Q. What can a peacemaker say to those people who feel powerless to do anything about the arms race?
A. A lot of folks say, “Well, I can’t do anything about that. I’m just one person, and the problem is too
big.” Typically, ordinary citizens feel overwhelmed once they realize there’s enough nuclear power in
the world to blow up the globe several times over.
I saw a wonderful program on PBS titled, “The Problem of Evil.” On it, one commentator talked about
the death camps of World War II and asked whether the Nazi military leaders were the real culprits.
Equally responsible, he maintained, were the lawyers, the bureaucrats, and the foot soldiers—the
people who let the exterminations go on unchallenged. There isn’t a single instance, that I can find on
record, of just one soldier who refused to turn on the gas or push the last naked baby into the ovens. I’
m sure they all were overwhelmed, that they said the same thing: “But there is nothing I can do…”
I find, however, that the most freeing element of a serious issue is when one person says no. If only
one person just says, “No, I won’t…” it makes people stop and think. Try it at a cocktail party and see
what happens! You see, as long as you make an issue discussible, then it’s thinkable; and as long as it’s
thinkable, it’s possible.
–from SALT magazine, March 1989, interview with editors
When I have really learned to suffer with the other—the poor, the voiceless, the marginalized, the
people without power—I’ll begin to see a whole new world. I’ll begin to see the violence around me
and in me. I’ll begin to see the need to refuse to cooperate with it.
There is no doubt: it takes courage to face down a violent generation without becoming like them. It
takes courage to stop violence by refusing to continue it. It takes courage to absorb the amount of
punishment required to rob the brutal of the joy of their brutality and to turn the tide of this
senselessness.
The little people who faced the dogs in Selma to gain their humanity, the tiny women who climbed the
fences of nuclear installations to pray for their dismantling, the little groups who sign petition after
petition to stop planetary pollution, the little boats that obstruct the wanton killing of dolphins and
whales, the myriad little people who refuse to be willing victims of an age more given to death than to
life—these are the seeds of a new human consciousness, a new global soul.
–from Active Nonviolence, Foreword
These are two excerpts from the chapter “What Do I Believe?” in the recently released book, Joan
Chittister: In My Own Words (Liguori), compiled with an introduction by Mary Lou Kownacki. The book
contains the most memorable and inspiring selections from Chittister's writings and sermons, capturing
the core and scope of her spiritual vision.
Joan Chittister joins the following spiritual figures featured in the In My Own Words series: Pope
Benedict XVI, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Pope John Paul II, Thérèse of Lisieux, Mother Teresa, Pope
John XXIII and Henri Nouwen.
A. A lot of folks say, “Well, I can’t do anything about that. I’m just one person, and the problem is too
big.” Typically, ordinary citizens feel overwhelmed once they realize there’s enough nuclear power in
the world to blow up the globe several times over.
I saw a wonderful program on PBS titled, “The Problem of Evil.” On it, one commentator talked about
the death camps of World War II and asked whether the Nazi military leaders were the real culprits.
Equally responsible, he maintained, were the lawyers, the bureaucrats, and the foot soldiers—the
people who let the exterminations go on unchallenged. There isn’t a single instance, that I can find on
record, of just one soldier who refused to turn on the gas or push the last naked baby into the ovens. I’
m sure they all were overwhelmed, that they said the same thing: “But there is nothing I can do…”
I find, however, that the most freeing element of a serious issue is when one person says no. If only
one person just says, “No, I won’t…” it makes people stop and think. Try it at a cocktail party and see
what happens! You see, as long as you make an issue discussible, then it’s thinkable; and as long as it’s
thinkable, it’s possible.
–from SALT magazine, March 1989, interview with editors
When I have really learned to suffer with the other—the poor, the voiceless, the marginalized, the
people without power—I’ll begin to see a whole new world. I’ll begin to see the violence around me
and in me. I’ll begin to see the need to refuse to cooperate with it.
There is no doubt: it takes courage to face down a violent generation without becoming like them. It
takes courage to stop violence by refusing to continue it. It takes courage to absorb the amount of
punishment required to rob the brutal of the joy of their brutality and to turn the tide of this
senselessness.
The little people who faced the dogs in Selma to gain their humanity, the tiny women who climbed the
fences of nuclear installations to pray for their dismantling, the little groups who sign petition after
petition to stop planetary pollution, the little boats that obstruct the wanton killing of dolphins and
whales, the myriad little people who refuse to be willing victims of an age more given to death than to
life—these are the seeds of a new human consciousness, a new global soul.
–from Active Nonviolence, Foreword
These are two excerpts from the chapter “What Do I Believe?” in the recently released book, Joan
Chittister: In My Own Words (Liguori), compiled with an introduction by Mary Lou Kownacki. The book
contains the most memorable and inspiring selections from Chittister's writings and sermons, capturing
the core and scope of her spiritual vision.
Joan Chittister joins the following spiritual figures featured in the In My Own Words series: Pope
Benedict XVI, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Pope John Paul II, Thérèse of Lisieux, Mother Teresa, Pope
John XXIII and Henri Nouwen.
HOW CAN WE LIVE IN PEACE?
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