PACIFISM...A CONVERSATION FOR FRIENDS

There's an old man, an old folk singer/political activist named U. Utah Phillips. He was an enlisted soldier in the Korean War who became an opponent to war in general. More often than not, I don't sympathize with enlisted men who complain about the battles they were in and the friends they lost, only because I figure if you're dumb enough to enlist you have to man up to the consequences you brought on yourself.

After the war, Utah spent years as a drunken vagabond traveling on trains throughout the country trying to forget as best he could the things that happened in the war. After years of this he finally settled down in a recovery house in SLC founded by Joe Hill, the old legend from the Catholic Workers Movement. This man's name was Edmond Hennessey as I remember the story going. He was one of the old Catholic/Anarchist/Pacifist men sprouting from the ministry of Dorthy Day (or however you spell her name).

Utah, being a drunk with violent tendencies and all that jive, was confronted by Edmond one day. Edmond said something to the effect of, "You need to be a pacifist"

"What's a pacisfist," says Utah.

"Well, it's kinda like being an alcoholic. You have to sit down with people who will really listen and instead of saying 'my name's Chuck, I'm and alcoholic', you say, 'I'm Chuck, and I admit and accept that I have a capacity for violence'."

If we claim to be pacifists, we need to be able to sit down and admit our violent tendencies, no matter how small they are. We need to get ourselves to a place where we at least realize that even killing an ant may have the possibility to make some species of life bitter at humanity, thus making the circle of "KARMA" keep rotating. It's not easy, as far as I know, only Jesus has been able to do it, but instead of copping out and being defeated by it, we can try. I suppose that's step one...TO GENUINELY CARE!!