Dear Thomas Merton of the United States,
What did you say when JFK was President?
You spoke of peace amidst ceaseless confusion.
You spoke of the crises of our spirits beyond ideologies.
It is more than a political or economic conflict.
It is a moral upheaval of the entire human race.
Mankind has lost its cultural and religions roots.
We are ignorant of the causes of this upheaval.
But we pretend to know the causes of what is
Happening within us and our society because we
Desire clarification and we fall into oversimplification.
We look for the causes of evil in other people.
We find the causes of evil in a particular system,
Race, ideology, nation, class and create scapegoats.
We blamed Iraq for attacking us so we could unleash our revenge.
We justified our own sins and errors by blaming others.
We became blinded from our own lies to believe them.
Religious bigots in the U.S. called Iraq the Antichrist.
We demonized Iraq to try to rid ourselves of our demons.
We tried to rid ourselves of our own guilt and hatred.
The great irony for our nation is that the more
Harm and injustice we inflict upon others like
The people in Iraq, the more we aggravate our confusion.
We cannot really fool ourselves by all of the lies we made.
We have created golden calves to worship.
We avoided looking at the truth of our own guilt.
We worship the false gods of materialism and war.
We exalt our own prosperity above everyone else.
We have turned our own nation into a god.
It is the greatest and most powerful of all times.
That is why we are really so weak and poor.
We have failed to see the kingdom of God within.
(Written by Joe Trevors on April 30, 2008 in California in honor of May Day for Peace. )