March 16, 2007

This afternoon a dozen people here in Rochester planned to commit civil disobedience together to protest the war. The plan was that they would enter the Federal Building and occupy the offices of our two senators and one representative, and read the names of all those who have died in Iraq since the war began. It's a long list... last summer it took four hours to read it... by now, more. They planned to continue reading until they were arrested. Some who were Catholic Workers planned not to post bail (because our guests can't post bail), and I was to be their support person, visit them in jail, bring them some clothes, keep in touch, drive them home.

I'm describing this all as "planned" rather than "did," because all did not happen as planned, although much of it did... One person lost her identification card, and that's the one thing you're supposed to have on you when you commit CD, for when you get arrested, so the "War No More Twelve" became eleven... Eleven, plus the fifteen or so of us who were support people. They did enter the offices, they did read the names... past the point of dry throats... past the point of feeling like they'd been reading forever and would keep on reading forever... they read names from 2:15 pm until about 6:30... and in the end, they weren't arrested, just ticketed and sent home.

Things must be changing in the national mood towards the war, or at least this city's mood. One of the officers thanked one of our protesters, and shook his hand. Those of us waiting outside with anti-war signs had a lot of honks and thumbs-up from passing cars... one person shouted stuff and another gave us the finger, but that's only two out of the hundreds of cars that passed us in those four and a half hours. I remember in 1991 when we were protesting the first Gulf war... every week we would march up and down with signs, and on the other side of the street there were counter-protesters. Nothing like that, now. Like I said, lots of honking.

I titled this piece "Joy" because that's what I felt this afternoon as we gathered to prepare for the day... twenty-seven people gathered to work together to say NO to this war... twenty-seven people willing to put comfort aside and use their bodies to proclaim the truth that war deals death, that this war is unconscionable, that war is a sin and a crime and we can't keep doing it, not in our name, it has to stop. Twenty-seven people... some willing to face arrest, others to stand for hours in the freezing cold in support of them... This is how we participate in the way God is in the world... open, vulnerable, accepting pain as the way to offer love and healing and life and growth and freedom. We heal the hole in the world by spreading our arms wide and letting that pain go right through our hearts, and today twenty-seven people in Rochester, New York were willing to do just that.

We live in a world that promises happiness for owning stuff... having money... Prestige... Power... Security... It's all bosh. There may be comfort and ease in all of that, but not joy. Joy, by some mystery, is to be found in letting go of all of that... I'm still learning it... but today it became a little clearer. Thanks, from the bottom of my heart, to the War No More Twelve and all who supported them. You brought some light to the world today.