The title comes from Mt 2:12 that tells us the wise men from the East disobeyed the orders of Herod to report the location of the child Jesus and instead they paid attention to their dream and went home by another way.
I consider their action as an early example of civil disobedience.
It could also be construed as a pacifist act, just avoiding a conflict, but that is not the kind of nonviolence being described in these posts. I hope to explore in this blog how learning active nonviolence, including direct actions will help us live ‘by another way’ in hope of resolving conflicts and achieving justice. We want to avoid to violence to ourselves, to each other and to all of creation.
Nonviolence was reintroduced to me in a powerful way in the summer of 2008 when John Dear, S.J. addressed the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace in their Chapter. Since then I have tried to follow John’s counsel and have read about those who use nonviolence and about how to grow in nonviolence. I have joined a few groups, taken a few courses, been involved in a few actions and risked arrest although that has not yet happened.
This blog was started in 2011. I have the older posts and photos but it will take me some time to round up and re-enter that material. I may even decide it is not worth the effort. But I hope that from my time in Calais, France I can be inspired to write about what living with nonviolence means.
Jesus left us a great challenge to nonviolence in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. Chapters 5-7). not only are we told to love one another. But we are told to love our enemies. To love someone means not wishing to do them any harm.
Gandhi and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. drew on his teaching and left a great legacy of direct nonviolent action to study and from which to learn.
Dorothy Day created communities that enabled people to live the challenge while serving the needs of poor and marginalized persons. These are but a few of the great nonviolent leaders from whom I am learning “ahimsa.”
Today, I explore nonviolence in my family and among the Sisters and Associates of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, and with the organizations and associations of persons who will be described in these pages. We struggle together to be the dreams we envision for all. It is hard, we are human.
It was Martin Luther King, Jr. who on the night before he died told us that our choice was no longer between violence and nonviolence, but between nonviolence and nonexistence. For the sake of our children and grandchildren I hope we can choose to walk by another way and choose nonviolence.