Often, I have used Father John Shea’s words of wisdom, “It is people, always people, leading us to God.” He is now married and no longer an active priest. Active enough, I say.

It is the same power I find in Chris Hedges’ writing: truth and compassion. In fact, we find this spelled out in his dedication to: “War is the Force That Gives Us Meaning.”

For my father, Rev. Thomas Hedges, who taught me that compassion was the highest virtue and for the Rev. Coleman Brown, who has never let me forget it.

Hedges goes on to warn us: “War is a crusade. President Bush is not shy about warning other nations that they stand with the United States in the war on terrorism or will be counted with those who defy us. This too is a jihad.

Yet we Americans find ourselves in the dangerous position of going to war not against a state but against a phantom.

The battle we have begun is never ending... We have embarked on a campaign as quixotic as the one mounted to destroy us.”

Meanwhile, Hedges warns us in the words of Senator Hiram Johnson: “The first casualty when war comes is truth.” (1917)

“In wartime,” he tells us, culture is often destroyed.” Yes. But there is something often found in a nation’s soul, a determination to preserve much of what is beyond value.

We found that in World War II, in Rome, where statues were preserved below ground in straw, encased in strong boxes , as were paintings, and writings of great literature. The same was true throughout Europe. True, also, in secret treaties not to bomb one another’s treasured buildings. while murdering millions of enemy citizens.

Every once in a while I think of the young people whose souls have been so injured by the barbarism of war, which has spread across our nation through fear of the real unknown. Art demands time. What time do they have? Who knows. Art demands peace of soul to think deeply and clearly. How and where are our youth finding such a rare commodity? A hidden monastery?

While we build smarter bombs and bombers, let us be aware of what we are doing to our souls and to our nation.

Lord, that we may see. Amen. Amen.

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