Christian Pacifism is not a “solution,” but that’s okay…

A common misunderstanding of Christian pacifism is that its goal is to provide an alternative solution to physical violence. Stanley Hauerwas, following the tradition of Mennonite John Howard Yoder and Reformed theologian Karl Barth, believes Christian pacifism is not to be understood as a ’solution,’ but as the only response appropriate for those attempting to follow the life of Christ.

–Scott Lenger

link: “Christian Nonviolence,” A Response to Just War | Scott Lenger

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So says Stanley Hauerwas (on pacifism)

I say I’m a pacifist because I’m a violent son of a bitch. I’m a Texan. I can feel it in every bone I’ve got. And I hate the language of pacifism because it’s too passive. But by avowing it, I create expectations in others that hopefully will help me live faithfully to what I know is true but that I have no confidence in my own ability to live it at all. That’s part of what nonviolence is–the attempt to make our lives vulnerable to others in a way that we need one another. To be against war–which is clearly violent–is a good place to start. But you never know where the violence is in your own life. To say you’re nonviolent is not some position of self-righteousness–you kill and I don’t. It’s rather to make your life available to others in a way that they can help you discover ways you’re implicated in violence that you hadn’t even noticed.

link: “I’m a pacifist because I’m a violent son of a bitch.” A profile of Stanley Hauerwas | Progressive, The | Find Articles at BNET

I am large…

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large — I contain multitudes.

– Walt Whitman

This is what you shall do…

This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

– Walt Whitman

The Only People for Me…

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”

-Jack Kerouac