Living What You Believe

Los Alamos, New Mexico, is a quaint town of green mountains and rolling hills dotted with cacti. Los Alamos is also the birthplace of the atom bomb. As they do every year, a group of peace activists gathered in August to remember the 61st anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and to call for the end of the nuclear weapons program at Los Alamos National Lab.

In addition to calling for the closing Los Alamos Labs, organizers of the yearly event are also trying a new tack: they are calling on scientists employed by the Lab to give up their cozy government careers and get new jobs. Kathy Kelly--of Voices in the Wilderness fame--offered this alternative: instead of giving their lives to the development of weapons of death, these scientists "could apply their expertise and their ingenuity and their money to help us solve problems like renewable energy and the environment."

This sort of radical lifestyle choice needs to be guided by a vision, an understanding of God and of God's will for the world. According to another organizer, Father John Dear , this need for a radical rethinking of the relationship between God and the world applies, first and foremost, to those who spend their lives developing increasingly sophisticated weapons of death. Father Dear "I'm not pointing a finger at anybody in this town. I think they are all good people, but the work they do is evil." He continued, "You cannot follow Jesus and build nuclear weapons at Los Alamos. You cannot worship the God of peace and also build weapons of mass destruction."

According to Father Dear, we have to make a choice between the God of Peace or the God of Destruction and then structure our lives in ways that honor that decision.

The combination of Kathy Kelly's vision and Father Dear's conviction leads to an obvious conclusion: being a spiritual person must involve more than occasionally going to church, praying, or reading the Bible. Gospel commitments--those alternate worldviews that live out Jesus' conviction that we are one human family--involve living out our vision of God in tangible, believable ways. For those who gathered in Los Alamos in August, following the God of peace means fanning the coals of life while also mourning this nation's painful history.

Catholic Connection:

Father John Dear has written extensively on the relationship between God, the human struggle for peace, and nonviolence. This reflection is found in his book Living Peace: A Spirituality of Contemplation and Action:

The life of peace is both an inner journey toward a disarmed heart and a public journey toward a disarmed world. This difficult but beautiful journey gives infinite meaning and fulfillment to life itself because our lives become a gift for the whole human race. With peace as the beginning, middle and end of life, life makes sense. Once we realize that our God is a God of peace, that we are created to dwell in God's own peace here and now, that we can know deep peace within our own hearts, and that we can contribute to the peace of the world, then we will turn around and start that journey of peace and stay with it for the rest of our lives.

From now on, we will be filled with peace, hope, and love.

"We are still a long way from the time when our conscience can be certain of having done everything possible to prevent crime and to control it effectively so that it no longer does harm and, at the same time, to offer to those who commit crimes a way of redeeming themselves and making a positive return to society. If all those in some way involved in the problem tried to . . . develop this line of thought, perhaps humanity as a whole could take a great step forward in creating a more serene and peaceful society."

Reflection Questions

As a Catholic Christian, what are some of the tangible, concrete, lifestyle decisions you have made and how do these decisions reflect your understanding of God?

Join us in our Forum to discuss these questions!