Of musical Catholic Workers…

Friends,

The Kelly Avenue Catholic Worker of Half Moon Bay Worker recently held a Peace Parade – 200 people participated!  That is a huge event for Half Moon Bay, California.  While looking at the photos of the event I spotted our very own Susan Crane playing her clarinet in the Peace Parade Marching Band.  Way cool!!!

Click here to see more photos of this wonderful and colorful event.  While you’re there, check out the rest of the Kelly Avenue Catholic Worker website.

Peace,

Leonard

Holy Tagging at Y-12

Dear Friends,

The three Holy Taggers of the Transform Now Plowshares – Greg, Megan and Michael – recently released evidence photos that make clear the real issues behind their July 28th Plowshares action at Y-12.  These three people of flesh and blood approached the fortress where uranium intended for nuclear weapons is stored.  They brought with them their blood, hammers, spray paint and crime scene tape.  They symbolically chipped away at the abomination that humans have made.  They poured out their own blood – that others may live.  Their holy graffiti is a clear message to the powers and principalities to repent, and turn away from the machinations of death making; choose life!  And of course the CRIME SCENE tape reminds us that the real crime here is the U.S. Goernment’s threat or use of nuclear weapons.

Saint Francis: From Soldier to Saint

Written for the Feast of St. Francis

By Leonard, October 4, 2012

*******

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

Anti-nuclear weapons activist returns to prison

By Marilyn Bechtel, Originally published August 24, 2012 at Peoples World,
http://peoplesworld.org/anti-nuclear-weapons-activist-returns-to-prison/

Photo: Marilyn Bechtel/PW

DUBLIN, Calif. – With prayer and song, dozens of supporters saw anti-nuclear weapons campaigner Susan Crane back to prison Aug. 22, as she prepared to serve an additional 60-day sentence at the federal women’s prison here. The new sentence came on top of 15 months she had already served after participating in a 2009 Disarm Now Plowshares nonviolent direct action at a Washington state naval facility where nuclear-armed Trident submarines are based.Crane, a 68-year-old retired teacher and member of the Catholic Worker movement, was joined by supporters in a four-day, 40-mile peace walk to the prison gates from a Lockheed-Martin facility that makes the nuclear warhead-carrying Trident II D-5 missile the Trident submarines carry.

The best we can do for the common good

I have been summoned to appear at the federal court in Tacoma, Washington on Monday, July 23 at 1:30. It is possible that Probation Officer will ask that my supervised release be revoked, and that I be sent back to prison. This is not a surprise. I have not cooperated with being on supervised release.

War is not healthy for children and other living things…

Our dear Fr. Bix brought people together on December 28th, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, to remember not only the innocent children murdered long ago by Herod, but also the innocent children murdered today in war. People gathered together, vigiled and sang in front of the Tacoma Federal Courthouse, which is representative of our government that bears responsibility for the senseless slaughter of innocents and of the desecration of the very land intended to sustain life. The prophetic message that follows is from the leaflet handed out to those who gathered on the 28th:

Major threats to children and the next seven generations:

1. Nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.
2. Perpetual and unending war driven by an imperial claim to control Mother Earth’s resources.
3. Dehumanizing poverty, a consequence of a greed-driven global economy that is collapsing and causing untold suffering and death
4. Global climate crisis and ecological destruction: consequence of our addiction to consumer life-styles.

Sunday Evening: On The Cost of Peace

Friends,

It is late Sunday evening.  I hope that the Disarm Now Plowshares 5 are resting well, and I look forward to greeting them tomorrow morning.  Reflecting back on Friday afternoon after a very long day in court, their lightness of heart during the jury’s deliberations and that evening was remarkable.

Walking with Steve Kelly up the hill from the courthouse to St. Leo, his greatest concern – and even that was minor – was that he might be catching some sort of cold or flu virus, and he was most concerned that he might transmit it to others.

Knowing, as they do, the likelihood that this jury will convict them on at least some of the charges, they were still able to smile, and laugh and sing with the rest of us on Friday evening.  Their deep conviction in something beyond themselves gives them strength to stand outside of the very powers that seek to silence them so that it may continue to pursue its endless quest for power and global domination.

Going into their Plowshares action the Disarm Now Plowshares 5 knew the consequences and were (and still are) willing to pay the price the government will demand.  They have put themselves on the line for peace.  They remind us that there is a price to being a Peacemaker, and make me ask myself if I am doing enough, giving enough of myself in the name of PEACE.

So I leave you with a quote by Daniel Berrigan; food for thought on the eve of what will likely be the final day of the Disarm Now Plowshares trial:

We have assumed the name of peacemakers, but we have been, by and large, unwilling to pay any significant price. And because we want the peace with half a heart and half a life and will, the war, of course, continues, because the waging of war, by its nature, is total—but the waging of peace, by our own cowardice, is partial. So a whole will and a whole heart and a whole national life bent toward war prevail over the mere desire for peace…. There is no peace because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war—at least as exigent, at least as disruptive, at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison and death in its wake.

Peace,

Leonard

Note: Court reconvenes tomorrow morning at 8:50am, and Judge Settle will bring the jury in at 9:00am to give them instructions before sending them back to continue their deliberations.