Written on the wind (love is)

"True evangelical  faith cannot lie dormant.  It clothes the naked, it feeds the hungry, it comforts the sorrowful, it shelters the destitute, it serves those that harm it, it binds up that which is wounded, it has become all things to all people."

"The regenerated do not go to war, nor engage in strife.  They are children of peace who have beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning forks, and know no war.

"We who were formerly no people at all, and who knew of no peace, are now called to be...a church...of peace.  True Christians do not know vengeance.  They are the children of peace.  Their hearts overflow with peace.  Their mouths speak peace, and they walk in the way of peace."

                                                              Menno Simons

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes

Love is all around me and so the feeling grows

It's written on the wind, it's everywhere I go

So if you really love me, come on and let it show

                                                              The Troggs

________________________________________________________

100 years ago my father was born

the son of a preacher man

100 years ago my father born

into a heritage of peace

Peter Albert Kliewer

My grandfather, was a Mennonite ministery

A humble man who rode a circuit

Sharing God’s love, as he saw it

To the Cheyenne tribe in Montana

Peter Albert Kliewer

Was a man of peace

And he passed that love on to my father

Who instead of bearing arms in World War II, was a doctor

and was on the fringe of combat, serving in the Philippines at the end of the war.

A healer, helping repair the damage of war’s violence

My Uncle, David, against the wishes of his father

Had joined the Marine Air Corp

And a member of Marine Corps Fighter Squadron VMF-211

was on Wake Island, which was attacked on the same day as Pearl Harbor

A little over two weeks later, he was on a Japanese destroyer

Headed to prisoner of war camp in Japan, where he struggle to survive

until the end of the war.

Uncle Dave was an amazing man, who, recovering from near death

Graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Medical school,

And joined my father as a healer

He also became an advocate for peace

His first position was as a doctor on Maui, and then,

For many years, he practiced in Corvallis, Oregon.

But he had been changed by war

And hated war

When America got involved in Nicaragua,

He was offended, and so in protest at our interference

Learned Spanish and spent time teaching at the medical school in Managua

He and my Aunt got bikes, and believing that the only way to end hate

Is to connect with others in love

Bike through eastern Europe before the Iron Curtain fell

Seeking to forge bonds of love and friendship

On the 50^th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan

He returned to that country

Found the commandant who abused him

And actively offered reconciliation

He and his former enemy became friends

He returned whole hearted to at least one aspect of the faith of his youth

the love of peace

I think I inherited the peace gene

I have never been in combat

If I had served I would have gone in as a medic, or a chaplain

But I, like my father, have been on the edge of combat

I was involved in disaster relief work in northern Iraq after the first Gulf war

I was involved in efforts in Bosnia

In Kenya, working with Somalian refugees

I cannot, ever cheer war

While I cannot claim to be a pacifist

I do believe war is an extreme result

That only happens when we have failed

As  John Steinbeck suggests,

“All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal.”

It should not be sought

It should not be entered into impulsively

It should not be entered into gleefully, or boastfully

And it should always be entered into with restraint

Not with the promise of disproportionate destruction

If we cheer the path to war, there is something wrong

If we gloat over the prospect of harming others, there is something wrong

For war squanders love

It squanders resources that could be used for good

And war kills

It not only kills love

It kills children

It kills innocents

Even so called “good wars” kills

As Gandhi reminds us

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?”

         

I have been thinking about war these last few days

As assassinations happen

And retaliatory rockets fly

And promises of profligate violence are made

And I have thought about the fact that we are all children of God

All of us

And that we all carry the Sacred in us

I have thought about the fact that we are permeated by Sacred Love

And about the fact, which is made fresh to me each morning

That his world is permeated by Sacred love

I love the words of the Troggs, in that song from my youth

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes

Love is all around me and so the feeling grows

It's written on the wind, it's everywhere I go

So if you really love me, come on and let it show

                                                             

Love is not just around us

It is in us

And it is in these moments

That we need to dig deep in our souls, and find it

And let it show

And as God’s people we need to ask hard questions

We need to champion restraint

We need to insist on absolute honesty (which we did not get the last time we went to war)

We need to think about the fact that war kills

That it destroys, beloved children of God

Those of us who claim Christ?

I believe we need to be people of peace.

I find that the words of Menno Simon, spoken so long ago, now resonate in my soul.

“True Christians do not know vengeance.  They are the children of peace.  Their hearts overflow with peace.  Their mouths speak peace, and they walk in the way of peace."