Micronesian colonists gradually settled the Marshall Islands during the 2nd millennium BC, with inter-island navigation made possible using traditional stick charts. Islands in the archipelago were first explored by Europeans in the 1520s. Other expeditions by Spanish and English ships followed, with the islands’ current name stemming from British explorer John Marshall. Recognized as part of the Spanish East Indies in 1874, the islands were sold to Germany in 1884, thus beginning a series of ownership by different countries until World War II, when the islands were conquered by the United States.

From 1946 to 1958, as the site of the Pacific Proving Grounds, the U.S. tested 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands,[14] including the largest nuclear test the U.S. ever conducted, Castle Bravo. Population of the Marshall Islands suffered tremendously during WWII, with more than 5,000 dying from lack of food and various injuries. 

In 1956, the Atomic Energy Commission regarded the Marshall Islands as “by far the most contaminated place in the world” (This information was gleaned from Wikipedia.)

Now, dear readers, I have two important requests before you read further:

Locate the Marshall Islands on a globe or a map so you have a sense of just where these islands are located in the vast pacific ocean.

Then, picture yourself there in that island tropical paradise as you read this profound poetry read by Marshall Islander, Kathy Dedz at a Berkeley gathering.

Or watch the author read her own creation at www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQFTFMu2F5U
tell them By Kathy/Dedz jkijiner.wordpress.com/author/jkijiner

I prepared the package
for my friends in the states
the dangling earrings woven
into half moons black pearls glinting
like an eye in a storm of tight spirals
the baskets
sturdy, also woven
brown cowry shells shiny
intricate mandalas
shaped by calloused fingers
Inside the basket
a message:
 
Wear these earrings
to parties
to your classes and meetings
to the grocery store, the corner store
and while riding the bus
Store jewelry, incense, copper coins
and curling letters like this one
in this basket
and when others ask you
where you got this
you tell them
 
they’re from the Marshall Islands
 
show them where it is on a map
tell them we are a proud people
toasted dark brown as the carved ribs
of a tree stump
tell them we are descendents
of the finest navigators in the world
tell them our islands were dropped
from a basket
carried by a giant
tell them we are the hollow hulls
of canoes as fast as the wind
slicing through the pacific sea
 we are wood shavings
and drying pandanus leaves
and sticky bwiros at kemems
tell them we are sweet harmonies
of grandmothers mothers aunties and sisters
songs late into night
tell them we are whispered prayers
the breath of God
a crown of fushia flowers encircling
aunty mary’s white sea foam hair
tell them we are styrofoam cups of  koolaid red
waiting patiently for the ilomij
tell them we are papaya golden sunsets bleeding
into a glittering open sea
 we are skies uncluttered
majestic in their sweeping landscape
we are the ocean
terrifying and regal in its power
tell them we are dusty rubber slippers
swiped
from concrete doorsteps
we are the ripped seams
and the broken door handles of taxis
 we are sweaty hands shaking another sweaty hand in heat
tell them
we are days
and nights hotter
than anything you can imagine
tell them we are little girls with braids
cartwheeling beneath the rain
 we are shards of broken beer bottles
burrowed beneath fine white sand
we are children flinging
like rubber bands
across a road clogged with chugging cars
tell them
we only have one road
 
and after all this
tell them about the water
how we have seen it rising
flooding across our cemeteries
gushing over the sea walls
and crashing against our homes
tell them what it’s like
to see the entire ocean__level__with the land
tell them
we are afraid
tell them we don’t know
of the politics
or the science
but tell them we see
what is in our own backyard
tell them that some of us
are old fishermen who believe that God
made us a promise
some of us
are more skeptical of God
but most importantly tell them
we don’t want to leave
we’ve never wanted to leave
and that we
are nothing without our islands.

Violence comes from thinking you need a bigger share

This headline is but one quote from a stunning speech offered here in Sonoma on Oct. 20, 2009. Vandana Shiva, gracefully robed in her traditional Indian sari, held the large audience in the Veterans Memorial Building spellbound with her vast wisdom and occasional capricious humor.

“I think more violence is done on this planet today in the name of the economy than in any other name,” said Dr. Shiva. “In fact, we notice specific wars like in Afghanistan and Iraq, but there’s a permanent war on the planetary level that has been unleashed by a system of economics that has lost its roots; its roots both in economic sustainability and nature and its roots in human justice, equality and the achievement of peace.”

Dr. Shiva made it very clear that her education came from divergent streams. Defining herself as once “a very innocent physicist,” she spoke of being awakened again and again to the panic of intrusion and oppression when women of her region came out of their homes to stop the logging in the forests of Himalaya.

“I went to the University of Lincoln, Ontario for the foundations of quantum theory,” the educator reported, “but I went to the Chipko ‘University’ for lessons on the economy.” She contends her best teachers for the economics of peace were the elder women of Chipko, who “have faced the resilience of a lifetime and have, in fact, not been trained into thinking through war, acting through war and assuming the world is constantly at war.”

Chipko means “embrace” and the successful Chipko Movement began with tree-huggers placing their bodies between the stately forest trees and the heavy-duty saws poised to take them down.

Dr. Shiva believes violence begins in the mind and that in the name of efficiency, of productivity and of progress, the planet has been impoverished. There seems, she says, to be no capacity to see the resulting violence.

Dr. Shiva herself began to take the problem seriously in 1984 when violence broke out in the region of Punjab where the green revolution had first been applied. In the same year in the city of Bophal a leak at a Union Carbide – a division of Dow Chemical – pesticide plant caused the death overnight of 3,000 people. Violence exploded and soon 30,000 people had been killed. In addition, millions are disabled and millions of children are being born maimed and crippled.

Because Dow left the plant without cleaning and still refuses to offer one dime for cleanup, people are still being ravaged by those chemicals. Last year victims – primarily women who are still fighting for justice, walked from Bophal to Delhi just to be heard. When the prime minister had no time for them, they wrote him a letter in blood from the violence asking, “When will we wake up to the violence that is caused?”

After the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, a woman said to Dr. Shiva, “One woman was killed and her two murderers were sentenced to death. Thousands have died in Bophal and no one notices.”

“And that’s what really shook me up,” says Dr. Shiva. “The levels of violence that were unleashed in the name of doing something that should be a very peaceful activity, growing our food. Food is about peace. We don’t need war to produce food. And yet, food production has begun the practice of warfare at every level, every day, everywhere.”

In 1965, something called the Green Revolution came on the scene, introduced by agribusiness. The agricultural giants proclaimed agricultural systems using miracle chemical fertilizers would create international prosperity and peace. “So as they spread the toxics, they also spread rumors that this was about feeding the world when it actually was all about selling us poisons,” Dr. Shiva stated, then reminded us that Rachel Carson wrote at the time, “An industry involved in chemical warfare could not give up the habit of making profits.”

“And so the industry retooled,” Dr. Shiva continued, “learning to make toxics for war into toxics for agriculture. Pesticides came directly out of the war industry because the explosive factories were already involved with such chemicals. Remember the Oklahoma bombing; that was a fertilizer bomb.”

The more chemical fertilizers were sold, the more indebted farmers became. The more commodities are produced, the more commodities are traded, the hungrier are the people. Dr. Shiva has seen mothers of literally starving children carrying sacks of grain to their creditors because they have no choice about whether to pay.

Dr. Shiva told us of some of Monsanto’s activities, including patenting seeds so that for every seed they sell, they now earn royalties and the creation of RoundUp which has devastated indigenous agriculture. When RoundUp is widely sprayed, says Dr. Shiva, no small farmer can possibly survive the fallout. People lose their livelihood. In 1997, Indian farmers started committing suicide in great numbers.

The activist told the Veterans Hall audience, “When 200,000 farmers commit suicide, for me this is a war.”

In subsequent years, Vandana Shiva has continued to choose creative nonviolent strategies designed to disempower giant corporations who invade India’s food and water systems and undermine food sovereignty and food security. She is a tireless mover and shaker, teacher and role model to be much admired, sought after and supported in every possible way. One of those ways is to buy and read one of her many books and then figure out how to do something with your newfound information that will make a difference for our groaning mother earth.

In addition, please visit http://www.transitionsonomavalley.org/ to read about the beautiful Transition movement rapidly developing in Sonoma as it is in many, many communities around the world. I hope you’ll be inspired to become a part of this thrilling movement as there is definitely a unique spot there waiting to be filled by only you.

Our featured example today is Lawrence S. Wittner,  Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany. The online introduction to his latest book, “Working for Peace and Justice: Memoirs of an Activist Intellectual” lists his many credits and adds:

“Along the way, there are fascinating encounters with prominent individuals, such as Norman Thomas, William Appleman Williams, Michael Harrington, Cesar Chavez, the Unabomber, Robert J. Lifton, Randy Forsberg, Helen Caldicott, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and David Horowitz.  There are also vivid descriptions of picketing the Kennedy White House against nuclear testing, working as a civil rights volunteer in Louisiana and Mississippi, teaching at an African American college and at the socially élite Vassar College, organizing democratic socialist activism on the community level, coordinating solidarity work for America’s largest higher education union, being arrested as part of the Free South Africa movement, collaborating with peace-oriented intellectuals in Gorbachev’s Soviet Union, and leading the annual march of thousands of antinuclear demonstrators through the streets of Hiroshima.”

Perhaps you’ll find it challenging to argue with this essay that recently flowed from Wittner’s pen…

It’s often said that nuclear weapons have protected nations from military attack.

But is there any solid evidence to bolster this contention? Without such evidence, the argument that nuclear weapons prevented something that never occurred is simply a counter-factual abstraction that cannot be proved.

Ronald Reagan — the hardest of military hard-liners — was not at all impressed by airy claims that U.S. nuclear weapons prevented Soviet aggression. Kenneth Adelman, a hawkish official in the Reagan administration, recalled that when he “hammered home the risks of a nuclear-free world” to the president, Reagan retorted that “we couldn’t know that nuclear weapons had kept the peace in Europe for forty years, maybe other things had.” Adelman described another interchange with Reagan that went the same way. When Adelman argued that “eliminating all nuclear weapons was impossible,” as they had kept the peace in Europe, Reagan responded sharply that “it wasn’t clear that nuclear weapons had kept the peace. Maybe other things, like the Marshall Plan and NATO, had kept the peace.” (Kenneth Adelman, “The Great Universal Embrace,” pp. 69, 318.)

In short, without any solid evidence, we don’t know that nuclear weapons have prevented or will prevent military aggression.

We do know, of course, that since 1945, many nations not in possession of nuclear weapons and not part of the alliance systems of the nuclear powers have not experienced a military attack. Clearly, they survived just fine without nuclear deterrence.

And we also know that nuclear weapons in U.S. hands did not prevent non-nuclear North Korea from invading South Korea or non-nuclear China from sending its armies to attack U.S. military forces in the ensuing Korean War. Nor did massive U.S. nuclear might prevent the Soviet invasion of Hungary, the Warsaw Pact’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan, and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Also, the thousands of nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal did nothing to deter the terrorist attacks of 9/11 on U.S. territory.

Similarly, nuclear weapons in Soviet (and later Russian) hands did not prevent U.S. military intervention in Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Nor did Soviet nuclear weapons prevent CIA-fomented military action to overthrow the governments of Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, and other nations.

Other nuclear powers have also discovered the irrelevance of their nuclear arsenals. British nuclear weapons did not stop non-nuclear Argentina’s invasion of Britain’s Falkland Islands. Moreover, Israel’s nuclear weapons did not prevent non-nuclear Egypt and non-nuclear Syria from attacking Israel’s armed forces in 1973 or non-nuclear Iraq from launching missile attacks on Israeli cities in 1991. Perhaps most chillingly, in 1999, when both India and Pakistan possessed nuclear weapons, the two nations — long at odds — sent their troops into battle against one another in what became known as the Kargil War.

Of course, the argument is often made that nuclear weapons have deterred a nuclear attack. But, again, as this attack never took place, how can we be

sure about the cause of this non-occurrence?

Certainly, U.S. officials don’t appear to find their policy of nuclear deterrence very reassuring. Indeed, if they were as certain that nuclear weapons prevent nuclear attack as they claim to be, why are they so intent upon building “missile defense” systems to block such an attack — despite the fact that, after squandering more than $150 billion on such defense systems, there is no indication that they work? Or, to put it more generally, if the thousands of U.S. nuclear weapons safeguard the United States from a nuclear attack by another nation, why is a defense against such an attack needed?

Another indication that nuclear weapons do not provide security against a nuclear attack is the determination of the U.S. and Israeli governments to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state. After all, if nuclear deterrence works, there is no need to worry about Iran (or any other nation) acquiring nuclear weapons.

The fact is that, today, there is no safety from war to be found in nuclear weaponry, any more than there was safety in the past produced by fighter planes, battleships, bombers, poison gas, and other devastating weapons. Instead, by raising the ante in the ages-old game of armed conflict, nuclear weapons have merely increased the possibility that, however a war begins, it will end in mass destruction of terrifying dimensions.

Sensible people and wise government leaders have understood for some time now that a more promising route to national and international security is to work at curbing the practice of war while, at the same time, banning its most dangerous and destructive implements. This alternative route requires patient diplomacy, international treaties, citizen activism, the United Nations, and arms control and disarmament measures. It’s a less dramatic and less demagogic approach than brandishing nuclear weapons on the world scene. But, ultimately, it’s a lot safer.

When son Tom related at the Thanksgiving dinner table that the word “serendipity” was derived from the name of a town where everything seemed to magically go extremely well, it sounded so outrageous I thought he was making up a story.

It turns out, I vastly underestimated my son’s sagacity and the story was truly made up as an ancient Persian fairy tale, “The Three Princes of Serendip.” Wikipedia tells us Serendip was likely a long-ago name for Sri Lanka, and in the olden tale, Serendip’s heroes “were always making discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.”

My current tale of serendipity begins on December 25, 2009. I was in quest of a good deal when I volunteered to wait for a later flight to the Midwest. Hardly did I expect that gesture would almost entirely finance my 2010 venture to the Midwest. Serendipity.

Southwest is my favorite airline for many reasons. Its hub protocol features one-way travel, suitable to my annual hops from city to city to visit scattered friends and children. This October, with December’s gift voucher in hand, I began perusing Southwest.com to book special web-only fares to my various destinations, amazed at how many flights the voucher paid for completely.

Because Sonoma has lost its wonderful airporter service, I booked myself in and out of the Oakland Airport, hoping to once again take advantage of an available couch in the East Bay I’d previously slept on before boarding an early morning BART to the airport. However, this time when many phone calls went unanswered, I correctly surmised that the owners of that couch were out of the country, so I needed to look for an alternative solution.

Several attempts failed and as my November 15 departure date approached I came close to getting nervous. Until the day I walked into a Sonoma doctor’s office and the caring receptionist asked if I’d completed arrangements for my upcoming travel. Of course I mentioned the piece of the puzzle I hadn’t yet found and her response was, “Well, my husband drives to the airport at 5 o’clock every morning. Problem is, he drives to the San Francisco airport.”

“Hm-m, if I can change my ticket, do you think he’d be willing to drive me in?”

“I’ll ask. Here’s our home number, call me tonight.”

Southwest charged not even a penny for my ticket change, and though I never quite found time to get into bed the night before I left, it was lovely to be picked up at my doorstep at 5 and delivered to the Southwest gate in plenty of time for my 7:40 flight to Milwaukee. And to be met there at 6 p.m. by Dianne, a wonderful friend of thirty years who drove us the nearly 30 miles to her palatial Lake Pewaukee home. There, we fit in three Scrabble games before retiring, and a few more games in the busy two following days before her scheduled departure to the east coast.

With a full refrigerator, full gas tank in the car I’d drive into town for visits with other friends and with Internet access for doing my work, I was set for a restful couple of days with only one challenge remaining. Enter LeeAnne, gardening service provider, who asks me, “But if Dianne has left town, how will you get to the airport on Saturday?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“What time is your flight?” “1:30.” “Well I’m flying out at 1:15.” What a lovely conversation we enjoyed on that long drive to Mitchell Field on Saturday. Serendipity.

Arriving in Louisville, Kentucky at 8:30 p.m. I was whisked by eldest son Jim to the final stages of an early Thanksgiving celebration – Turkey with all the trimmings prepared to surprise a friend who’d felt sad about being away for the holiday. Scrumptious foods.

Jim’s an experienced whisker, having completed the Iron Man triathlon this summer at age 56. I can’t even fathom swimming 2.4 miles in the Louisville River, much less following that with a 112-mile bike ride and then a run of 26.2 miles. Committed to coming in under 12 hours, Jim collapsed onto the finish line at 11 hours, 59 minutes and 48 seconds. Wow.

Next stops for me were South Bend and nearby North Liberty in northern Indiana, where sons Chuck and Bob reside. Enjoyed another Thanksgiving Turkey with all the trimmings with three of my grandchildren and one great-grandson.

Tulsa and Claremore, Oklahoma provided one more Thanksgiving Turkey with all the trimmings with son Tom and three young grandchildren who played major roles in the dinner preparations. On subsequent days, I had the fun of offering home schooling to the youngsters while Mom studied for her nursing recertification.

Just one more transportation challenge remained on this whirlwind journey; Steven, who’d graciously delivered me to SFO in November would have brought me home when I flew into SFO on December 2 except that he got scheduled for a day off. Not a big problem with airporters available at that time of afternoon to get me to Napa or Petaluma.

In an email exchange with a friend in Sonoma on a completely different topic, she told me she was spending the entire day of December 2 in Petaluma and would be delighted to swing by to pick me up on her way home. Serendipity.

It was not serendipitous to encounter the new full-body scanner at the Tulsa airport so I opted out and endured a full-body pat-down. Definitely not serendipitous.

Now as you read this in 2012, I have just returned to Sonoma after nearly eight months in Oklahoma, and it would certainly be serendipitous if one of my readers happened to have a room available they’d consider renting to me at a reasonable rate.

Call just joan at 707-287-3455.

After the interview, and intentionally without changing out of my lovely designer dress (culled from some second-hand shoppe,) I joined a march proclaiming solidarity with Haiti, conducted with permission in front of the White House. Electing to participate in civil disobedience, I refused to depart the premises when Police brought out yellow tapes to shut us down, long before our marching permit expired.

So my fingerprints are on file and I endured time in a cell with wrists manacled behind my back. I’ll always remember the parting words of the officer who processed me out of jail: “Next time you might wear something more casual.”

My parting thoughts: “Au contraire, Monsieur. Next time, I think I’ll also wear a little hat!” I wanted to show clearly that courageous casually-dressed are not alone in standing up for what’s right.

For me, such standing-up came late in life. I wrote the following (edited for space) for the Louisville, Kentucky Courier Journal after my very first protest march in 1989:

Thirty-six hours. A portion of an October weekend. Climate-controlled motor coaches with reclining seats and carpeted floors sped us by superhighway to carry banners, chant slogans, listen to speeches and march for our cause: Affordable Housing for the Homeless. Sparkling buses with well-equipped restrooms returned us to Louisville from Washington, D.C.; in just 36 hours, we had covered 1,230 miles.

I was reminded of another recent 36 hours. Half-hour after our 8 a.m. departure, a train attendant poured safe boiled water into tin cups we each carried. We never saw her again. We nibbled on boiled eggs, tiny oranges, flavorless cakes and unshelled peanuts purchased from peddlers in train stations. Dirty air came in, and garbage went out the train’s open windows.

I tried to nap on the slightly padded bench-for-three, while others sprawled under my feet, outside the stinking toilet, on the open luggage rack above my head, on my shoulder and lap. Scarcity of railway equipment demanded we frequently wait on some siding while other trains used the track. When we reached our destination at 8 p.m. the following day, my feet and ankles were badly swollen, lungs filled with second-hand smoke, head pounding in protest. In just 36 hours, we had covered 1,130 miles.

The train had brought us from Shanghai to Guangzhou, formerly known as Canton. I was leaving mainland China after three years of teaching English to university students. Unable to secure plane, train or boat tickets in Shanghai, I had turned to the Black Market, and for thrice the standard price, had bought the privilege of riding “Hard Seat” on the train.

For this same “privilege,” thousands of Chinese line up daily before the 6 a.m. opening of booking offices throughout China. The antiquated system allows purchase of tickets only on the day before travel; no round-trip tickets, no advance bookings.

Communist Party leaders never experience such ordeals; they occupy special train cars, even separate trains, with astoundingly clean and comfortable accommodations. This is but one example of the kind of inequity and corruption that led students to carry banners, chant slogans, listen to speeches and march on Tiananmen Square. They called for an end to corruption among officials, more democracy, and a dialogue with the government.

Last weekend we called for affordable housing for all Americans. This is one thing the Chinese have. An urban Chinese resident gets several square yards of living space, but has no say in what city or which neighborhood. He may have a television set (probably black and white), to watch only one or two government-controlled stations. If he’s fortunate, he has indoor plumbing and maybe even a washing machine, though he must still hand wring the laundry before hanging outside. He may have small appliances, but runs them sparingly to hold down electric bills. He cannot choose his job or his field of study should he be lucky enough to get into college.

We found our nation’s capital gentle and welcoming, with fountains, monuments, trees and vast grassy stretches on which to rest our tiring bodies.

The national capital in Beijing was stone grey and icy cold, with monuments, a massively looming portrait of Communist founder, Mao Tse-tung, and vast stretches of unyielding concrete.

The atmosphere in Washington was charged with hope, tempered by a realistic recognition that the power to change the system truly lay with the non-responding government officials. We were giving 36 hours of our busy lives to advocate change.

Beijing’s demonstrators were also filled with hope. They were willing to give their busy lives for change: willing to wait for the non-responding government officials.

Americans’ freedom shone through to a visiting Chinese businessman. “It’s so colorful,” he told me. “So many people here, and they do everything just as they like!”

We were happy to return to normal diets after munching on quantities of donated food – peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cookies, fruits, soft drinks, chips.

But enjoying quantities of donated food on Tiananmen Square was a treat, a far cry from the students’ normal daily ration of dry rice with greasy vegetables, occasionally augmented by scraps of fatty pork.

A white-haired Washington marcher proclaimed into my tape recorder, “A thing like this becomes a religious experience. It’s community. You wonder how can you have community with thousands of people? Yet that’s what exists here today. Everybody is of one mind, one cause. And everybody is so friendly you think you all belong to one family.”

This same sense of community helped keep the students on Tiananmen Square for seven weeks, and brought workers, cadres, grandmothers and children by the hundreds of thousands to join the students and support their cause.

Dedicated and experienced planners had worked for months with sophisticated computerized procedures to bring together the Washington assemblage.

In Beijing’s spontaneous demonstrations, astoundingly efficient management systems evolved among young people without leadership training or experience.

For months, student leaders remained unidentified. I believe they feared expulsion from their universities more than they feared death. In their country, once you have left for any reason, even illness, there is no hope of ever returning to school. And without education, future dreams dissolve into black despair.

While Washington’s marchers exhibited an air of festivity and exuberance, without question they were serious, as they considered their cause a matter of life and death.

On Tiananmen Square, it was.

The group’s president will soon travel to Rome to ‘raise and discuss’ their concerns with Vatican officials. Their public statement includes the following:

“Board members concluded the assessment was based on unsubstantiated accusations and the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency. Moreover, the sanctions imposed were disproportionate to the concerns raised and could compromise their ability to fulfill their mission. The report has furthermore caused scandal and pain throughout the church community, and created greater polarization.

“The board believes the matters of faith and justice that capture the hearts of Catholic sisters are clearly shared by many people around the world. As the church and society face tumultuous times, the board believes it is imperative that these matters be addressed by the entire church community in an atmosphere of openness, honesty, and integrity.”

just joan can’t resist following this news with the May 24 NCR column “Bulletins from the Human Side,” by Eugene Cullen Kennedy, emeritus professor of psychology at Loyola University, Chicago.

On Cardinal Levada’s right hand, the visionaries – on his left, women religious

I have pleasant enough memories of Cardinal William Levada who, as a young worker bee in the hive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, helped me find my way through the dim warrens of the old Holy Office when I was questioned there more moons ago than I can now count. I cannot erase my gratitude despite his persistent efforts, now that he runs the whole waxworks of the congregation, to make me, along with millions of others, wonder if he lets his right hand know what his left hand is doing. Or perhaps that is exactly what bright young clerics must learn to do if they are to reach their career goals.

Cardinal Levada – I would call him Darth, but “NCR’s” editor won’t let me – has, of course, also had to master a straight face when issuing, as he did this week, “updated norms,” originally drafted when Paul VI was pope “regarding the manner of proceeding in the discernment of presumed apparitions or revelations.”

These regulations, he asserts, will help pastors “in their difficult task of discerning presumed apparitions, revelations, messages, or extraordinary phenomena of presumed supernatural origin.” The norms, he avers, should also “be useful to theologians and experts in this lived experience of the Church, whose delicacy requires an ever-more thorough consideration.”

Most pastors are too busy easing the broken hearts and patching the leaky roofs that constitute the real “lived experience of the Church,” as indeed are most theologians who are trying to be true to the lived experience of theology in the world, to let themselves get involved with, much less ever be approached by, people insisting they see things nobody else does.

Everyday Catholics – the people with a simple, hard-bought vision of what is demanded of them to be faithful and true to their word, their spouses, their families and their work – give us an example of how the sense of the faithful manifests itself and how we can confidently follow it…

It is instructive to note how, with the right hand, Cardinal Levada invites persons claiming to have visions or messages for a closer look and a tentative blessing, while with the left, he delays women religious with a border guard’s signal and treats them like the usual suspects while he carefully studies their passports.

While the great achievements for the church of women religious are ignored, as are their lives of personal sacrifice, and they are presumed guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors for such things as allowing speakers at their assemblies to speak of cultural realities that everyone can see, such as feminism, those who claim to see things that nobody else can see, and that, in fact, might not be there at all, are treated far more respectfully.

Those examining them, according to Cardinal Levada, should give good marks to vision claimers for their “personal qualities,” including their “psychological equilibrium and rectitude of moral life…” You need not be an expert to observe these qualities in American women religious who, on the basis of their goodness, built the Church in the United States.

Visionaries, according to these norms, are apparently only verifiable if they demonstrate “habitual docility towards Ecclesiastical Authority” and that their visions or messages are “immune from error.” There is a mix-up here, because the latter are the criteria for becoming a bishop and have no application to really saintly people or visionaries. St. Catherine of Siena, who confronted the pope of her time, would have to be removed from the heavenly rolls if these criteria were to be taken seriously.

America’s women religious easily fulfill the criterion of “healthy devotion and abundant and constant spiritual fruit (for example, spirit of prayer, conversion, testimonies of charity, etc.).” Women religious are even good at that et cetera, whatever that means to the good Cardinal Levada, who should remember and thank the nuns who may have taught him before subjecting them to monitoring by a trio of American bishops who have manifested that docility to Ecclesiastical Authority but have not been noted as exemplars of any of these other criteria.

The good cardinal has revealed something that you need not be a visionary to see, that Rome is more interested in the easy obedience of so-called visionaries who see things that might not be there to women whose creative energy has been expended in serving a world whose wounds and needs they see with Gospel clarity. They are too busy with these things they can see to have time seeing things that aren’t there. Extraordinary visions and special messages are not necessary for Christianity, and those who receive them generally do not seek attention from Rome or anyone else.

Perhaps Cardinal Levada should call off the bishops so carefully examining America’s women religious and recall what one of the greatest woman religious of all time, Teresa of Avila, said, when she went on visitation to a convent from which reports of visions had come, “Believe me, they won’t be seeing visions after I get there.”

Forrest Gump has, as all of us must, died, gone to heaven and standing at the Pearly Gates. But!! – the gates are closed! So Forrest says to himself. “Well, shucks, I reckon I’d best go lookin’ for the gatekeeper.”

He finds St. Peter who says, “Hello, Forrest Gump. We’ve heard quite a lot about you. I must tell you though, this place is filling up really fast, so we’ve started testing people when they get here. The test is short, Forrest, but you have to pass before you can get into Heaven.”

Forrest looks St. Peter square in the eyes and says, “Well, St. Peter, sir, my momma never told me anything at all about any test like that. So Ah’m kinda scared about that there test.”

“Oh, don’t get yourself all nervous. I’m just going to ask you three questions. You’ll see they really aren’t very hard.”

“Well my momma will be all glad about that, St. Peter, sir.”

“All right, Forrest, I think you’re ready,” St. Peter continued. “Here are the three questions:

First: What two days of the week begin with the letter T?

Second: How many seconds are there in a year?

Third: What is God’s first name?”

Forrest steps to the side, finds a park bench and sits down to think.

After some time he goes to the end of the line of folks waiting to talk to the gatekeeper, but St. Peter waves him to the front, saying, “How about it, Forrest? What are your answers?”

“Well,” Forrest begins with confidence, “my momma told me to always tell the truth so I hafta tell ya that first one was really easy. Which two days in the week begin with the letter T? That would be Today and Tomorrow.”

This was a new approach to which the saintly questioner exclaimed, “Forrest, although that’s not what I was thinking, you do have a point. Hm-m-m. I guess I’ll give the credit. How about the next one?”

“How many seconds in a year?” Forrest drawls. “Now that one is harder, St. Peter, sir. But I thunk and I thunk about it an’ I guess the only right answer would hafta be twelve.”

St. Peter knows some things about this Forrest Gump, but he still can hardly believe his ears. “Twelve?” he asks. “Twelve? Forrest, how in Heaven’s name could you come up with twelve seconds in a year?”

Forrest’s answer rolls off his tongue like sweet maple syrup: “Shucks, there’s just gotta be twelve: January 2nd, February 2nd, March 2nd…”

“Hold it,” interrupts St. Peter, speaking through tightened lips. “I see where you’re going with this, and I even see your point. Once again your answer is not quite what I had in mind, but I guess I’ll have to give you credit for that one, too. Let’s go on to the third and final question. Can you tell me God’s first name?”

“Sure,” Forrest proclaims easily, “it’s Andy.”

“Andy?” St Peter expresses exasperation. “Now, Forrest, I can understand how you came up with your unique answers to the first two questions, but now you’re being ridiculous. Andy as the first name of God? Please, Forrest, have a little respect.”

“Shucks, St. Peter, sir, that last question was the easiest one of all. Din’t you never sing that famous song? Andy walks with me, Andy talks with me, Andy tells me I am his own?”

St. Peter opened the Pearly Gates and shouted, “Run, Forrest, run.”

Devastation in a dark dungeon

A young priest arrives at the monastery with an assignment to help other priests copy by hand the old canons and laws of the church. He soon notices everyone is copying from copies, not from the original manuscripts.

The new priest quickly makes an appointment with the Bishop to question this practice, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up! In fact, that error would be continued in all subsequent copies.

The Bishop says, “I believe folks in our scriptorium have been copying from copies for generations, but you certainly make a good point, my son. I’ll look into this at once”

Down into the dark caves beneath the monastery trudges the Bishop carrying a large lantern. It takes some time for his gnarled fingers to release the lock (unopened for hundreds of years) to access the archives of original manuscripts.

After several hours, the young priest finds himself worrying and goes in search of the elderly Bishop. In the deepest cavern he finds the old man banging his head against the wall and wailing again and again, “We missed the R ! We missed the R !”

His forehead bloody and bruised, the Bishop is sobbing uncontrollably. Tenderly, the young priest inquires into whatever could be the matter.

His raspy voice cracking, the old Bishop wails, “All these years we’ve left out the R. The word was celebrate!!!”

And finally, because I’m thoroughly Polish…

Tale of a “Dumb Polack”

A Polish fellow walked into a New York City bank and told a loan officer he was not a depositor of the bank, but wanted to borrow $5,000 for a two-week business trip to Poland. For loan security, the gentleman gave the loan officer the title and keys to a new Ferrari parked in front of the bank.

The loan officer agreed to the deal and apologized for having to charge 12 percent interest, barely able to restrain himself from laughing out loud. When the Ferrari had been secured in the bank’s underground garage, the president and assorted bank officers shared guffaws over the idiocy of using a $250,000 Ferrari as collateral for a $5,000 loan.

Two weeks later, the car’s owner returned from his homeland and plunked down $5023.07 on the loan officer’s desk.

“Sir,” the bank official snidely retorted, “We’re happy to have your business, of course, but frankly, we’re mystified. We’ve learned you’re a multimillionaire, so why in the world would you bother to borrow $5,000?”

The “Dumb Polack’s” reply: Where else in New York City can I park my car for two weeks and expect it to be there when I return at the cost of a mere $23.07?”

Ah, the Polish…really smart cookies.

Silence about the global treatment of women is disquieting

“Actions speak louder than words.” We love to repeat this old saying. I believed it once. But recently I’ve begun to question the value of that position as never before. I’ve come to understand that what I really want is to hear people commit to something. I want to hear people say what they want me to think they believe. I want them to say it in public, say it in legal documents, say it in catechisms, say it in Encyclicals. Say it …

About a month ago under a tent meant to protect us from the hot African sun, I began to think differently about a lot of things, and that was key among them.

We were all religious types from every major tradition around the world. We were professed monastics and swamis and pastors and ministers and rabbis and lay catechists and church officers. Our type travel the world, talking of peace and righteousness and Truth — with a capital T– and holiness. But by the end of the week, I had a very clear intuition we were leaving something very important out of our preachings. Something that gave the lie to everything else we were talking about, perhaps.

That particular day, the topic was forgiveness. The plan was to hear from various traditions, particular regions, specific representatives about issues peculiar to the work they were each trying to do around the world to bring peace and justice between people of opposite persuasions, between people who saw the same world together, but differently. The storytellers were all people who were living in the midst of the experience of which they spoke.

We heard, for instance, about the progress of the revolution in Egypt from Egyptian philosophers, the ongoing social upheaval in Cambodia from international peace workers, the delicate situation of Christians in the Middle East. It was a very interesting session. Until, suddenly, it became more horrifying than interesting.

The speakers now were Congolese women. They were dressed in long gowns splashed with bright reds and greens and yellows and blues in assorted and eye-catching proportions. Their turbans of the same colors gave them a kind of regal impact. To look at them was to have a vision of real African queens up close and personal.

The first speaker talked hesitantly and in broad terms about the difficulty of forgiveness after a civil war in which neighbors who had lived side by side for years had suddenly turned on one another. There was, they said, no forgetting either the personal pain or the faces of the perpetrators.

Frankly, it was hard to explain how so much angst could linger with such energy on such personal levels over such mundane emotions — like mistrust, for instance, or an ongoing sense of betrayal, or even as a result of the loss of faith generated by standard-brand political disagreements. After all, civil unrest is everywhere these days.

Then, the speaker stopped for a moment. She had clearly sensed the lack of understanding in us. “Let me tell you plainly,” she said. “Seventy thousand women and girls were raped in the Congo during the war. They are homeless yet. Many have starved to death. Many became pregnant and now the children they bore are orphans. I am one of those women. I am a Christian, but I could not forgive.” She sighed and her voice rose.

“I will give you an example: One night, robbers came to a house and demanded that the man hand over his wife and daughters or die. He refused. So they began to cut him. They cut off his fingers and blinded his eyes. His wife couldn’t stand it anymore. ‘Take me and let him go,’ she screamed. And they did. Then after they had gang-raped her and each daughter, they robbed the house and left.”

She waited again — for what felt like eternity — before she went on, tight-voiced and loud. “Then the husband began to scream. He threw the wife and daughters out of the house. Those women had no place to go,” she said. “No one, no one,” she paused, “would take them in.”

There was an audible gasp in the tent.

No one would take them in? I felt my arms get a little weak. No one? Where did they go?

The questions came from everywhere at once: “Why not? What are you talking about? Why, in God’s name, did the husband put them out? Do you mean that the husband got angry at the wife?” The disbelief and incredulity in the group was palpable.

“Wait a minute,” I called from the other side of the tent out of my own growing sense of agony. “What in that culture could possibly justify that kind of behavior — from either the rapists or certainly of the husband?”

The woman raised herself up in the old plastic chair. “Men,” she said, “must begin to believe that women are human beings. They must stop saying that women ‘want it.’ Because he believes that women want it; he threw them out. They all do. And the families that will accept the woman back refused to take the child that comes from the rape.”

A dark silence hung heavily in a tent full of monks and ministers, catechists and keepers of ancient faiths for a long, long time.

The pain now had another dimension to it. These countries have been “converted” for centuries. You have to wonder, don’t you? What have they been told about women by the religious men who catechized them? What snide jokes and demeaning theology are still being taught about women by patriarchal religions? By the actions of exclusion and control and invisibility and domination and subordination of women by church men and holy elders everywhere? Even here. Even now.

From where I stand, it seems to me that male “protection,” paternalism and patriarchal theology are not to be trusted anymore because the actions it spawns in both men and women have limited the full humanity of women everywhere, and on purpose.

Isn’t it time for us all to really be converted, to say the real Truth about women from our pulpits, from our preachers, from our patriarchs, until both they and we finally believe it ourselves? Then surely the actions that make it real will follow.

I responded our meeting would have to wait as I was in Africa at the time. I remain flabbergasted that a week later this gorgeous young filmmaker diverted her taxi ride from downtown Windhoek, Namibia to the airport for a flight to Tunisia (where she’d be a jury member for a film fest) to my out-of-the-way Windhoek residence for a rushed 15-minute sidewalk chat and several hugs.

This indefatigable peacemaker relentlessly places herself and her cameras wherever in the world nonviolent actions are confronting oppression. Her documentary “Cultures of Resistance” has received acclaims and awards around the world, including Best Documentary at the 2011 Tiburon Film Festival.

And her film crew was the only one able to smuggle out films of the Israeli attack on the 2010 flotilla near Gaza that left nine dead and many injured.

Following (heavily edited for space) is Iara’s piece published May 15, 2012 in the Huffington Post:

The only true revolution in Syria is nonviolent

The present conflict in Syria is a rather ugly mutation of the Arab uprisings that erupted across the Middle East and North Africa over a year ago. As in other countries, the uprising in Syria began with peaceful demonstrations for democratic reform, only to devolve into a violence that has now brought the country to the brink of a full-blown civil war. With a regime that still exercises considerable control over the population, the prospects of such a war are grim, and the nature of the conflict is likely to be protracted, complicated, and bloody, with an equally uncertain aftermath if and when the regime falls.

…The types of “extremists” decried are born in refugee camps, and the camps I’ve visited across the border, in southern Turkey, are no exception. Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes with fear, sadness, and hatred in their hearts, and justifiably so: Most have witnessed unspeakable brutality; watched their friends and family killed, raped, or disappeared; and, in the face of such horrors, see no room for negotiating with the regime anymore. And so they find themselves abandoning the peaceful revolution and supporting the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a nebulous entity composed of defected soldiers, angry civilians, and, sometimes, plain criminals.

The FSA began as a collection of soldiers who refused to fire on peacefully protesting civilians, who then left the army and began to form militias aimed at protecting these demonstrators. Soon, this purely defensive function gave way to small raids and ambushes of government troops…

Allowing violence to overtake the revolution would represent a wholesale descent into passion, an abandonment of strategic thought into what could be seen as miniature version of a regime itself…Such a revolution would not bode well for a successor regime…While most Syrians desire a complete return to the peaceful revolution that began over a year ago, the regime seems quite content with an armed opposition, and rightly so: Assad has been the recipient of billions of dollars in sophisticated Russian military hardware, the kind that no rebel group, or at least not this rebel group, could hope to match…A military solution, for all practical purposes, does not exist, at least not without destroying the nation it hopes to liberate.

Amidst the violence, there are signs of hope. Women travel through checkpoints from Damascus to Homs, smuggling medicine under their abbayas; classrooms are improvised wherever they can be found so that children can continue their education despite the disruptive violence surrounding them; children write poetry and make drawings of a dictator-gone-mad who, contrary to mythology, does not stand up to the Israelis or to the Americans but uses his tanks to kill his own people. Peaceful resistance does not mean no resistance, nor does it mean simply paper banners in the street.

Many refugees that I spoke to, private citizens of Syria with no interest in political power, think peaceful direct action, like general strikes, are capable of paralyzing the country and wreaking havoc on the regime. Should the revolution return to its peaceful origins, it is likely to grow in size and intensity. Bashar al-Assad enjoys very little popularity among his people, but it is the violence – of the regime and the opposition both – that has alienated so many into remaining silent.

Such peaceful resistance would be doubly effective in conjunction with unanimous diplomatic force, which would require that Russia and China participate in sanctions against the Assad regime. Of course, this is where the conflict becomes bigger and more complex, as Syria is itself the unfortunate pawn in a larger power struggle. The Assad regime’s affiliation with Iran, and their relationship to the two ascendant superpowers in the world (Russia and China), put them at odds with the reigning (and waning) superpower, the United States, and its chosen successor, Israel. The geopolitical context of the Syrian crisis is now causing rifts among international activists who are normally unified in their opposition to American imperialism and Israel’s policies toward Palestine but now find themselves on opposite sides of the divide when it comes to Syria and the Assad regime.

I find this baffling. In my mind, if you believe in a free Palestine, you must also believe in a free Syria. For all his bluster, what has Assad really done for Palestinians? The Palestinian-Syrian refugees I spoke with were as anti-Assad as any native-born Syrian, and it seems that this is because they recognize that oppression is oppression; it lacks any color, race, or religion and is its own language.

With the continued perseverance of the Syrian people, the fall of Bashar al-Assad is inevitable. But in order to ensure this outcome, they must transcend the confessional, political, economic, and ethnic boundaries that the Assad regime is so keen to use against them, and rise as a united whole. But perhaps most important of all is that they do so without resorting to the same violence that characterizes their opponent. The use of violence will represent a failure of the revolution and a victory for Bashar al-Assad and the false narrative he has created.

This month in Ireland, for example, the Association of Catholic Priests sponsored a gathering of concerned folks to discuss the future of the church, expecting perhaps as many as 200 attendees. However, more than 1,000 priests, religious and laypeople showed up.

The National Catholic Reporter (NCR) of May 8, 2012 tells us “Dublin’s Regency Hotel was packed to capacity, with many at the event forced to stand. Speaker after speaker pleaded for a more open church centered around a spirit of dialogue. Redemptorist Fr. Tony Flannery, who was recently forbidden to write by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, maintained a discreet presence and was greeted by many well-wishers.”

About a fourth of Ireland’s priests in active ministry belong to this association that acknowledges many Irish Catholics hold views contrary to the teaching of the church and are itching for reform. Thus the association is calling for another look at the church’s teaching on sexuality and a “redesigning of ministry to incorporate the gifts, wisdom and expertise of the entire faith community, male and female.”

Another way to say it is that we are itching to get back to the teachings of Vatican II.

As we shared last week, the Vatican’s recent crackdown on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the thousands of sisters they represent is generating vigils, pot luck suppers, marches of protest, tributes and celebrations of dedicated nuns and their irreplaceable gifts of service in love throughout the world.

Local activities also received mention in the NCR. Excerpts: “Postcard writing to bishops and a scheduled movie spotlighting the sisters’ work are on the minds of the Emmaus Faith Community, an intentional eucharistic group that meets at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Kenwood, Calif., near Santa Rosa.”

“Women & Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America,” a documentary produced by the LCWR, was attended and discussed by over 100 concerned Sonoma County residents.

NCR continues, “The Emmaus community has a worship community of 35 regular members with a mailing list of 100. Co-founder Cindy Vrooman, a former sister and retired teacher, said “We just pray, support each other and do good works. Emmaus is made up of members who welcomed the ecumenical council in the 1960s for its hope and promise. It was an exciting adventure that was too abruptly abandoned,”

At a rally in Kansas City, supporters signed a disputation on the power and efficacy of the Vatican’s statement.

In Louisville, KY, members of the Nun Justice Project planned a series of vigils to support Catholic sisters. At the first, 78 protesters observed an hour of silence in front of the Cathedral of the Assumption. We have room here for significant portions of the powerfulprayer read at the start of the vigil, written by organizer Helen Deines, a retired professor of social work:

We members of this Archdiocese of Louisville stand here on our cathedral steps today to express our solidarity with our sisters, the women religious of this archdiocese and our country. We do so in solidarity with other concerned citizens around the U.S., who are also gathered in prayer…Through the years – centuries, in fact – of their presence in this archdiocese, we have experienced these dedicated women as the founders of our Catholic schools and universities, and then as our teachers in them, and as scholars, women who lead the church to recognize the divine presence in our lives.

We have recognized women religious as the founders of our hospitals and hospices, and then as our doctors, our nurses, and our healers from all kinds of ailments of mind, body, and spirit. We saw them lead these institutions, serving rich and poor alike, unfailingly respecting life, long before federal funding made Catholic health care institutions wealthy.

We have watched them establish social agencies of all kinds—in the cities, in the country, in the hollows, in the deserts—and then serve the poorest and least valued of our community, offering clothing, food, warm places to stay, and most important—dignity and hope to all God’s children.

We have seen them serving as administrators and pastoral ministers in so many of our parishes, “keeping the place going” and being the personal “listening ear” of the church for us as we needed to talk over private concerns, family life issues, how to cope with a sick family member, losing a job or a house, or an empty nest, or a teenage daughter. “Sister” has always been there for us.

We have experienced women’s religious congregations demonstrate leadership in advocating for peace and justice, even facing arrest, harassment, and imprisonment while doing so.

We have seen them serve as lawyers representing migrant farm workers, as policy experts testifying about poverty and care of the planet in Frankfort and Washington, and as model caregivers for our elders and those with disabilities.

We have turned to them for guidance as spiritual directors, clinical psychologists, and theology professors.

We have honored them (or averted our eyes) as martyrs. They have fed our spirits and challenged us as artists, speaking of the divine without words.

We have watched them leave their convents and serve global missions for long periods of time, often returning with sisters from those countries to minister in new ways.

In whatever they do, the women religious of this country have worked with quiet humility, asking for little in return. These are the women who model what it means to live our faith!

So we ask you now to go deep into your own hearts, recalling the women religious who have drawn you here. Use this silence in your own way to lift up and support women religious. I will return at 10 minutes before 6 to send us forth. And remember, during these vigils our silence loudly proclaims again and again: In 2012, we are all nuns.

As Deines reflected on the vigil the following day, she described it as “an ever-widening circle of really building up the church in the way that the church needs to be built up.

“It wasn’t a vigil against something, it was a vigil for something,” she said, “a time of solidarity and to demonstrate our respect for women religious.”