishes toward people who have caused you more pain, and to institutions and organizations that have caused you, your family, or your community pain and suffering…

finally, extend metta to all living beings in the universe… visualize yourself as a kind of lighthouse, with good will and lovingkindness streaming out from your heart and body in every direction, including up and down being 360 degrees of metta… May all beings be safe and protected from harm. May each and every being without exception be strong and healthy. May all living beings be peaceful and know true happiness. May each and every living being without exception live their lives with more joy and ease. And together may we complete the great journey of awakening liberation in all our relatives…

may we all rest in grace and feel  free…

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality…. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.~

in these turbulent times, i feel so much the need to re-member the astonishing light of being on a moment by moment basis and am so greatful for everyone’s holding the space of light, love, compassion and generosity… today, on this national day of mourning in the usa, thanks be for all the beings of great courage with the strength to be in this moment of great pain with hearts wide open working for the liberation of us all, holding the dream of peace prevailing in a world that works for all with eyes wide open to the tremendous amount of work required to get us there…

and now from John O’Donohue, a blessing to help us in those moments of weariness, loneliness, overwhelm and anxiety; may these words comfort as so many words today spoken in so many grieving circles have lifted my spirit as proof that so many are truly walking the talk of we are all in this together with no one free until we are all free…

“When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight,

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken for the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself…”

may we embody the generosity of brother sun, the imagination of sister moon, the grounded interconnectedness of the standing talls and the flowing nature of oceanic sky trusting that love always finds a way and justice will roll down with clean-sing revolutionary action….

“‘Let Justice roll down like waters in a mighty stream,’ said the Prophet Amos. He was seeking not consensus but the cleansing action of revolutionary change.”

~ Martin Luther King, Jr ~

i love the quotation above so much that i wanted to post it again to wellcome you to the second day of justice june and a moon of justice rolling down in cleansing actions guided by love creating a world of peace… again,as we are in this crossroads moment witnessing justice being denied and feeling a planetary tidal wave of grief, this is the moment for us all to join hands and stand in love for love being justice in every thought, word and deed…

i have been called to float serenely in the sea of love energy today, no body surfing the waves, my nervous system simply needs the central sun and ocean of being and love love love today… and so i offer all ambassadors of love a litany from the Reverend Dr Yolanda Pierce, the first woman to be appointed as Howard University’s Dean in the Divinity School’s 150-year history… although she directs it toward those not ready for healing, it feels so healing to me like those cleansing waters of justice…

“Litany for Those Who Aren’t Ready for Healing

Let us not rush to the language of healing, before understanding the fullness of the injury and the depth of the wound.

Let us not rush to offer a band-aid, when the gaping wound requires surgery and complete reconstruction.

Let us not offer false equivalencies, thereby diminishing the particular pain being felt in a particular circumstance in a particular historical moment.

Let us not speak of reconciliation without speaking of reparations and restoration, or how we can repair the breach and how we can restore the loss.

Let us not rush past the loss of this mother’s child, this father’s child…someone’s beloved son.

Let us not value property over people; let us not protect material objects while human lives hang in the balance.

Let us not value a false peace over a righteous justice.

Let us not be afraid to sit with the ugliness, the messiness, and the pain that is life in community together.

Let us not offer clichés to the grieving, those whose hearts are being torn asunder.

Instead…

Let us mourn black and brown men and women, those killed extrajudicially every 28 hours.

Let us lament the loss of a man, dead at the hands of a police officer who described him as a demon.

Let us weep at a criminal justice system, which is neither blind nor just.

Let us call for the mourning men and the wailing women, those willing to rend their garments of privilege and ease, and sit in the ashes of this nation’s original sin.

Let us be silent when we don’t know what to say.

Let us be humble and listen to the pain, rage, and grief pouring from the lips of our neighbors and friends.

Let us decrease, so that our brothers and sisters who live on the underside of history may increase.

Let us pray with our eyes open and our feet firmly planted on the ground

Let us listen to the shattering glass and let us smell the purifying fires, for it is the language of the unheard.

God, in your mercy…

Show me my own complicity in injustice.

Convict me for my indifference.

Forgive me when I have remained silent.

Equip me with a zeal for righteousness.

Never let me grow accustomed or acclimated to unrighteousness.”

in this critical moment of apocalypse, lifting of the veils, when we are called to be wise as serpents and see clearly the injustice and suffering, may we also re-member our calling to be gentle as doves in service to all relatives trusting in the perfection of the cosm, the implicate order that we are made for these times to rise in love singing, we shall overcome…