As One CW Leaves Prison, Another Prepares to Enter
Must sacrificial resistance be “effective”? Plus: Bishop Walsh urges parishes to organize to support immigrants; CWs gear up for cold snap; and Jim Forest on learning to be a peacemaker.
In this issue: Must Sacrificial Resistance be “Effective”? · Long Read: Two Letters from Prison · European CWs Plan Sendoff for Terrell · Bishop Walsh: Parishes, People of Faith Must Organize to Oppose Unjust Immigration Policies · Can the Catholic Worker Escape Its Dependence on Capitalism? · Remembering Jim Forest, Peacemaker · Video Documents Lone Protest at Iowa Drone Command Center · With Cold Weather, Corpus Commons Sees Increased Demand · Dorothy Day Tampa Founder Announces Relocation to Minneapolis · Mary’s House Seeks Long-Term Community Members · Haley House Seeks Summer Residents · Trinity House CW Seeks New Director · San Antonio CW Gears Up for Cold-Weather Response · The CW’s Role Fighting Segregation · Merton in the Maryhouse Kitchen · Dorothy Day Guild to Host Lenten Online Reading Group · St. Louis Catholic Worker Hosts Birthday Fundraiser · Jim Forest: Lessons in Peacemaking.
Must Sacrificial Resistance be “Effective”?
Thursday’s CW Reads led with a letter from Susan Crane (Redwood City, California, CW) written a few days before her release from a German prison. In it, she reflected on her 229-day incarceration for protesting the presence of American nuclear weapons on German soil.
“Inevitably, some folks have asked about the effectiveness of our witness at the Büchel air base, about the usefulness of the time in prison,” she wrote, a line that got me thinking about how the Catholic Worker’s call to resist unjust policies and laws, even to the point of accepting prosecution and detention, is probably the movement’s least popular practice. Feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless—these works of mercy are generally admired and affirmed. Visiting Christ in prison by joining him there…well, not so much. It’s not just the discomfort of incarceration, I think, but the transgressive quality of civil disobedience, and the stigma attached to lawbreaking. It can be a divisive issue even among Catholic Workers. Brian Terrell, a Catholic Worker from Iowa who will enter a German prison next month, speaks of the “cult of effectiveness.”
Leaving aside the question of methods, it seems to me impossible to be a Catholic Worker—or, more fundamentally, a Christian—without engaging in some form of sacrificial “resistance” to evil, especially evil that has been blessed and sanctified by the law or popular opinion. Christianity is the religion whose corporate logo is the cross, after all, and the man on that cross was pretty clear that following him meant participating in his crucifixion.
Was Jesus’ crucifixion ineffective? Was it practical? Was it prudent?
As Susan said in her letter, “we need a variety of actions” in the communal effort to resist evil and promote justice. Not everyone is ready to be arrested and incarcerated; almost certainly, not everyone is even called to that path, at least not when it comes to deliberate acts of civil disobedience. And yes, questions of prudence and effectiveness are not entirely irrelevant; Jesus once walked away from the murderous crowd, Paul slipped over the city wall in a basket, Joan of Arc broke out of prison.
At the end of the day, Christians (and Catholic Workers of various religious affiliations) choose sacrifice and suffering not out of self-mortification or some perverse vanity, but so that others don’t have suffering and sacrifice imposed on them by “the system.”
If that’s so, then what matters most is not so much that an act of sacrifice is “effective,” but that it is an act of love.
—Jerry
FEATURED
Long Read: Two Letters from Prison
Thursday’s CW Reads featured two letters from Catholic Workers imprisoned for their nonviolent resistance to preparations for nuclear war:
A Letter from Koblenz Open Prison: On Friday, Susan Crane (Redwood City Catholic Worker) was released from Koblenz Open Prison in Germany after completing a 229-day prison sentence for her participation in nonviolent protests against U.S. nuclear weapons stationed at Büchel Air Force Base. “Inevitably, some folks have asked about the effectiveness of our witness at the Büchel air base, about the usefulness of the time in prison,” she writes in her letter of January 12. But, she says, “all nonviolent actions for justice and peace are reasonable, and not only reasonable, but our duty and responsibility.”
Vocation to Prison: In 1957, Dorothy Day wrote a long account about her incarceration in the notorious Women’s House of Detention, where she spent 25 days after defying civil defense air raid drills. She describes her experience in detail, giving special attention to the plight of the prostitutes and drug addicts spending much longer terms within the prison’s walls. “In the face of the suffering of our time one is glad to go to prison only to share in some small way these sufferings.”
You can read both letters in Thursday’s CW Reads.
European CWs Plan Sendoff for Terrell
Before entering JVA Wittlich prison for a 15-day sentence on February 26, Brian Terrell will join European Catholic Workers for a series of peace and climate justice events, according to Frits ter Kuile of the Amsterdam Catholic Worker community. Terrell, of Strangers and Guests Catholic Worker in Maloy, Iowa, is serving the sentence in connection with a 2019 protest against nuclear weapons at Büchel Air Force Base. Terrell will join an ecotage ceremony at the Port of Amsterdam on February 22. Following the action in Amsterdam, vigils will be held at Volkel and Büchel nuclear air bases. Supporters are encouraged to send postcards of solidarity to Terrell at JVA Wittlich, Trierer Landstrasse 64, 54516 Wittlich, Germany, to arrive after February 26.
Bishop Walsh: Parishes, People of Faith Must Organize to Oppose Unjust Immigration Policies
“Unjust policies need to be confronted” by people of faith, and parishes should be organized to bring about legislative change, Bishop Dennis Walsh told about 75 immigrants and their supporters at a Dec. 20 meeting at the Iowa City Catholic Worker House. Following a Spanish Mass, Walsh (Diocese of Davenport) listened to immigrants’ stories and took questions from people working to support them in the face of stepped-up deportation efforts, according to an article in The Catholic Messenger.
The Catholic bishops of Iowa issued a statement on Nov. 19 pledging the bishops’ support for immigrants in the wake of the election of Donald Trump. At the December gathering, Walsh said anti-migrant legislation passed by Iowa lawmakers last year is probably unenforceable and suggested that it ought to be challenged in court.
He also stressed the importance of sharing immigrants’ personal stories with parishes and legislators, emphasizing that “it’s hard to dislike someone once you hear their stories.” Read the story at The Catholic Messenger.
Can the Catholic Worker Escape Its Dependence on Capitalism?
“Taking the history of the Catholic Worker as a test case, we can conclude that, for the moment, extracting ourselves entirely from the capitalist context is impossible,” Laurie M. Johnson, president of the Maurin Academy for Regenerative Studies, writes in a recent article in Plough magazine. “Yet a movement devoted to serving the poor in communal houses of hospitality and farms is nevertheless possible, even if it operates within and relies upon a capitalist economy.” Likewise, Johnson notes the irony that even an anarchist movement often finds itself “protesting for changes in government policy.”
These observations are not criticisms of the movement, Johnson says. “Quite the contrary, they are statements about what I’ve concluded is reasonably possible, because if Catholic Workers cannot escape the limitations of capitalism, one has to wonder if anyone can.” Her essay concludes by noting that the Catholic Worker movement has had more staying power than most other movements with similar goals for reforming the social order, perhaps because “Catholic Worker groups have adapted to new challenges and in response to new needs time and again.” While traditional houses of hospitality and farms will continue to inspire people, she says, the movement might experiment with new methods for achieving its founders’ goals.
The essay was adapted from Johnson’s new book, The Gap in God’s Country: A Longer View on Our Culture Wars. You can read the essay at Plough: “The Catholic Worker Pushes the Limits.”
Remembering Jim Forest, Peacemaker
Catholic Workers marked the third anniversary of the death of Jim Forest this past Monday, January 13. Forest (1941-2022) joined the New York Catholic Worker in 1960 and briefly served as managing editor of the paper there. He went on to start the Catholic Peace Fellowship with Tom Cornell, and eventually became a well-known Orthodox Christian lay theologian, peace activist, and author. His widow, Nancy Forest-Flier, marked the anniversary by visiting his gravesite in the Netherlands:
It's the Orthodox custom to have a service for the dead (a panikhida) conducted on these anniversaries, and I went with our rector, Fr. Meletios, to the St. Barbara Cemetery in Amsterdam where Jim is buried. Our daughter Cait came with us, and her husband Björn. It was cold, but the sky was crystal blue and there was no wind. The candles didn't blow out! The panikhida is a short service, but deeply moving. A day of joy and grief and beauty.
You can read an excerpt from an essay by Jim in the Words from Our Elders section at the end of this newsletter, or read more about him at In Communion, the publication of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship that Jim also founded.
COMMUNITY NEWS & NEWSLETTERS
Video Documents Lone Protest at Iowa Drone Command Center
Frank Cordaro’s lone protest in front of the Iowa National Guard Drone Command Center in Des Moines, Iowa, on January 10 was captured in a short video produced by David Bradbury, a peace and justice documentarian. “The whole world knows that we’re bombing places all over the world with these drones,” Cordaro said in the video. “They find the bad guys, target them, and maybe they get to kill them, maybe they don’t—but every day, day in and day out, this is what they do.” Cordaro (Des Moines Catholic Worker) condemned the routine targeting and killing of people from command centers like this one, calling it a well-documented war crime. He criticized the silence of local communities and churches that welcome drone operators as heroes while ignoring their role in military violence. Watch the video here.
With Cold Weather, Corpus Commons Sees Increased Demand
Corpus Commons (Boise, Idaho), formerly Corpus Christi House, is experiencing a surge in demand from people struggling to survive the cold, according to a recent article in the Idaho Press. Executive Director Jessica Abbott said the Catholic Worker-inspired day shelter serves between 150 and 200 people daily, many of whom are not in the city’s overnight shelter system and instead live in cars or outdoor encampments. It has also seen an increase in younger individuals, including those aged 17 to 24, as well as young families with children and infants, Abbott said. Many are working but financially unstable, often forced to choose between paying rent or buying food. The shelter provides essential services, including food, clothing, bus passes, and assistance with securing IDs and birth certificates, the demand for which has tripled in recent months. Read the article at the Idaho Press.
Dorothy Day Tampa Founder Announces Relocation to Minneapolis
Michael Doyle, co-founder of the Dorothy Day Tampa Catholic Worker and the Dorothy Day Foundation, has announced plans to relocate to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to be closer to family following recent health challenges. Doyle, a 2011 kidney transplant recipient, shared that he was hospitalized twice in two months, most recently due to a severe urinary tract infection that left him disoriented and unable to summon help after a fall. "My family has decided that I am not safe living alone... I agree," Doyle stated, adding that he will be moving to an assisted living facility in Minneapolis within the next six months. Doyle, who lived in Minneapolis for 26 years, expressed excitement about spending more time with his grandchildren and exploring Catholic Worker efforts in the Twin Cities, including the Maurin House community in St. Paul. Doyle remains committed to his ongoing work with Dorothy Day Tampa and the Dorothy Day Foundation.
Mary’s House Seeks Long-Term Community Members
“Our local church family at St. William and St. Ann (has) welcomed us into their community, given us our first pair of pigs, offered us hot showers, laundry services, and appliances, and have prayed for us continuously since we moved to the farm,” write Patrick and Henny Vallee in the latest newsletter from Mary’s House Catholic Worker (Manchester, Kentucky). The couple have five children and are seeking long-term volunteers to join the community. Read the newsletter at the Mary’s House Catholic Worker website.
Haley House Seeks Summer Residents
Haley House (Boston) is inviting applications for its Summer Residency Program, an opportunity for individuals to live in community while serving at the organization's soup kitchen in Boston. Residents will spend three months over the summer working 20-25 hours per week to collaboratively manage the kitchen and prepare nutritious meals for people experiencing hardship. Participants receive housing and food, with stipends available on a needs basis. Applications are due by March 1, 2025. For more details and to apply, visit Haley House's website.
Trinity House CW Seeks New Director
Trinity House Catholic Worker (Albuquerque, New Mexico) for over twenty years, is looking for a new director. The position, which is not paid, involves running the house, working with asylum seekers, and collaborating with St. Francis Catholic Worker to serve meals five days a week. Spanish fluency is required. Read the full listing at CatholicWorker.org or contact Chandra Doran for more information: Trinityhousecw@gmail.com.
San Antonio CW Gears Up for Cold-Weather Response
With freezing temperatures expected this week, the San Antonio Catholic Worker House is looking for volunteers to help open its doors to provide shelter for unhoused neighbors on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (January 20-22). Volunteers are needed to staff the shelter during overnight stays and assist guests. In addition to volunteers, the shelter is seeking donations, including sleeping mats, snacks, breakfast tacos, pizza, and other comfort items to support guests during their stay. Those interested in helping can sign up through this link. For more information or to contribute, visit the San Antonio Catholic Worker’s Facebook page.
CW IN THE MEDIA
The CW’s Role Fighting Segregation
“In northern cities, Catholics from ‘white ethnic’ neighborhoods were often the most visible opponents of racial integration in the 1960s and ’70s,” writes Livia Gershon in a Jan. 10 piece in Jstor Daily. “But, as historian Karen Joy Johnson writes, there was also a distinct strain of activity by white Catholics—inspired by and in cooperation with their Black peers—that contributed to the Civil Rights movement.” Drawing on Johnson’s research, the piece discusses the role the Catholic Worker played in integrating the American Catholic Church. Read it at Jstor Daily: “Catholics Against Racism.”
Merton in the Maryhouse Kitchen
In a recent Tuesdays with Merton talk, Abbi Fraser shared how her reading of Thomas Merton helped interpret her experiences of living at the New York Catholic Worker’s Maryhouse. Through Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander and other writings, she explored the contradictions in church life—how faith communities can both inspire radical love and also serve as places of complacency. Merton’s writings reinforced her belief that love is not an abstract ideal but something that must be embodied—in chopping onions, welcoming guests, and breaking bread together. His reflections on nonviolence also challenged her to reconsider whether traditional pacifism was enough or if real love sometimes demands more radical, disruptive action.
The Tuesdays with Merton series is hosted by the International Thomas Merton Society (ITMS) and co-sponsored by the Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Watch a recording of the talk on YouTube.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
Dorothy Day Guild to Host Lenten Online Reading Group
The Dorothy Day Guild will host an online Lenten reading group led by Orbis Books editor-in-chief and Guild board member Robert Ellsberg, featuring his latest edited collection, Dorothy Day: Spiritual Writings. The five-week series, held on Sunday evenings starting at 7:30 p.m. Eastern/6:30 p.m. Central, will guide participants through key themes in Day’s spirituality, including her call to see Christ in the poor and her embrace of the “Little Way” of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, rooted in small daily acts of love and justice. Participants are encouraged to purchase the book through Orbis Books or borrow it from their local library. Visit the Dorothy Day Guild website for more information.
St. Louis Catholic Worker Hosts Birthday Fundraiser
The St. Louis Catholic Worker is inviting the community to a special fundraiser and celebration on Sunday, February 2, marking Theo Keyser’s 35th birthday and 15 years in the Catholic Worker movement. The event will feature pizza, beer, and Jarritos, with a suggested donation of $10—though no one will be turned away. Attendees can also participate in a raffle and auction to support the Catholic Worker’s mission. Get details at the community’s website.
WORDS FROM THE ELDERS
Lessons in Peacemaking
by Jim Forest
Excerpted from a lecture given at the 2012 conference of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship
Like so many kids my age at that time — the latter part of the fifties — I thought a great deal about nuclear war. Open-air nuclear tests were broadcast live. As a member of the high school debating society, I gave a talk with the title “Generation in the Shadow.” The shadow was the shape of the radioactive mushroom clouds that again and again sprouted in the Nevada desert not far from Los Angeles. Each explosion made it clear that nuclear war was a major possibility, in fact a probability, in the coming years. Who ever heard of weapons being made but not used? Anyone who gave much thought to what was going on couldn’t think of the atom bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki except as dress rehearsals for an apocalyptic future. In those days many Americans, most of them Christians, were passionately advocating a unilateral nuclear attack on Russia and China. “The only good Red is a dead Red” was a popular slogan at the time. The Cold War was at its coldest. Visions of the future were grim.
While I was concerned enough to give a talk about nuclear war, it didn’t cross my mind to join one of the peace groups that had the courage to oppose not only using nuclear weapons, but making and testing them.
It wasn’t until after high school, while in the Navy, that it occurred to me to join a protest of any kind. By that time I had graduated from the Navy Weather School and was stationed with a small meteorological unit at the U.S. Weather Bureau headquarters just outside Washington, D.C.
What pulled me across the border from unengaged bystander to anti-war protester was the invasion of Cuba by a group of Cuban refugees in April 1961 — the abortive Bay of Pigs Invasion. Within days it became public knowledge that it had been a CIA-organized operation with the U.S. military in the background. I was truly shocked. Despite my left-wing parents, I had quite a naïve and uncritical view of the U.S. government, and was especially hopeful about the national direction following Kennedy’s recent inauguration. When I read in The Washington Post that a protest vigil involving such groups as the Catholic Worker and the War Resisters League was taking place in front of a CIA building in Washington, I decided to join it after work. I had not expected to be noticed — I was in civilian clothes — but somehow I was identified and in the days that followed got into a good deal of trouble.
Behind my involvement in the vigil was the religious awakening that was going on my life. While at the Navy Weather School in 1959, I became a Christian, an event that was set in motion by what I later realized would be called a mystical experience, that is an experience of God that was too intense to ignore or explain away. For the better part of a year I explored different Christian churches. In November 1960, I formally became a Catholic, and a Catholic I remained until becoming Orthodox in 1988.
While still in the Navy, one element in my life was working part-time as a volunteer at a home for children whose parents were unable to care for them. Among my tasks was taking the kids who were Catholic to Mass on Sunday. Providentially, it happened that the nearest parish had a library. How fortunate I was! As converts often do, I was reading all I could lay my hands on and here was a paradise of books — theology, church history, lives of saints, autobiographies of saintly people, etcetera.
Among the important finds in that library were copies of an eight-page tabloid newspaper with the surprising name The Catholic Worker. I can still see that pile of Catholic Workers on a ledge by a window side-by-side with a flowering plant. I took the entire stack (twenty-five copies or so) back to my base and found myself deeply challenged by what I found in its pages. I discovered a movement, mainly of lay people, that centered its life on the one text in the New Testament in which Jesus speaks in detail about the Last Judgment. He describes a vast resurrection at the end of history of everyone who has ever lived and asks this vast assembly just six questions: Did you feed the hungry? Give drink to the thirsty? Clothe the naked? Provide shelter to the homeless? Care for the sick? Visit the prisoner? Within each question is the same question: Did you see Christ in the least person and respond to that person’s urgent needs? Or turn your back and look the other way?
During those months I also read The Long Loneliness, the autobiography of Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker. In the book she recounted her early adulthood in the same radical world my parents had been a part of, yet in her case the door had eventually opened to a radical Christianity. Perhaps it was in that book that I first encountered her observation that “those who cannot see Christ in the poor are atheists indeed.”
It was in large measure thanks to the Catholic Worker and Dorothy Day that I began to understand that what the Church does is transform our lives, gradually making them into channels of God’s love and mercy. It’s very simple. All the things we do in Church life are intended to make us inhabitants of the kingdom of God, a kingdom without greed, without hatred, without violence, without war, a paschal kingdom, a kingdom free of death. To gain entrance, all that’s required is the transformation of ourselves that we pray for every day of our lives: “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Though I had known many people who had become socially engaged due to their political convictions, in my own case it was only as a Christian that I moved from being an observer to engagement in activities protesting war, for what human activity more opposes the works of mercy than war? Far from feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty, war destroys all that is life sustaining.
The thoughts I had once had of a Navy career had by now evaporated. On the other hand, I enjoyed my work at the Weather Bureau and got on well with my Navy colleagues. The work itself was as nonviolent as military work can possibly be. If at all possible, I thought it would be best to finish out my enlistment rather than seek an early discharge. But first I had to fill out a security form in which I found I could answer every question without raising a red flag except one. The question was: “In what circumstances, if any, would you refuse to obey a superior’s orders?” I spent a sleepless night in the base chapel struggling with that sentence, trying to find a way to answer it truthfully and yet remain in the Navy until the end of my enlistment. But in fact it was only too easy to think of circumstances in which any decent person must disobey orders. The most hideous things human beings have done to other human beings were carried out by people who were simply obeying orders.
I wrote a lengthy answer to that difficult question that mainly focused on the conditions for a just war that were established Catholic doctrine. One of these is the protection of the lives of non-combatants. I could not justify to myself remaining in an institution whose fundamental purpose regarded killing and destruction as normal and even praiseworthy actions — actions in which even military meteorologists have a role to play. (I realized only after the fact that my unit at the Weather Bureau had provided the weather predictions used for the Bay of Pigs Invasion.)
One of the reasons I had been reluctant to apply for a C.O. discharge was anxiety about how my Navy colleagues would treat me once the application was filed. As it turned out, everyone in my unit remained on friendly terms except the commanding officer and one or two others. In order to better understand my views, my executive officer, Commander Mirabito, borrowed a book from me, War and Christianity Today, written by a German Dominican, Franziskus Stratmann, who had been condemned to death in Hitler’s Germany for his anti-war declarations, but managed to survive the war in hiding. After reading Stratmann’s book that same night, Commander Mirabito was so openly supportive of me that he may well have sacrificed promotion to captain for doing so. I cannot think of him without profound gratitude. It was thanks to him and many others I got to know while in the Navy that, in later years, I was never tempted to think of people in the military in demeaning terms.
I was discharged in June 1961. By then I had already become an occasional volunteer at the New York Catholic Worker. At Dorothy Day’s invitation, I moved to Manhattan and joined the staff. In many ways it was this move that set my course until now. I can even credit Dorothy for making me aware of the Orthodox Church — she brought me to the New York cathedral of the Moscow Patriarchate and also involved me in a discussion group that brought together Orthodox and Catholic Christians. While it wasn’t her intention that I would someday become Orthodox, she would sympathize.
My education in peacemaking had begun in the Navy and continued at the Catholic Worker.
Read the entire essay at the website of Jim and Nancy Forest. Used with permission.
About us. Roundtable covers the Catholic Worker Movement. This week’s Roundtable was produced by Jerry Windley-Daoust and Renée Roden. Art by Monica Welch at DovetailInk. Roundtable is an independent publication not associated with the New York Catholic Worker or The Catholic Worker newspaper. Send inquiries to roundtable@catholicworker.org.
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"United we stand, divided we fall". The nazis taught us well today, proving democracy is an illusion. We so called christian nations have employed every crime against humanity in the book since then and even today. We see the horror of Gaza in which the zionists get away with murder just as the nazis did...we see ourselves doing exactly the same in yemen etc again with complete impunity. Since ww2 we have done nothing but attack, attack, attack other nations just as the nazis did. We still celebrate our greatest horror in which we tested our latest weapon of mass destruction, once again on innocent civiilllians in Japan. Vietnam etc, etc etc, and today The Middle East our current favourite place for our crimes against humanity, making war, aggression...using the same indiscriminate weapons as the zionists againt gaza targetting an apparent terrorist in a block of flats that brings down the entire block...who cares about collateral damage...no one. Where are our screams, where is our Nuremberg to prosecute our own cannon fodder pulling the trigger..we have all the laws and history we need to stop this yet we do nothing cos the 1% have us impotent by design. Whilst its an awesome witness of those who stand up to be counted in prisons etc...its no good. The world needs a revolution in which we all stand up to be counted. This starts in our very own church.parish. We can no longer clock on sundays for an hour a week, and then stick Jesus back in the cupboard under the stairs (Fr Gerard Hughes) as the rotten system has groomed us is acceptable. Its not rocket science..Jesus came with simplicity and we need to do the same right back to square one.
A love for all creation. means a love for ALL CREATION..we cannot pick and choose which parts are ok for us to use an abuse...if we do we are fit for nothing. abusing ourselves, animals, the planet, ist all or nothing in Gods eyes..we either are Christians or we're not. We have to stop picking and choosing The Gospel messages we WANT to hear, and live the ones Jesus gave us. KISS philosophy is key as Jesus taught..love or not. this is what we need to decide, then we can unite finally and live The Good News. the devil has been given free reign all ovber the world because we look the other way. Look at biden, the baby killers, and co proudly proclaiming to be christian...the devil has never had it so good...we need to stop celebrating this snake oil world and go back to basics. Thats IF we have enough time left on our planet..........................stop sponsoring criminals like biden n co, the baby killers, the animal and planet abusers ibn all aprts of our world and this starts within.........we cannot claim justice for humanity when we vote for the devil, use and abuse Gods creation and then look the other way. We love or we dont...lets get on with it and this starts in our hearts and in our church but ONLY after the revolution has been won in our hearts and soul first. The TRUTH will set us free. - Peace N Love.