Peace Archive - Frank Mills Ph.D.

I shall not see a world that will be dear to me,
(I shall see) Summer without flowers,
Kine will be without milk,
Women without modesty,
Men without valor,
Captures without a king...
Woods without mast,
Sea without produce...
Wrong judgment of old men,
False precedents of lawyers,
Every man a betrayer,
Every boy a reaver,
Son will enter his father's bed,
Every one will be his brother's brother-in-law...
An evil time!
Son will deceive his father,
Daughter will deceive her mother...

Second Battle of Meg Turad, The Irish Mythic Cycle

The Second Battle of Meg Turad was not the end to wars, but the beginning; instead of restraining evil. the war only unleashed a worse kind of evil.

'Live by the sword, die by the sword (Matthew 26:52).' When will we ever learn? 'What if the mothers of Wales and indeed the mothers of every country,' the Welsh poet Lewis Valentine asks, 'knew their children are tortured and torn to pieces! And great God, for what purpose ('Dyddiadur Milwr a Gweithiau Eraill')!' What great-lost will it take for us to finally learn the futility of war?

" . . . Well then, where shall Coroticus with his iniquitous followers, rebels against Christ, where shall they see themselves, they who distribute baptized young women as booty - and that for a miserable temporal kingdom which truly passes away in a moment like a cloud..."
-St. Patrick, 'Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus' (Coroticus confessed to be a Christian)

Like St. Patrick, I am appalled that so many Christians are able to justify war in their own minds. [Why is it that I suspect that few will remember Patrick's words on March 17?] Have we forgotten that when Christ died on the cross he demonstrated the other way to fight evil? Is this not what Easter is about? Did not Jesus say that his gospel was a gospel of peace? Don't tell me about Jesus saying that he will set father against son, or that he came not to bring peace but a sword; in context, this passage has nothing to do with war. It is about the lonely separation that comes when one truly follows the way of Christ. A separation that might just make you a cultural outcast! Nor do I want to hear about an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth. What did Jesus say about this? Did he not say turn the other cheek; forgive seven times seventy? And what about Paul who admonishes us to feed to our enemy and in so doing "heap coals of fire upon their head'? Surely we have not forgotten, "Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall inherent the earth?"

We Christians have confused American culture and her war mentality with Christianity. Stanley Hauer was and William Willimon hit the nail squarely on the head when they claim we are quite literally a people that morally live off of our wars because they give us the necessary basis for self-sacrifice so that a people who have been taught to pursue only their own interest can at times be mobilized to die for one another (Resident aliens, Nashville, Abington, 1989, p.35). That's bad enough, but what about those of us who claim to be following the Celtic Christian way? [Those of you who make no claim of Christianity, rather claim to be following Celtic spirituality, are not off the hook either.] How can you call yourself a Celtic Christian and be for war? The two don't go together. The whole Arthurian medieval revival was in part due to the call to arms to fight the infidel. One side saying you show your Christianity by taking up the sword - my how they seem to have been deaf to Christ's words of peace - while the Celtic side said, "No, you show your Christianity by pursuing a life of peace." Even the death of Arthur at bloody Camlan speaks to the futility of war: The Welsh triad, 'Tri Ouergat Ynys Prydein' includes this battle among the three futile battles of Britain. In one of the three, Myrdddin (Merlin) was said to have been driven mad by the horror of the slaughter.

The same theme is to be found in the senseless warring of Táin Bó Cuailnge in the Irish Ulster Cycle; a war initiated by greed that became the beginning of the end of the victorious Ulstermen.

Of course, there were abuses by Celtic Christians, nevertheless abuse does not negate the truth, but rather accents it. Whenever the hagiographies talk about one Celtic saint warring with another, the results are always disastrous. So much so, that St. Columba, for example, exiled himself from Ireland in penance for the carnage and terrible waste of life that he brought about with his ego.

Do you not see the course of the wind and rain? Do you not see the oak trees clashing together? Do you not see the sea clawing at the land? Do you not see the truth arming itself? Do you not see the sun sailing through the sky? Do you not see that the stars have fallen? Do you not believe in God, foolish men? Do you not see that the world is endangered? - Gruffudd ab yr Ynad Coch.

It is December 11, 1282. We are at Cilmeri in Wales on the bank of the River Irfon. Bodies are strewed across the battlefield. Those who are alive are just barely. The crows are red from gorging on the bloody flesh. A severed head is being carried across the battlefield. This is Wales' darkest moment; the treacherous defeat of Prince Llywely the Last; his head removed and sent to London to be put on display. Why, to prove the valor of the English king, Edward.

The regime is toppled, but it takes almost yet another full year to secure the regime for England. December 11, 1282, an apocalyptic event that is still playing out between the Welsh and the English, one thousand and twenty-one years later.

'Many a wretched cry as happened at Camlan,' the poet Gruffudd laments, reminding us of that other apocalyptic and tragic tale of behind the scenes plotting and betrayal, the death of Arthur and his company. Legend holds that either three or seven men escaped Camlan, among them St. Pedrog. Pedrog, according to Welsh legend, the son of a Cornish king, was known as 'Paladrddelit,' 'Shatter-Spear.' Pedrog became a saint because of his sword, or more accurately, his shattered sword: 'In Camlan there were seven of the Britons who went from the field without being killed. One is a saint because of his spear (Life of St. Pedrog).

Pedrog, the Life tells us, moved to sorrow and remorse over the carnage and waste of life at Camlan, renounces the way of the warrior with the dramatic shattering of his sword-some legends claim by divine might. The saint's actions reflect a growing rejection of beliefs and values common among the Celts of his day, a rejection that questioned the compatibility between Christianity and warfare.

One of the best-known poems from Welsh Heroic Age is Anerin's 'Y Gododdin.' Gododdin recounts the disastrous raid by three hundred Saxon soldiers on Catraeth (Catterick), south of Edinburgh, vividly demonstrating the futility of war and its needless slaughter, even to the point of cataloguing those lost. Of the three hundred, only four survive, the elegy tells us, one of which is 'Gododdin's' author, Aneirin:
The men who went to Catraeth were a swift host. They feasted on fresh mead, it was their poison. Three hundred men fighting under orders, And after rejoicing there was silence. An inescapable meeting with death overtook them, Even though they went to churches to do penance.

These Saxon fighters were Christian! Anerin's lament is not that Christian lives were lost, but that Christians would stoop to war. Superficial and defective Christians, they were, much like their compatriot, Ceredig, the Strathcylde chieftain who was so brutal - so ego driven - in his dealing with the opposition that Patrick refused to accept his Christianity as valid!

Not long after 'Gododdin' a number of poems, all questioning the compatibility of war and Christianity, begin to make the rounds. There are hints of this sentiment in a cycle of poems from Powys that make up part of the great Welsh saga, Llywarch Hen. The cycle depicts Llywarch, the king of Powys, as an irritating, but tragic figure who send his twenty-four sons to their deaths in the service of an heroic idea-that of patriotism. One son, Cynddilig, who prefers peace over war, Llywarch accuses of being a coward, telling him that if he's going to be such a sissy he might as well be a woman. It should be noted here, like our President (and his cabinet), Llywarch himself was free from the obligation to fight. The poem ends with these haunting words:
Because of my tongue the twenty-four sons whom my flesh nurtured were killed. The coming of fame is little good. They have been lost.

It is Llywarch's sneering insult directed at Cynddilig that inspired one of the most powerful antiwar poems ever written, 'Cynddilig.' In the poem Cynddilig, now a monk at Meifod in Powys searches the battlefield of Rhyd Forlas looking for the body of Gwên, the last of his brothers, when he meets his father. When the two of them reach Meifor, Cynddilig intervenes to protect a terrified slave-girl running from a band of Mercian soldiers:
And the monk raised his hand and quietly asked, "Do you think it is a great feat to chase after slaves and force yourselves on the unarmed? Will this be your custom and your history?" They, astonished, became silent, for one man would not stand against several, and challenge them, without a weapon in the world, without fear, without anyone to support him ...was he brave or a fool? And the monk, having stayed face-to-face with them for a second, turned to the slave girl and dressed the wound in her upper arm.

The Mercians withdraw, but one of them looses a parting arrow and kills Cynddilig. Llywarch belatedly recognizes his own pigheaded stupidity, and his son's courage, cries out in anguish, while above him fly three 'colomen wen wdr,' 'gentle/civilized white doves': Gwên and the Mercian who killed each other during battle, and the peace-loving Cynddilig between them.

That Gwynn Jones chose Meifod as the setting is significant, for it is at Meifod that St. Tysilio, served. Waldo Williams' poem, 'Llandysilio', describes Tysilio as an exile from Powys - a prince of Powys like Cynddilig -- who has chosen peace over rule by sword.

Undoubtedly the best-known soldier turned monk-saint is the Gallic (French Celt), Martin of Tours (316-397). His Latin biography by Sulpitus Severus was widely circulated throughout the Celtic countries and contributed greatly to the Celtic Christian antiwar movement. Martin, as you know, was forcibly enrolled in the Roman army at the age of fifteen. Five years later, in the midst of an extremely cold and snowy winter, Martin cut his military cloak in half and shared it with a poor beggar in danger of freezing to death. That night, while sleeping, Martin dreamed of Christ wearing the half of the cloak that he gave to the beggar, whereupon the next morning he decides to be baptized into the Christian faith. Martin does not immediately renounce warfare, in fact he remained a soldier until the mid 350s when under severe conviction he writes to the anti-Christian Emperor Julian the Apostate: [Martin unto Caesar, Hitherto I have served you as a soldier: allow me now to become a soldier to God... I am the soldier of Christ: it is not lawful for me to fight.

In renouncing his commission, St. Martin became the patron of soldiers everywhere who have decided to lay down their arms to become 'soldiers of Christ,' engaged in the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:11-21). One such saint, inspired by St. Martin, is Illtud who went from being known as 'Illtud the Knight' to 'The Teacher of Saints.'

In early Welsh Christianity (with the problematic exception of Arthur) the specifically Christian warrior, that is, the warrior who lives out Christian witness in his warring has no place. That is not to say that there were not warriors who happened to be Christian. It is to say, however, that making war in the name of Christ was not acceptable! The same hold true for in Irish Christianity. An explicitly militant and militarist view of Christianity runs counter to Celtic Christianity. As we previously noted, those places in Celtic Christian hagiography where saints battle one another, the consequences are always disastrous.

The Scottish St. Kentigern is often compared with Suibne Geilt ('Mad Sweeny') of the Irish tale, 'Buile Suibne,' in which Suibne, an Ulster petty king, looses his sanity while surveying the carnage at the Battle of Mag Rath in 637. Mad, he wanders from treetop to treetop across Ireland. Prior to the battle we are told that St. Rónán tries to broker peace, but an angry Suibne throws his spear at the saint. Rónán in turn curses Suibne for his angry rebuttal to the voice of reason and peace, a common practice of Celtic Christianity.

Yes, we are called to pray for our leaders, but notice the prayer we are to pray:
...(T)hat requests, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving be made for everyone-- for kings and those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good and pleases God our Savior...(1 Timothy 2:1-3).

How did we miss the pray 'that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all goodness and holiness?' What is the holiness that God expects?

With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the lord be please with thousands or rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He has shown you, O man, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:6-8).

As I typed this I could not help but see allusion after allusion to war with Iraq, most obviously, the oil reference; remember also that it was calves and rams and the Assyrians, forerunners of modern day Iraq. Prophetic? Probably not, but apropos, yes.

Could it not be, that the Celtic saints were on to something when they, following the Old Testament prophet's example prayed a curse upon those who would claim to be following God but instead were releasing evil? Is it not possible that a curse - a calamity - might just be the thing to bring us to our knees in humbleness before God?

In the spirit of the Celtic saints, the Old Testament prophets, and Romans 12:19 (read it!), I offer to you the suggestion of Michael Moore (Stupid White Men, Regan Books, 2001) that we pray that God afflict the comfortable with as many afflictions as possible, and then maybe, just maybe, we will learn the futility of war.

Seek the peace of the city.... Pray unto the Lord for it; for in its peace you shall have peace.... And you shall seek me and find me, when you search for me with all your being... I will be found (and I will find you), says the Lord. I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all peoples and I will bring you again to my place.- Jeremiah 29:7, 13,14 (paraphrased)

To subscribe to ORAN MOR, please send a blank email with the word "subscribe" in the subject line to fmills@marylhurst.edu.
© Oran Mór Conferences & Seminars, 2003;
Frank A. Mills.

You may forward this issue in its entirety only. This copyright notice and above subscription notice must be included. (Oran Mór is not affiliated with Marylhurst University.)


	I shall not see a world that will be dear to me, (I shall see) Summer without flowers, Kine will be without milk, Women without modesty, Men without valor, Captures without a king... Woods without mast, Sea without produce... Wrong judgment of old men, False precedents of lawyers, Every man a betrayer, Every boy a reaver, Son will enter his father's bed, Every one will be his brother's brother-in-law... An evil time! Son will deceive his father, Daughter will deceive her mother... Second Battle of Meg Turad, The Irish Mythic Cycle The Second Battle of Meg Turad was not the end to wars, but the beginning; instead of restraining evil. the war only unleashed a worse kind of evil. 'Live by the sword, die by the sword (Matthew 26:52).' When will we ever learn? 'What if the mothers of Wales and indeed the mothers of every country,' the Welsh poet Lewis Valentine asks, 'knew their children are tortured and torn to pieces! And great God, for what purpose ('Dyddiadur Milwr a Gweithiau Eraill')!' What great-lost will it take for us to finally learn the futility of war? " . . . Well then, where shall Coroticus with his iniquitous followers, rebels against Christ, where shall they see themselves, they who distribute baptized young women as booty - and that for a miserable temporal kingdom which truly passes away in a moment like a cloud..." -St. Patrick, 'Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus' (Coroticus confessed to be a Christian) Like St. Patrick, I am appalled that so many Christians are able to justify war in their own minds. [Why is it that I suspect that few will remember Patrick's words on March 17?] Have we forgotten that when Christ died on the cross he demonstrated the other way to fight evil? Is this not what Easter is about? Did not Jesus say that his gospel was a gospel of peace? Don't tell me about Jesus saying that he will set father against son, or that he came not to bring peace but a sword; in context, this passage has nothing to do with war. It is about the lonely separation that comes when one truly follows the way of Christ. A separation that might just make you a cultural outcast! Nor do I want to hear about an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth. What did Jesus say about this? Did he not say turn the other cheek; forgive seven times seventy? And what about Paul who admonishes us to feed to our enemy and in so doing "heap coals of fire upon their head'? Surely we have not forgotten, "Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall inherent the earth?" We Christians have confused American culture and her war mentality with Christianity. Stanley Hauer was and William Willimon hit the nail squarely on the head when they claim we are quite literally a people that morally live off of our wars because they give us the necessary basis for self-sacrifice so that a people who have been taught to pursue only their own interest can at times be mobilized to die for one another (Resident aliens, Nashville, Abington, 1989, p.35). That's bad enough, but what about those of us who claim to be following the Celtic Christian way? [Those of you who make no claim of Christianity, rather claim to be following Celtic spirituality, are not off the hook either.] How can you call yourself a Celtic Christian and be for war? The two don't go together. The whole Arthurian medieval revival was in part due to the call to arms to fight the infidel. One side saying you show your Christianity by taking up the sword - my how they seem to have been deaf to Christ's words of peace - while the Celtic side said, "No, you show your Christianity by pursuing a life of peace." Even the death of Arthur at bloody Camlan speaks to the futility of war: The Welsh triad, 'Tri Ouergat Ynys Prydein' includes this battle among the three futile battles of Britain. In one of the three, Myrdddin (Merlin) was said to have been driven mad by the horror of the slaughter. The same theme is to be found in the senseless warring of Táin Bó Cuailnge in the Irish Ulster Cycle; a war initiated by greed that became the beginning of the end of the victorious Ulstermen. Of course, there were abuses by Celtic Christians, nevertheless abuse does not negate the truth, but rather accents it. Whenever the hagiographies talk about one Celtic saint warring with another, the results are always disastrous. So much so, that St. Columba, for example, exiled himself from Ireland in penance for the carnage and terrible waste of life that he brought about with his ego. Do you not see the course of the wind and rain? Do you not see the oak trees clashing together? Do you not see the sea clawing at the land? Do you not see the truth arming itself? Do you not see the sun sailing through the sky? Do you not see that the stars have fallen? Do you not believe in God, foolish men? Do you not see that the world is endangered? - Gruffudd ab yr Ynad Coch. It is December 11, 1282. We are at Cilmeri in Wales on the bank of the River Irfon. Bodies are strewed across the battlefield. Those who are alive are just barely. The crows are red from gorging on the bloody flesh. A severed head is being carried across the battlefield. This is Wales' darkest moment; the treacherous defeat of Prince Llywely the Last; his head removed and sent to London to be put on display. Why, to prove the valor of the English king, Edward. The regime is toppled, but it takes almost yet another full year to secure the regime for England. December 11, 1282, an apocalyptic event that is still playing out between the Welsh and the English, one thousand and twenty-one years later. 'Many a wretched cry as happened at Camlan,' the poet Gruffudd laments, reminding us of that other apocalyptic and tragic tale of behind the scenes plotting and betrayal, the death of Arthur and his company. Legend holds that either three or seven men escaped Camlan, among them St. Pedrog. Pedrog, according to Welsh legend, the son of a Cornish king, was known as 'Paladrddelit,' 'Shatter-Spear.' Pedrog became a saint because of his sword, or more accurately, his shattered sword: 'In Camlan there were seven of the Britons who went from the field without being killed. One is a saint because of his spear (Life of St. Pedrog). Pedrog, the Life tells us, moved to sorrow and remorse over the carnage and waste of life at Camlan, renounces the way of the warrior with the dramatic shattering of his sword-some legends claim by divine might. The saint's actions reflect a growing rejection of beliefs and values common among the Celts of his day, a rejection that questioned the compatibility between Christianity and warfare. One of the best-known poems from Welsh Heroic Age is Anerin's 'Y Gododdin.' Gododdin recounts the disastrous raid by three hundred Saxon soldiers on Catraeth (Catterick), south of Edinburgh, vividly demonstrating the futility of war and its needless slaughter, even to the point of cataloguing those lost. Of the three hundred, only four survive, the elegy tells us, one of which is 'Gododdin's' author, Aneirin: The men who went to Catraeth were a swift host. They feasted on fresh mead, it was their poison. Three hundred men fighting under orders, And after rejoicing there was silence. An inescapable meeting with death overtook them, Even though they went to churches to do penance. These Saxon fighters were Christian! Anerin's lament is not that Christian lives were lost, but that Christians would stoop to war. Superficial and defective Christians, they were, much like their compatriot, Ceredig, the Strathcylde chieftain who was so brutal - so ego driven - in his dealing with the opposition that Patrick refused to accept his Christianity as valid! Not long after 'Gododdin' a number of poems, all questioning the compatibility of war and Christianity, begin to make the rounds. There are hints of this sentiment in a cycle of poems from Powys that make up part of the great Welsh saga, Llywarch Hen. The cycle depicts Llywarch, the king of Powys, as an irritating, but tragic figure who send his twenty-four sons to their deaths in the service of an heroic idea-that of patriotism. One son, Cynddilig, who prefers peace over war, Llywarch accuses of being a coward, telling him that if he's going to be such a sissy he might as well be a woman. It should be noted here, like our President (and his cabinet), Llywarch himself was free from the obligation to fight. The poem ends with these haunting words: Because of my tongue the twenty-four sons whom my flesh nurtured were killed. The coming of fame is little good. They have been lost. It is Llywarch's sneering insult directed at Cynddilig that inspired one of the most powerful antiwar poems ever written, 'Cynddilig.' In the poem Cynddilig, now a monk at Meifod in Powys searches the battlefield of Rhyd Forlas looking for the body of Gwên, the last of his brothers, when he meets his father. When the two of them reach Meifor, Cynddilig intervenes to protect a terrified slave-girl running from a band of Mercian soldiers: And the monk raised his hand and quietly asked, "Do you think it is a great feat to chase after slaves and force yourselves on the unarmed? Will this be your custom and your history?" They, astonished, became silent, for one man would not stand against several, and challenge them, without a weapon in the world, without fear, without anyone to support him ...was he brave or a fool? And the monk, having stayed face-to-face with them for a second, turned to the slave girl and dressed the wound in her upper arm. The Mercians withdraw, but one of them looses a parting arrow and kills Cynddilig. Llywarch belatedly recognizes his own pigheaded stupidity, and his son's courage, cries out in anguish, while above him fly three 'colomen wen wdr,' 'gentle/civilized white doves': Gwên and the Mercian who killed each other during battle, and the peace-loving Cynddilig between them. That Gwynn Jones chose Meifod as the setting is significant, for it is at Meifod that St. Tysilio, served. Waldo Williams' poem, 'Llandysilio', describes Tysilio as an exile from Powys - a prince of Powys like Cynddilig -- who has chosen peace over rule by sword. Undoubtedly the best-known soldier turned monk-saint is the Gallic (French Celt), Martin of Tours (316-397). His Latin biography by Sulpitus Severus was widely circulated throughout the Celtic countries and contributed greatly to the Celtic Christian antiwar movement. Martin, as you know, was forcibly enrolled in the Roman army at the age of fifteen. Five years later, in the midst of an extremely cold and snowy winter, Martin cut his military cloak in half and shared it with a poor beggar in danger of freezing to death. That night, while sleeping, Martin dreamed of Christ wearing the half of the cloak that he gave to the beggar, whereupon the next morning he decides to be baptized into the Christian faith. Martin does not immediately renounce warfare, in fact he remained a soldier until the mid 350s when under severe conviction he writes to the anti-Christian Emperor Julian the Apostate: [Martin unto Caesar, Hitherto I have served you as a soldier: allow me now to become a soldier to God... I am the soldier of Christ: it is not lawful for me to fight. In renouncing his commission, St. Martin became the patron of soldiers everywhere who have decided to lay down their arms to become 'soldiers of Christ,' engaged in the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:11-21). One such saint, inspired by St. Martin, is Illtud who went from being known as 'Illtud the Knight' to 'The Teacher of Saints.' In early Welsh Christianity (with the problematic exception of Arthur) the specifically Christian warrior, that is, the warrior who lives out Christian witness in his warring has no place. That is not to say that there were not warriors who happened to be Christian. It is to say, however, that making war in the name of Christ was not acceptable! The same hold true for in Irish Christianity. An explicitly militant and militarist view of Christianity runs counter to Celtic Christianity. As we previously noted, those places in Celtic Christian hagiography where saints battle one another, the consequences are always disastrous. The Scottish St. Kentigern is often compared with Suibne Geilt ('Mad Sweeny') of the Irish tale, 'Buile Suibne,' in which Suibne, an Ulster petty king, looses his sanity while surveying the carnage at the Battle of Mag Rath in 637. Mad, he wanders from treetop to treetop across Ireland. Prior to the battle we are told that St. Rónán tries to broker peace, but an angry Suibne throws his spear at the saint. Rónán in turn curses Suibne for his angry rebuttal to the voice of reason and peace, a common practice of Celtic Christianity. Yes, we are called to pray for our leaders, but notice the prayer we are to pray: ...(T)hat requests, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving be made for everyone-- for kings and those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good and pleases God our Savior...(1 Timothy 2:1-3). How did we miss the pray 'that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all goodness and holiness?' What is the holiness that God expects? With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the lord be please with thousands or rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:6-8). As I typed this I could not help but see allusion after allusion to war with Iraq, most obviously, the oil reference; remember also that it was calves and rams and the Assyrians, forerunners of modern day Iraq. Prophetic? Probably not, but apropos, yes. Could it not be, that the Celtic saints were on to something when they, following the Old Testament prophet's example prayed a curse upon those who would claim to be following God but instead were releasing evil? Is it not possible that a curse - a calamity - might just be the thing to bring us to our knees in humbleness before God? In the spirit of the Celtic saints, the Old Testament prophets, and Romans 12:19 (read it!), I offer to you the suggestion of Michael Moore (Stupid White Men, Regan Books, 2001) that we pray that God afflict the comfortable with as many afflictions as possible, and then maybe, just maybe, we will learn the futility of war. Seek the peace of the city.... Pray unto the Lord for it; for in its peace you shall have peace.... And you shall seek me and find me, when you search for me with all your being... I will be found (and I will find you), says the Lord. I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all peoples and I will bring you again to my place.- Jeremiah 29:7, 13,14 (paraphrased) To subscribe to ORAN MOR, please send a blank email with the word "subscribe" in the subject line to fmills@marylhurst.edu. © Oran Mór Conferences & Seminars, 2003; Frank A. Mills. You may forward this issue in its entirety only. This copyright notice and above subscription notice must be included. (Oran Mór is not affiliated with Marylhurst University.) << back
	about us \| quotes \| featured article \| editorial \| archive \| letters for america \| links \| desiderata \| home copyright information ©2000-2009 Lyrebird Media.