The past week I've been on holiday here in Westhill and finding ways to rest, amuse myself and keep in touch with the world. The events of the week were dominated by what has been happening in Libya, and the brutality of dictatorships menacingly reflected in the actions of those who bring dictatorships down. It remains to be seen what will happen to the Arab Spring and the kinds of political settlements that will emerge. The test of them will not be their suitability to Western ideals and advantages, but how far new governments serve the interests and the welfare of the peoples who live in these lands.
I've been re-reading the letters of Thomas Merton, and especially those he wrote in the early 1960's when peace and non violence were the major theme of his writing and he was in trouble with his superiors for being concerned about things that were no business of a contemplative monk. It is one of the signs of Merton's Christian obedience that he tried to live within the strictures of the censors but also be obedient to his sense of being called to witness for peace, non-violence and the reconciliation of nations.
His Cold War Letters, and essays written in the 60's are passionate arguments against nuclear weapons, the Vietnam War, racial segregation in the US, and the lust for power and things that lies at the heart of the affluent society. What he would say about Iraq, Afghanistan and other military adventures can easily be imagined – at times he felt the anguish of the world as a spiritual desolation at the core of his being. But out of that desolation grew a perennial trustfulness that human stupidity and brutality were not and never would be final arbiters of God's good creation. Here he is at his most theologically and existentially confident – and from a man like him we have much, so much, to learn if we are to live wisely and follow responsibly after our Lord.
Nonviolence is not for power but for truth. It is not pragmatic, it is prophetic. It is not aimed at immediate political results, but at the manifestation of fundamental and crucially important truth. Nonviolence is not primarily the language of efficacy, but the language of kairos. It does not say "we shall overcome" so much as "This is the day of the lord, and whatever may happen to us, He shall overcome".
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