My Thoughts about Divine Obedience/Civil Disobedience

(The following is written by Phil's friend and fellow peace activist, Janie Stein of Salina.)

My friends ask me what I accomplished by getting arrested at the White House.

Well, maybe nothing; at least in the world’s eye-view, maybe nothing I do matters. And even though in this paradigm of my life logic isn’t always the answer, this is my reasoning:

There is a circle of impunity around systems that hold power over people. Unspoken and spoken, it is not nice to enter this sacrosanct circle, it just isn’t done. Entering that circle for me has meant:

That I can follow the call faithfully
That I can somehow prick the conscience of a nation, albeit on a very minute level
That I surrender my need to control a situation, trusting in the Divine for the right thing to happen
That I do not have to allow myself to be swallowed up by my emotion or the charged circumstances around me
That I can speak truth to power, be a voice for the voiceless, and take this truth wherever it leads
That I put my body on the line, as an instrument of the peace that can only come from emptying out, from choosing to see the other as another, and treating ‘others’ with compassion that is truly different from staying on the same old level of us and them, continuing to fuel flames of death
That I have gone one step further in my solidarity with the earth’s forgotten victims of injustice.

Stones cast into water create ripples, and we never know on whom our actions can have an effect. I feel that my following the call I felt from within can have a ripple effect to either help people who have not considered my point of view before (such as, perhaps, the policemen I dialogued with, or the Gathering of Eagles members I joked with), &/or encourage those who feel alone without options to perhaps feel not quite so alone. I do know that we encouraged people who have been organizing for years, giving them hope that even in the red center of this nation, there are people willing to put their bodies on the line for hope, life, and peace.

Seeds of hope can be sown from times of despair. I feel that going to a place of worldly power, praying for peace in our world, praying for the people associated with this place, i.e., those oppressing others and those oppressed, and going just a small step further than usual can be one of these seeds.

I think it takes all types of people and many different actions and types of actions to create the change we all wish to see. The best thing each of us can do is to follow our own way the best we can. This desire has been building in me for a long time, and more intensely of late. I feel that once again I have officially registered my voice as one for a positive change, a not-for-business-as-usual voice in compliance with the merchants of death. Each of us does this often in our own way, and our power collectively becomes stronger when we answer our own call individually. Hopefully, I’ve added my little light to the fire, and helped hold up the sky a little more with my own little stick (an Indian legend).

Janie Marie Stein
19 March 2007