Meanwhile, Back At Los Alamos

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

by John Dear

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0814-29.htm

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The high desert of New Mexico, where I live, is one of the most beautiful places in the country, with its red mesas, fields of sagebrush, Sangre de Cristo mountains and endless turquoise sky. Recently, I visited Bandelier National Park, where the Anasazi native Americans lived from the 1100s until the 1500s, hidden away in a spectacular canyon surrounded by high brown cliffs. They shared everything in common, cared for their children, and lived together in peace. Each day they ascended the highest cliff into a large niche and there worshipped the Creator. While St. Francis strived to teach nonviolence in Europe, these holy people had cobbled a community of nonviolence already. The people are long gone. But their peaceful spirit remains. One comes away knowing you’ve been to a genuine place of peace.

But today on the top of that same mountain, beyond the canyon, lays a dark contrast--Los Alamos, the most destructive place in the world. Birthplace of the bomb, where business is booming, where a new generation of nuclear weapons, against international treaties, is in the works.

On August 5th and 6th, hundreds gathered to commemorate two coinciding events, one to celebrate the Transfiguration, the other to mourn the bombing of Hiroshima. The feast celebrates the day when Jesus exploded with the spiritual power of nonviolence, bringing humanity light and peace and the fullness of love. The dropping of the atomic bomb, on the other hand, vaporized 140,000 people in a flash. Three days later, we did it again in Nagasaki. A complete and utter renunciation of the words uttered from the cloud: “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” Dorothy Day called the atomic explosions “the anti-transfiguration.” A demonic light had been made, nonviolence rejected, and humanity’s future all but foreclosed. We had consigned ourselves to limp along under the cloud of the bomb...