by Fr. John Dear, S.J.
Pax Christi USA Ambassador of Peace
Greetings from Scotland! I’m spending a few weeks traveling around beautiful Scotland, speaking everywhere on peace and nonviolence. I will write about the trip as soon as I catch my breath, but this week, I thought I’d offer another excerpt from my new book, “The Nonviolent Life.” This is from the conclusion. The book is available from paceebene.org. As we say in Scotland, cheers!
Active nonviolence offers you and me a way out of the world’s mad violence and a way forward into the light and life of God’s peace. It invites us to reject violence once and for all. It suggests that we no longer need to nurture violence within us, or manifest violence toward others, or treat animals and the earth violently, or remain powerless in the face of the world’s systemic injustice, warmaking, nuclear weapons and destructive policies. We have a power at our disposal, a weapon of love and truth that we are still just learning.
With nonviolence, as Gandhi and King insisted, the days of violence are coming to an end. With every choice and action for nonviolence, we begin a new era in human history. This new age will be rooted in the best of spirituality, theology, and morality, the best in all of us for all of us. As we deepen nonviolence in every aspect of life, we herald the coming of a nonviolent world, a world without war, hunger, killings, executions, nuclear weapons, or environmental destruction. There can be no better use of our lives. Along the way, we fulfill our calling to become sons and daughters of the God of peace. We directly serve the coming of God’s reign of peace on earth.…