Of Bombs, Blessings & Building Peace
I’m just back from the 19th biennial conference of the International Thomas Merton Society, held this year at Regis University in Denver. Many distinguished Merton scholars, as well as artists, authors and musicians who appreciate the contemplative writings of the great Trappist monk offered presentations. The most engaging moment for me came during the closing prayer, when all gathered received a blessing from a Native American elder.
Andy Cozad of the Kiowa nation, one of the many native tribes of Colorado, held a cluster of blue macaw feathers in his hand. He pointed them toward each of our shoulders, then made a circle. Ancient indigenous peoples believed these birds, because of their bright multi-colored feathers, held a special connection to the spirit world. By pointing to our shoulders and circling our bodies, native elder Cozad was both raining down a blessing and sweeping away any harmful spiritual residue that might encircle us.
The prayer ceremony was particularly meaningful because just hours before, U.S. stealth planes had dropped 14 “Bunker Buster” bombs — a total of 420,000 pounds of explosives — on three underground Iranian nuclear facilities. These bombs are the most powerful and destructive weaponry in existence outside of nuclear warheads.
We don’t yet know what the consequences will be of this decision by the Trump administration. Will the Iranian government retaliate in some destructive form? Since these facilities were used for enriching uranium, will there be the possibility of radiation contamination in the surrounding area? For our part, it is another sad example of what a U.N. official recently described as the propensity of today’s world leaders to choose war as a first response, rather than a last resort.
It cost the federal government half a billion dollars to develop these Bunker Buster bombs. Each one carries a price tag of about $3.5 million. It’s ironic that so many of our leaders are so concerned about how much public money is spent on health care for the poor and in rooting out supposed fraud by some who receive government benefits, yet they don’t raise a peep about the billions of dollars that go toward building the machinery of death and destruction.
Thomas Merton, dead now more than 65 years, remains a prophetic voice in these dangerous and complicated times.
At the Merton Society conference in Denver, there was a guided prayer session led by Michael Centore, editor of Today’s American Catholic, a journal that promotes religious dialogue. Centrone provided passages to meditate on that are just as powerful and resonant today as when Merton wrote them decades ago.
Living as he did during the Cold War and Vietnam War, with the arms race raging between the U.S. and Russia, and the memory of the atomic bomb drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki still fresh in the public mind, Merton was sharply aware that the end of the world could well be just one bomb blast away. He wrote in a letter to Russian novelist Boris Pasternak in 1958:
The “great business of our time is this: for one man to find himself in another one who is on the other side of the world. Only by such contacts can there be peace, can the sacredness of life be preserved and developed, and the image of God manifest itself in the world.”
Merton went on to say:
“It is my belief that we should not be too sure of having found Christ in ourselves until we have found him also in the part of humanity that is most remote from our own. Christ is found not in loud and pompous declarations but in humble and fraternal dialogue. He is found less in a truth that is imposed than in a truth that is shared.”
During the height of the Cuban missile crisis in 1961, Merton wrote in one of his personal journal entries, “I am … for the abolition of war, for the use of non-violent means to settle international conflict. Against the bomb, against nuclear testing, against Polaris submarines … against all violence.”
To be sure, it is a tough stance to take, and not without risks. There are no guarantees one will never get hurt practicing non-violence. Jesus himself warned his disciples that they would face trials, persecution and other forms of suffering. Yet, he encouraged them to persevere in seeking peace, in showing mercy, in choosing compassion, promising divine guidance and wisdom in the face of their suffering.
Merton, likewise, isn’t suggesting some Pollyanna-ish view of an ideal reality. He is underscoring what must be the aim and belief of people of faith, especially those of us who call ourselves Christian.
This week, as we recall the war that resulted in our country’s independence, can we reflect on the importance of using peaceful dialogue to end conflicts?
Can we seek, as Merton urged us, to find Christ even “in the part of humanity that is most remote from our own?”
If we don’t own any macaw feathers, like the kind our native American friends use in their prayer ceremonies, can we still offer each person we encounter this week a blessing of peace? Wouldn’t that be a more joyful way to celebrate our American independence?
