I was in grade six. School was over for the day. I was heading home on my bike. As I crossed the large dusty schoolyard in Penetanguishene, Ontario, on the shores of Georgian Bay, an older boy pulled me off my bike, punched me in the stomach and yelled “frog” at me – degrading the fact that I was a francophone, a “Franco-Ontarien”.

A few years later, in high school, everyone, students and teachers alike, called me “Frenchy” which I found very strange and alienating because that wasn’t my name. But there was one student who would call me “frog” – meant to even more seriously remind me that I wasn’t his equal.

These are some of the hard things I had to deal with as a boy and as a teenager. But today, my son Luc, who is in high school, is confronted with a climate crisis and a nuclear arms race that affect the entire planet. After too many decades of astonishingly lever inventions devoid of corresponding radical spiritual wisdom, young people are faced with humanity’s capacity to literally commit global suicide – either gradually by climate neglect or as suddenly as the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945.

At a Toronto demonstration for Black Lives Matter, my seventeen-year-old son’s homemade sign read, “My generation is the generation of change.” To make real change happen it takes resistance to what is death-dealing as well as the building of life-giving alternatives in community with others. Resistance and alternatives.

Therefore this is a long-term, life-long commitment. No way around it.

Therefore we all need real spirituality: along with nurturing our body, mind and heart, we need to nurture our soul by confronting spiritual truths and actually entering into real mysteries – especially the mystery of love.

Jesus says four things about love. Love yourself. Love your neighbour. Love your enemy. Love God.

All these expressions of love are intimately interconnected. All of it is an ongoing process: learning and unlearning what self-love is and is not; discovering that you and your neighbours actually belong to each other, that you are actually sisters and brothers; developing a revolutionary discipline of refusing to hate as the first step into the world-changing mystery of love of enemy; allowing the truth that “God is love” to inform and shape your mind and heart.

And, as Francis of Assisi discovered, living this fullness of love leads inevitably to love of Earth – of Sister Water, Brother Wind…
Love is the final guide when we’re confused, unsure, demeaned, afraid, anxious, angry, hurt, lonely, depressed, exhausted.

The Lie of ‘Redemptive’ Violence

‘Redemptive’ violence screams, “Trust me! I can redeem this situation! Trust me! I can fix it!” Jesus exposed the lie of ‘redemptive’ violence and lived the truth of redemptive suffering. Suffering itself is not redemptive. But it is inevitable. And it is how we suffer that can transform our suffering into the redemptive power of love: Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero, Sophie Scholl, Dorothy Day.

The soulforce of active nonviolence is love in its organized form resisting injustice and evil while creating community.

“I’m Spiritual but not Religious”

All genuine spirituality eventually connects us with other people. Being religious is how we organize our spirituality; how we organize what we believe in. If I intensely believe in white supremacy I will organize my ‘religion’ in one way or another – with two or three buddies or with a larger, more formal group. If I passionately believe in universal love, I will organize myself accordingly with others. It will either be well organized or not well organized – for example, a parish may be organized either around ritual alone or around ritual which incorporates social justice and real, inclusive community. I am religious according to how I organize being spiritual. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Power

One of the most beautiful, remarkable acts of history is Jesus’ washing of his friends’ tired feet to express the truth that power is meant for service: servant leadership.

The young, hardworking U.S. congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reflected: “I find it revealing when people mock where I came from, and say they’re going to ‘send me back to waitressing’, as if that is bad or shameful. It’s as though they think being a member of Congress makes you intrinsically ‘better’ than a waitress. But our job is to serve, not rule.”

When power is rooted in love it produces free service, servant leadership: student council; neighbourhood gathering; social justice group; religious congregation; family organization; political party…

Politics: Beyond Progressive to Prophetic

It was while living in the USA as a young man that I came to realize that there was one major difference politically and culturally between Canada and the USA: beyond Liberal/Democratic and Conservative/Republican, Canada has a third political tradition that has deep historical and spiritual roots in the social gospels: Social Democracy or Democratic Socialism – however you want to name it.

However we involve ourselves politically it should at times take us far beyond the merely “progressive” to the “prophetic” when it comes to social justice and the common good. We should also hold ourselves and others accountable for past injustices and omissions

Militari$m

Militari$m is 25% fear, 25% lies and 50% greed. A recent example is the Canadian government’s multi-billion-dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia who is leading the war coalition in Yemen where the people are stalked by malaria, starvation and direct murder from the warfare. Greed is as real as any physical poison: it maims and destroys. The Institution of War maims and destroys victims (humans and Earth). Militari$m maims and destroys the souls of profiteers – including profiteers of the Canadian military industrial complex.

Co-operation

As the young woman entered Karma Food Coop, we could all see “Cooperation is Revolution” boldly printed on her t-shirt. I wondered if she really knew just how true that was. Extreme international competition inevitably leads both to war and to violence against the Earth. Co-operation is more demanding but more life-giving and lasting.

There is such a vast difference between using cooperation only as it suits us and actually committing ourselves to cooperation because we genuinely see others as sisters and brothers; because we want to nurture community however imperfect; because we renounce starting or participating in petty wars.

Freedom

Jesus makes clear, “Don’t be afraid of those who can kill the body, but not the soul.” Martin Luther King insisted, “Do not be afraid – not even of death. Because until you do you can never be free.” Not “brave” but “free!” In the end, travelling with Christ is embracing radical freedom.

In our resistance to injustice and evil, we need to become free enough to face death – physical, spiritual and emotional. This is the most solid foundation for freedom. Hans Scholl of the nonviolent student resistance movement in Nazi Germany shouted out on the way to his execution, “Long live freedom!!” He was not a hero, simple a fully free young man resisting evil in community with others who also chose freedom.

Listening to Mystics and Prophets of Various Traditions

“There can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace…which is within souls of men.”
— Black Elk, Oglala Sioux and spiritual leader
“The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.”
— Rabbi Abraham Heschel
“Power is not a magic trophy to be fought for, but an infinite spiritual resource.”
— Rabia Terri Harris of the Muslim Peace Fellowship (USA)
“The situation is not going to be changed just by demonstrations…It is a question of living one’s life in drastically different ways.”
— Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement
“Live simply so that others may simply live.”
— Mahatma Gandhi, Hindu mystic and prophet
“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist Monk