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Walking for Peace “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. . . . When they heard this sound a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in their own tongue. . . . Are not all the men speaking Galileans? Then how do each of us hear them in his own language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia Judea and Cappodocia, Pontus and Asia. . . . visitors from Rome both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs. We hear the wonders of God in our own tongues.” On Pentecost Sunday 2006, through the streets of Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, 400-500 Muslims, Jews, Christians, Sikhs, Hindus, whatevers, walked in the third annual Interfaith Peace Walk. Salaam, Shalom, and Peace in a lot of other languages was all that was on our banners. From Al Aqsa Mosque, to St Peter’s Church, both in Northern Liberties, past the Liberty Bell, to Christ Church in Olde City, ending with a rousing choir singing and a sumptuous meal at Society Hill Synagogue. There was no political agenda. It was a day-long prayer for peace. The language spoken was that of love. I remember as a kid walking around in our annual May Procession, hearing the tale of that first Pentecost, thinking, “man, that sound system sure sucks, but ain’t it cool how all those people from the places with all those weird- sounding names heard the Apostles speaking in their own language!” I don’t think I even knew what a Muslim was then. Jews and Protestants were the “publics” who went to the school up the street. It was before Vietnam, and the race riots in the South had not yet made the evening news. Our president was a kindly, bald guy named Ike who used to golf a lot. It was not all that long ago that I found out it was this Republican General who, in his final State of the Union address, first coined the phrase and warned us of the coming “military-industrial complex.” On the day before our walk, insurgent gunmen stopped a bus filled with students and separated the Sunni Muslim from the Shites. They put bullets in the heads of the Shites, saying it was in the name of Allah. One wonders at the pain in the side of Allah at the blatant blasphemy toward his message of Universal Love. Our walk began with the Iman of Al Aqsa describing the efforts and words of reconciliation spoken by the prophet Muhammad. The talk at St Peter’s centered on St John Neumann’s work on behalf of the immigrants of his time. At Christ Church we heard of three different acts of reconciliation that took place in that church community. At the Society Hill Synagogue we heard Old Testament tales where the enemy was to be helped before a friend. On the night we unleashed the Shock and Awe on Iraq, our military-industrial complex got its way. The 21 students and God only knows how many of their countrymen as well as 2,300 American soldiers are now dead as a direct result of our choice to go to war. The world is a lot less secure and a more hateful place. The outpouring of love our country felt after 9/11 has been replaced by near universal disdain. As Lockheed Martin’s stock is through the roof, I’m forced to tell clients in the Drug/Alcohol hospital where I work they cannot stay, as the Insurance company said “no.” All over the country funding is drying up for recovery and a lot of other social programs. The gap between those who have and those who do not has never been greater. Our nation of immigrants is slamming the door on those trying to get in. Our civil liberties are under attack. Prayer, peace walks, protests, vigils. Forever I seem to struggle with the “what good will it do” thing. The murdered students, indeed all the innocents killed in all the wars throughout mankind’s bloody history, died in vain if we do not continue to try to change our violent ways. As long as the “least of us” are sacrificed to the gods of war, the poor and misplaced among us, ignored, forgotten or persecuted, we ALL suffer. “The wonders of God in our own native tongues.” May our prayers bred in fellowship strengthen the kingdoms in our hearts so we can restore to its splendor, the garden our earth was meant to be. At St. Peter’s Church, when we sang “We Shall Overcome” and we were told to imagine our joining in spirit with everyone who’d ever sung the song, an extemporaneous joining of hands and swaying back and forth took place. Like a giant Heart pumping out the lifeblood of prayer, we poured forth the natural healing power of love versus the cancers of fanaticism and greed destroying us. It is 3:30 AM now, 4 days later. An annoying scratch I’ve had in my throat for weeks now, demanded so to be scratched I had to get up and out of bed. Like a siren’s song this unfinished story called me. As an early bird hath just opened up this morning’s chorus, centuries worth of songs of hope and harvest echo in my head. Jim McGovern |