BONHOEFFER ESSAY - ACTING WHEN IT IS IMPOSSIBLE

Bonhoeffer Letters Excerpt

4:06pm. Oh my God. Jesus is the way. I never knew.

What am I saying? It is like, I just realized:

1. Jack Nicholas was a great golfer, but TIGER WOODS IS THE WAY.
2. Gandhi, King, Teresa, Mohammad, Abraham, Moses, Buddha... were great spiritual masters, but JESUS IS THE WAY.

IT WOULD BE WORTH MY LIFE 100,000,000 TIMES IF...

What would be worth my life?

IT WOULD BE WORTH MY LIFE 100,000 TIMES IF...

• I could awaken my brother George Bush from his sociopathic Empire madness.
• I could awaken my brother Dick Cheney from his sociopathic Empire madness.
• I could awaken my sisters and brothers in congress from their sociopathic Empire madness.
• I could awaken my US sisters and brothers from their enTrancement with Empire.
• Etc. protect Iranians
• Etc. protect Iraquis
• Etc. protect Darfuries
• Etc. protect Palestinians
• Etc. protect US Imigrants
• Etc. protect US poor
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Etc.
• Etc..........................................

If it would be worth 100,000,000 of my lifetimes for certain accomplishment above, it would be worth my 1 lifetime for a 1 in 100,000,000 chance. For a 0% chance? No. For a 1 in 100,000,000 chance of starting the chain reaction igniting global-family, reign of Kindom? Yes.

RISE ABOVE or RISE WITH

Rise With. The way of family, healthy tissue.

Rise Above: The way of enemy, EMPIRE, CANCER.

Thanks to Peter Maurin, Catholic Worker founder for this idea.

BEWARE THE HYPOCRITES

Jesus died to give us this warning: BEWARE THE HYPOCRITES.

If they say,
but they do not do,
they do not know.
I'm thinking:

Jim Walis, Walter Wink, George Bush,
Dick Cheyney...

If it quacks like a duck,
and walks like an alegator...
Start Loving

OUT OF THE BLUE DW SAID TODAY...

OUT OF THE BLUE DW, AN INTERNATIONALLY KNOWN HERO, SAID TODAY SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF, "START, I THINK YOU MAY BE THE REINCARNATION OF JESUS CHRIST." I'VE ALWAYS GUESSED DW IS ATHIEST. AND I HAVE NO REASON TO GUESS DIFFERENTLY NOW. I SUPPOSE I AM TOO, BUT, AGNOSTIC I'D GUESS ABOUT MYSELF IS MORE THE CASE.

I SAID IN REPLY, "THAT WOULD BE GREAT!!!!!!!!! I'VE BEEN YEARNING TO BE LIKE HIM, TO BE TAKEN OVER BY HIS SPIRIT 100% ALL OF MY LIFE. AND IF HE DOESN'T COME BACK IN ALL OF US, IMMEDIATELY, IT IS GAME OVER PLANET EARTH." DW SEEMED TO AGREE.

INSANE TO BE SURE BUSH DID 911! INSANE TO BE SURE HE DID NOT.

INSANE TO BE SURE BUSH DID 911! INSANE TO BE SURE HE DID NOT.

Yes, there ARE some that know for sure - Bush for example and those immediately involved if they did do it - execute or engineer 911, the newst Perl Harbor.

The point? Where it would be crazy to think such a thing about Jimmy Carter, IT IS NOT CRAZY TO THINK THAT BUSH / CHENEY MIGHT HAVE.

How do you live in the face of such potential craziness. YOU GIVE YOUR LIFE, WITH PURE MILITANT BROTHERLINESS / PURE NONVIOLENT DIRECT ACTION TO:

1. Get them out of office, or,
2. Get those in government around them to stop supporting their barbarity - a NEW 911 or Preemptive War on Iran!!!!!!

"THINKING" AND "TALKING:" SUBVERSIVE DIVERSIONS BY EMPIRE

Thinking and Talking are neither per se good or bad. It depends whether Kindom or Empire are in charge. Two examples:

1. Empire (spirit of) in charge: "Hey friend, my car is on fire!" "Hmmm. What do you want me to do stranger?"
2. Kindom (spirit of) in charge: "Hey man, I was just outside and your car is on fire!" "Oh my God. Brother, please call 911 while I go try to extinguish it!"

#1 - THINKING and TALKING to make us STRANGERS, to enable IRRESPONSIBILITY / DISUNITY / DISTANCE / DIVORCE / DISMISSAL !!!!

#2 - THINKING and TALKING to UNITE us as FAMILY, KIN, KINDOM to enable RESPONSIBILITY / COMMUNITY / COOPERATION / COLLABORATION !!!

We are all capable of either or. The fate of the planet depends on selecting Kindom. Always. Time is up.

"TIME:" DIFFERENCE BETWEEN JESUS/GANDHI AND YOU

Q: What is the difference between Gandhi / Jesus / King and the rest of us when it comes to being humane?
A: Time.

When others are suffering Gandhi / Jesus / King think about TIME: FAST, IMMEDIATE, EMERGENCY.

When you and I see others suffering WE IGNORE TIME; Hmm, I'm busy now, Later, Sometime Soon.

I MAY NOT BE AMONG YOU MUCH LONGER

My time among you may be getting short. I've thought that before other actions I've taken, and I think it now with what I am contemplating. I'm still among you after those other actions, maybe after this upcoming one as well. I may "dodge the bullet" for 50 more years!

Jehovah, the Almighty Powers we all feel and never will be able to name, your will be done.

PRINCIPLES OF KINDOM-BUILDING [NONVIOLENT] ACTION

The mechanics of Kindom-Building / Empire Deflation are:

1. Awaken the Empirist;
2. From their sociopathic trance;
3. By giving them a shocking encounter;
4. With extremely heroic Kindom / Kindness / Compassion / Love.

The criteria of a hopeful Direct Action:

• EXTREMELY SELF SACRIFICIAL
• IMMENSE SELF CONTROL / ZERO OTHER CONTROL
• WHAT MILLIONS WOULD DO, ONE PERSON MUST DO
• EXTREME OBEDIENCE TO HIGHER LAW
• EXTREME BRAVERY
• STRONGEST, MOST HONEST POSSIBLE MEANS OF COMMUNICATION / WITNESS
• ZERO SACRIFICIAL OF OTHERS / EMPIRISTS / THE EMPIRE (STUFF)

See Glossary for terms.

DESTROY EMPIRE, TO THE DEATH. "THE EMPIRE" IS ILLUSION

"THE EMPIRE:" We mortally sin / err, and become instantly and completely irrelevant when we fight "the Empire." "The Empire" is guns, bombs, planes, legal systems, congress, Democrats, Republicans, Starbucks, Wal Mart; and EMPIRISTS, people enTranced with Empire. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER IS "THE EMPIRE" THE TARGET OR "ENEMY." "THE EMPIRE" IS A MIRAGE, A SYMPTOM OF THE MORTAL ENEMY OF ALL HUMANITY AND LIFE ON EARTH - THE SPIRIT OF "EMPIRE" THAT IS MURDERING EVERYTHING GOOD.

"EMPIRE, THE SPIRIT OF:"

All Life for the individual, DNA-family, world-family, 60 billion unborn depends on a global fight to the death (we fighters) against Empire.

PEACEMAKING LANGUAGE: SMASH OUR SHACKLES

The Spirit of Empire gave us the language of the so-called Peace Movement.

If we could get the Pentagon to embrace language like ours it would be the end of war:

• Non?!??!!? -violence
• Resistance?!?!?!?!?
• Peace??!?!??! If there were peace, there would be no babies... GIVING BIRTH IS NOT PEACE-FUL!!!!!

The fact is that this language is used for a reason - TO KEEP THINGS SAFE AND COMFORTABLE - FOR THOSE IN THE "MOVEMENT."

Well, things are not Safe and Comfortable for folks in:

• Iraq
• Iran
• Congo
• Darfur
• 9th Ward New Orleans
• Palestine
• Sierra Leone
• South America
• Africa
• Inner Cities
• Etc...
• Etc...
• Etc....

What language is more hopeful and helpful?

• War of construction
• Waging Love
• Waging Brotherhood / Familiness
• Waging World Family
• Massive Militant Direct Action
• Radical Familyness
• Familiness to the Death
• Total Deflation of Empire
• Total Counteraction of Empire
• Total Replacement of Empire with Kindom
• Etc...
• Etc...
• Etc....

IN CONTRAST: HUMANE/CHRISTIAN AND EMPIRISTS

"My point is that both Yeshua and Gandhi confronted Empire and both were considered 'rubbish' by the political elites. But the empirists underestimated the power of Love and nonviolence.(Sorry I had to explain myself Namaste~"
Anonymous

This morning waking up was the following inspiration:

• SANE HUMANS / JEWS could not do what is being done to Palestinians, it is against the Jewish religion to treat people in that way. EMPIRISTS / ZIONISTS, not Jews are visiting the unspeakable violence and inhumanity on our family Palestine. (This part I already knew. Now the NEW PART!!!)
• SANE HUMANS / CHRISTIANS could not do what the US is doing to itself and to the rest of the world, as this greatest in history evil and inhumanity is exactly forbidden by the religion of Christ Jesus. EMPIRISTS not Sane Humans / Christians are visiting the unspeakable violence and inhumanity on our world-family.

We better look in the mirror.
Are we Humane / Christian,
or Empirist
today?

EMPIRE'S CROWNING BLOW: MAKING "FAMILY," EMPIRE

What looks "cute" below is deathly important.

There are two realms, and only two that our nervous system has the ability to inhabit:

1. Empire
2. Kindom

Empire is any and every state of consciousness that is NOT "World-Family / Kindom."

The crowning blow of Western / US Free Market Capitalism is to inculcate absolutely into biological (family) units - the state of "Empire." Per se, by definition, by IMmoral responsibility to be "Family" in this corrupt culture means to SEPARATE those with your DNA and place them ABOVE those without your DNA.

The proof? Who are our Saints? EXACTLY THOSE THAT HAVE ESCAPED THIS CROWNING BLOW OF EMPIRE:

• Jesus
• King
• Gandhi
• Sojourner Truth
• Eleanor Roosevelt
• Abraham Lincoln
• Rosa Parks
• Steve Beko
• Rachel Corrie
• Teresa of Calcutta
• Beverly
• Bonhoeffer
• Thomas
• Ellen
• Berrigan
• McKenna....

THERE IS NO CORRUPTION AS MURDEROUS IN THIS UNIVERSE AS EMPIRE DISPLACING KINDOM WITHIN THE BIOLOGICAL UNIT.

"Nothing is so tempting as
evil in the garb of virtue."
Martin Luther King

Jesus did not say "Admire me,"
Jesus said, "Follow me."
Start Loving

BORN TO DIE TRYING.

BORN TO DIE TRYING. Is there a more overwhelmingly blessed thought?

1. Your heart in your chest was born to die trying to give you health.
2. Your eyes were born to die trying to give you effectiveness.
3. Your Love was born to die trying to make you savior of the world.

JESUS' TEACHING: INFINITE SIMPLICITY; INFINITE COMPLEXITY

JESUS' TEACHING:

"YOU ALL HAVE THE SAME PARENT,
JEHOVAH,
AND THEREFORE YOU ARE
ALL ONE FAMILY.
SIMPLE.
GET ON WITH IT.
NOW.
BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE."

1. INFINITE SIMPLICITY
2. INFINITE COMPLEXITY

What is more simple than white light from the sun? But in that light are all the colors, all the TRILLIONS of colors and shadings in the universe.

What is more simple than the "sight" provided by your eyes? But with that "sight" you can navigate unassisted virtually anyplace on the entire planet, or in the universe.

What is more simple than "Love as I have loved?" And with that Love you are called to all of the Joy and all of the Pain on the planet. And with that Love you become equipped to "see" with the Eyes S/He has - where you are needed in His/Her family and what you were born to die attempting to help.

WESTERN FAMILY: ANOTHER FORM OF "EMPIRE"

NEEDED IS TO TRIGER A BLAST OF NUCLEAR CONSTRUCTION

IF WE COULD GET THE PENTAGON TO COPY THE PEACE MOVEMENT...

REGARDING THE FORCES OF EMPIRE, PEACE WOULD BE ASSURED...

1. If we could bring their terminology down to the murderous inadequacy and energy containment of our NONviolence, RESISTANCE, Passivism, Peace (I'm going to puke), Truth Force....
2. If we could give them our profound myopia / irresponsibility regarding the absolute truth of time, pace, deadlines, launch windows, sufficient force...
3. If we could give them our void where must be a winning vision / plan / mission...
4. If we could give them our incapacity to see and believe that we can win...
5. If we could give them our aversion to envisioning what would win, and working backwards from there...
6. If we could give them our lack of courage...
7. If we could give them our unwillingness to die for the cause...
8. If we could give them our patience while those who depend on us are tortured and die...
9. If we could give them our requirement to be certain before stepping out...
10. If we could give them our faith in talk, media, tricks, trite, cute...
11. If we could give them our vision that paying a price as big as the opposition pays is not worth discussing...
12. If we could give them our willingness to accept failure...
13. If we could give them our willingness to forgo the attempt to win, and our unwillingness to risk repeated failure...
14. If we could give them our willingness to waste massive amounts of time on unimportant, trivial, petty issues...

WE STARVE TO FORCE PROSTITUTION

A PROSTITUTE ... WAS STARVED INTO PROSTITUTION. I never saw this until today.

What I did see was - Yes s/he strips for PLEASURE because s/he likes it, and longs for the PLEASURE to be bought with the MONEY afterwards.

What I did NOT see was that s/he did NOT, in favor of prostitution, turn down the JOYS attendant to:

• An incredibly loving partner
• A life-creating job and career
• A warm and welcoming home
• An incredibly functional / loving community / home...

A PROSTITUTE ...
WAS STARVED INTO PROSTITUTION
BY BEING STARVED OF THE JOYS
THAT WERE "RIGHT" THAT S/HE HAVE.

I NEVER SAW THIS UNTIL TODAY. WHY TODAY?
I'VE BEEN OUT OF EMPIRE LONG ENOUGH, I GUESS.

PROSTITUTION: "DEVOTING ONE'S TALENT TO UNWORTHY CAUSE..."

NUCLEAR DETONATION REQUIRES A TINY / MASSIVE BLAST

JESUS WAS TOO YOUNG FOR ALC

JESUS, AT 33 WAS...

1. TOO YOUNG,
2. HAD NOT THE FAMILY LINES,
3. WAS TOO CHAUVINISTIC,
4. LACKED THE PRISON TIME,
5. AND LACKED THE PHARASIAN AFFILIATION...

... TO BE IN THE POWER STRUCTURE OF THE ATLANTIC LIFE COMMUNITY (ALC) / CATHOLIC WORKER / JONAH HOUSE MOVEMENT.

PITY.

EMOTION. E-MOTION. E=MC Sqd.

EMOTION IS EVERYTHING. I HAD FORGOTTEN.

WHY DID YOUNG FRANZ JAGERSTATTER STAND AS HITLER SHOT HIM?

Q: WHY DID YOUNG FRANZ JAGERSTATTER STAND STILL WHILE HITLER SHOT HIM? "An Austrian peasant, Franz Jägerstätter refused to serve in the Nazi army following Germany’s invasion of Austria. His courageous and singular refusal was based in a deeply pietistic Catholicism. His story, and his reflections, are a moving testimony to the moral responsibility of the individual as opposed to the obligations of the state."

A: BECAUSE THE LIFE OF THE WORLD'S PEOPLE WAS WORTH MORE TO FRANZ AGERSTATTER THAN HIS OWN.

"THE ONLY THING NECESSARY FOR THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL...

"The only thing necessary
for the triumph of evil
is for good men to do nothing."

Edmund Burke

!!! WHAT MILLIONS SHOULD DO, ONE MAN MUST DO !!!

• What Millions would do, one woman did do. Rosa Parks
• What Millions would do, one man did do. Nelson Mandella
• What Millions might do, one woman is doing. Aung San Suu Kyi
• What Millions would do, one man did do. Steven Beko

CLICK PICTURE BELOW FOR PRINTABLE FILE

• What no "Christians" would do, one man did do. Deitrich Bonhoeffer
• What Millions would do, one man did do. Gandhi
• What Hundreds now do, one woman did do. Rachel Corrie
• What Dozens now do, one woman did do. Liz MacAllister
• What Dozens now do, one man did do. Phil Berrigan
• What Billions of Christians have not done, one man did do. Jesus
• And on...
• And on...

The point?

• Before billions of cell phones would be bought, one cell phone was bought.
• Before everyone rejected apartheid, one person had to reject it.
• Before everyone in the US rejected slavery, one person had to.
• Before everyone sterilized scapels, Lister had to do it for decades, alone.

"What is to give light
must endure the burning."
Eleanor Roosevelt

A blaze that incinerates ALL Empire
would start with one, lone torch.

Start Loving

___________________________________________-

!!! WHAT MILLIONS SHOULD DO, ONE MAN MUST DO !!!

IGNITE THE FIRE
click the match.IGNITE THE FIRE OF HUMANITY
!!click the match above!!
DO IT!
DO IT!!
DO IT!!!

You see I AM RESPONSABLE in "Dances With Wolves" in the opening sequence - the battle that is a genocidal stalemate until....



The armies are across the field from one another...












Agonizing, slow, mutual slaughter...







One person faces the madness, they are dead already...



Quietly, alone one rides out -WHAT MILLIONS MIGHT DO, ONE MAN MUST DO

As in EVERY CRUCIAL STRUGGLE, the odds are impossible...


But HOPE and POSSIBILITY, HUMANITY are in the ATTEMPT....

}}}}}}}} ALL IT TAKES IS ONE MATCH. YOU? {{{{{{{{

The Infection of "Possibility" Spreads...





And spreads....







And Salvation is at hand.

_________________________
IGNITE THE FIRE
click the match.IGNITE THE FIRE OF HUMANITY
!!click the match above!!
DO IT!
DO IT!!
DO IT!!!

!!! WHAT MILLIONS MUST DO, ONE MAN MUST DO - NOW !!!

IS START MORBIDLY SEXIST? !!! PLEASE HELP !!!

For the first time in my life, now I have seen a "Church" of more than one to 5 "Christian" people. I'm about 56 years old. Do you know what I am saying?

I spent time with this Church all weekend. I'll guess that the cost they've paid fighting nonviolently for their 6 billion brothers and sisters is 20+ years in prison. Yes, you heard me.

Which certain senior female person in this "Church" wrote the following to me is utterly unimportant, and if you think you know who it is, put that thought out of your mind immediately - it is the Devil working. But that it is held by one (and many I suspect) of these Saints is crucial for me to wrestle with. Their message to me (below) may be correct. The message for me may be incorrect. I must decide. IF YOU KNOW ME, tell me what you think.

----

"Dear Start,

The whole feminist revolution seems to have eluded you. The way you speak to and of women is inappropriate and, often, insulting; this is especially true of the way you speak to younger women. Your language is far from inclusive. And that language, it seems to me, reflects a spirit that is not inclusive...."
----

Dear friends. I'm not interested in whether I can cross "t's" or dot "i's" better than I do. No time for that, no time to be concerned with "perfection." NO TIME NOT TO BE CONCERNED WITH EXCELLENCE ON IMPORTANT ISSUES! What I need to determine is to what degree is this feedback to me:

1. A correct assessment of a major source of destruction on my part, or...
2. Reflective of what is true of most every "revolution," that the outcome of the revolution in the eyes of the "victor" is that those who dominated (in this case men) are now TO BE DOMINATED, subservient, servile, oppressed... (which I am not and will not be).

Do I empower people powerfully, in this case especially young women, or do I disempower - act to dominate them. PLEASE HELP ME. PLEASE HELP ME (IF YOU CAN. POST "COMMENTS" TO THIS SITE. I'LL PUBLISH WHAT YOU WRITE I AM SURE.)

SAINT WILLIAM STRINGFELLOW

William Stringfellow 1928 - 1985

"Can the pope speak infallibly?", Stringfellow was asked at an ecumenical gathering. He reply was swift and sure. "Any Christian who speaks in conformity to the gospel speaks infallibly." It was typical of the pithy pronouncements which would endear him to many. Yet he was ever as profound as he was precise. When Karl Barth visited the United States in 1962 he pointed past the seminary professors to the diminutive lawyer and remarked, "This is the man America should be listening to."

William Stringfellow was born in Johnston, Rhode Island. His father was a knitter in a stocking factory. Needing money for a university education, he held three jobs in his last year of high school, yet managed to gain several scholarships and find himself at Bates College by age fifteen. Another scholarship took him to the London School of Economics. It was here, he was to write later, that he learned the difference between vocation and career. Military service followed with the Second Armored Division of the U.S. Army. When other soldiers complained that they were deprived of an identity in the armed forces and couldn't "be themselves", he disagreed. He knew that it is the living Word of God, Jesus Christ, which gives us our identity and frees us to "own" ourselves, cherish ourselves, profoundly be ourselves, anywhere.

Next was Harvard Law School. While a degree from this prestigious institution was a key which unlocked many doors, the door on which he knocked belonged to a slum tenement in Harlem, New York City. He had decided to work among poor blacks and Hispanics, the most marginalized of the metropolis. The move from Harvard to Harlem was jarring. His apartment measured twenty-five feet by twelve feet. Earlier five children and three adults had lived in it. The kitchen contained a tiny sink and an old refrigerator (neither of which worked), an old gas stove, a bathtub, and a seatless toilet bowl. Thousands of cockroaches were on hand to greet him. "Then I remembered that this is the sort of place in which most people live, in most of the world, for most of the time. Then I was home......"

His frustration with seminaries was inconsolable. Liberal schools of theology, having disdained the bible, offered little more than "poetic recitations...social analysis, gimmicks, solicitations, sentimentalities, and corn." Fundamentalist institutions, on the other hand, had yet to learn that "...if they actually took the bible seriously they would inevitably love the world more readily...because the Word of God is free and active in the world."

NEW SITE HEADDER

Now at the top of this site:

"LOVING" is our only way
to Rescue and Restore Humanity
from the planetary Hell
of our "STARVING" and "KILLING."
Our "LOVING" HEARTS
are the only thing
"strong" enough, "wise" enough,
"brave" enough
to get us out of this mess.
"STARVING" and "KILLING"
CREATED THIS HELL:
"STARVING" OTHERS
OF THE LIFETIME OF SERVICE
TO THEM
WE ARE BORN TO GIVE;
"KILLING"
AS WE HAVE
OUR STATES DO
TO EXTORT OVERPRIVILEGE.

STOP "STARVING."
STOP "KILLING."
START "LOVING."