To the editor:
As school starts this year, one in five Maine children is at risk of going hungry. Elsewhere in the world, we see the tragedy of refugee families risking their lives fleeing war and poverty. Alaskan coastal villages are in peril of being washed into the sea because of global warming. Racial tensions in the U.S. continue to rise.
Again this September, Campaign Nonviolence seeks to call attention to the connections between these stories of violence, poverty and global crisis with over 200 events across the nation the week of Sept. 20-27. Former President Eisenhower noted these connections in 1953 when he said, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
In all regions of the world and across all religions, there are people of good will working nonviolently to show concern for their neighbors, rebuild their communities, and protect the earth. We learn about only a fraction of these acts of compassion and sacrifice. Campaign Nonviolence celebrates this work and invites all of us to learn more and join this powerful mobilization to build a long-term movement for a world free from war, poverty, environmental destruction, racism and all forms of violence.
Members of Houlton Pax Christi join in prayerful solidarity with Campaign Nonviolence actions in Washington, D.C., New York, Albuquerque, and all over the nation, including the “End Violence Together” rally in Bangor on Saturday, Sept. 19.
Echoing Jesus’ command to “Love your enemies,” Gandhi noted that the practice of non-violence is truly “the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Marilyn K. Roper
Mary Beth Di Marco
Harry Roper
Deacon Al Burleigh
Pax Christi Houlton
