Co-PLAN Keneta Staff Photo

Thoughts on War by Wendell Berry

Selected passages from Wendell Berry's essay "Peaceableness Towards Enemies" from the book "Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community"

ü [If] we want to be at peace, we will have to waste less, spend less, use less, want less, need less. The most alarming sign of the state of our society now is that our leaders have the courage to sacrifice the lives of young people in war but have not the courage to tell us that we must be less greedy and wasteful.

ü But peace is not the result of war, any more than love is the result of hate or generosity the result of greed.

ü In times of war, our leaders always speak of their prayers. They wish us to know that they say prayers because they wish us to believe that they are deeply worried and that they take their responsibilities seriously. Perhaps they believe or hope that prayer will help. But within the circumstances of war, prayer becomes a word as befuddled in meaning as liberate or order or victory or peace. These prayers are usually understood to be Christian prayers. But Christian prayers are made to or in the name of Jesus, who loved, prayed for, and forgave his enemies and who instructed his followers to do likewise. A Christian supplicant, therefore, who has resolved to kill those whom he is enjoined to love, to bless, to do good to, to pray for, and to forgive as he hopes to be forgiven is not conceivably in a situation in which he can be at peace with himself. Anyone who has tried to apply this doctrine to a merely personal enmity will be aware of the enormous anguish that it could cause a national leader in wartime. No wonder that national leaders have ignored it for nearly 2000 years.

ü But why God might particularly favor a nation whose economy is founded foursquare on the seven deadly sins is a mystery that has not been explained.

ü Those who would like to believe in progress must be startled to realize that in the half century between Hitler and Hussein our method of dealing with madmen has not changed; all the progress has been in the manufacturing of more and more terrible weapons.

BEACH SEASON HAS BEGUN!!

Furgon Flip Flop

Durres is the second largest city in Albania. Living in such a large city here makes me wonder sometimes if I am missing the "real Albania". Life in the villages and smaller towns is much more provencial and much more conservative. There are certain liberties that people in Durres and Tirana enjoy and certain restrictions on behavior that they no longer acknowledge. I tend to forget how different this country can be from the cities to the villages.

This became clearer Thursday as I was traveling by furgon (mini-bus) to Elbasan from Durres. I hadn't experienced a "furgon flip flop" since my days in Belsh during training. The furgon filled with 8 passengers in Durres and I was seated next to the window in the middle seat. Beside me were a young man and a young woman, husband and wife. Two older women and a young man were in the back.

Halfway to Elbasan, the furgon stopped to pick up a middle-aged couple. A problem arose. Four passengers would have to ride in the middle and the back to accomodate the couple. The older woman naturally moved to the back seat to sit next to the others. However, the older man would then have to have a place on the middle seat, and having him sit next to the young wife was not an option, lest her honor be put into jeopardy. But wait, if the young couple simply switched seats the situation would worsen considerably. The young wife would be sitting next to me! A young, virile, (dare I say) attractive, 25-year-old man, and who knows what unmentionable advances I might attempt on her during the rest of the trip. So, the solution was easy. I would crawl over the couple from the window and then be wedged between the two men on the middle seat. A seat designed for three, which always seems to accomodate more. It's situations like the furgon flip flop that remind me where I am.

I'm Back

Made it back. The trip was great. London and Paris are both amazing cities and it was good to share them with my parents.

Sorry this is short. Don't feel like writing much. I'm currently going through the readjustment of being back in Albania.

I've posted the pictures from my trip. The link is on the right.

Trip highlights: Seeing my parents and eating all the great food!

Trip lowlights: Flight delays and having a cold for part the time.