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Primitive religion is not believed, it is danced!

Arthur Darby Nock

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Elizabeth Browning



Saturday, January 11, 2020

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 50th 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."


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