March 24, 2014 at Beale

“Fly Kites not Drones” was the theme of our last demonstration at Beale, home of the Global Hawk Drone, a surveillance drone that helps identify targets for armed drones.   This phrase perfectly expresses the hope that “another world is possible.”

Fly kites not drones.

Plant gardens not land mines.

Scatter seeds not shrapnel.

Build schools, not bunkers.

Subsidize solar power, not oil.

Support human rights, not corporate rights.

Bail out people, not banks.

Tend Mother Earth, don’t exploit her

Everyone who is working for change along these lines must have some degree of faith that such transformation is possible.  At times such changes in the general mindset and in social policies seems impossible.  The institutional Powers that rule the world are so entrenched, and bad news compounds every day.

We can’t know for sure.  As theologian Jurgen Moltmann wrote:

Has the modern world any future? Its future is conversion. Will humanity survive the crises we have described? We cannot know, and we must not know. If we knew that humanity is not going to survive, we should not do anything more for our children but would say, “after us, the deluge.” If we knew that humanity is going to survive, we should not do anything either, and by doing nothing we should miss our chance for conversion. Because we cannot know whether humanity is going to survive or not, we have to act today as if the future of the whole of humankind were dependent on us—and yet at the same time trust wholly that God is faithful to his creation and will not let it go.[i]

This is why I have devoted my life to speaking, writing, and acting to help usher in a world that is peaceful, just, and ecologically sustainable.  We don’t know what the outcome will be, but it’s not time to give up just now.  We are at a period of great transition.

I believe that whoever acts on behalf of this vision of a radically transformed world, what Jesus called “the kingdom of God,”  is doing the will of the One who brought the universe and this precious earth into being.  May we reaffirm our commitment and do what we can to be the transformation that we want to see.

[i]. Jürgen Moltmann, “Has Modern Society Any Future?” in Jürgen Moltmann and Johannes Baptist Metz, Faith and the Future: Essays on Theology, Solidarity, and Modernity (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1995), 174.