The Chasm Between Dogma and Doing

The Chasm Between Dogma and Doing                                                September 2013

by Norm Lowry

“[It is] necessary to renounce a freedom that does not exist, and to recognize a dependence of which we are not conscious.”  - Leo Tolstoy

Producing a breach in relationships with important people, accepted conventions and institutions and deeply-seated ideology, a paradigm shift occurred within me in the Spring of 2009, when I chose to destroy property leased to the U.S. Military.  This action was my first , of three, amped-up protestations in which I pointedly employed civil disobedience; my seemingly small voice saying its solitary “No” to our society’s extreme love of violence, racism, bigotry and poverty-production.  My total required investment in prison is nearly nine years (four served; five yet to be served).  When coupled with the resultant and costly ruptures in important relationships, the price tag seems big, but is small, as there is much at stake...the survival of mankind.

Extreme?  Not even close!  Extreme would have been for me to continue holding at arm’s length the fact my country’s “military-industrial complex,” which expends more than half of the world’s total military expenditures, thinks themselves to be sensible in their consideration that the nuclear option is viable.  Their thinking is the same regarding their use of unlimited biological, drone, laser and microwave weaponry, etc.  Extreme would have been to ignore my country’s insatiable thirst for war making and its endless fiscal and political sanctions, which seem to constitute history’s most extensive program of purposeful genocide.  Extreme would have been to ignore the resolute collapsing of our and the world’s economy, a corrupt judiciary system, a prison-industrial system based in racism and bigotry, a gasping-for-breath ecology, and religion which mostly cosigns it all...in the name of all that is Love.

You will not find in me remorse or any type of wavering from my well-thought-out and purposeful change in my life’s direction, which has led to prison.  Though I hate prison and see no value in it whatsoever, I would rather be here and free than to be in my old world and enslaved by all the lies that we as a society have told ourselves in order to feel good about our lives which are built on the backs of those we see as being less than we.   

Countless are the letters and conversations I’ve had which, while accepting that our lives and our seeming security are greatly at risk, if not actually nonexistent, still ask the lesser and selfishly more disturbing, to their sense of well being, questions:  Why would you renounce your U.S. citizenship?  If you don’t like America, why don’t you just leave?  What would make you willing to renounce your religion?  Aren’t you afraid of God and hell?  Why would you declare a state of perpetual nonviolent war against ALL violence, racism, bigotry and poverty-production?  What makes you so sure that all violence is bad?  Why would you destroy military property?  Aren’t you proud of those who bought your freedom and of those who continue  to protect it?  How can you befriend child molesters, rapists, pedophiles, gays, blacks and Muslims?

Renouncing my citizenship seems a no-brainer.  Nationalism, patriotism and statism seem only to be substitutes for honest, loving relationships with people; all people, no matter their lot in life.  Exclusive national loyalties originate and maintain our conventions and institutions of oppression, the sources of society-eradicating weaponry and violence.  Maintaining my narrow-focused national citizenship revealed my rejection of deep, satisfying relationship with our Creator, which alone, to me, is capable of inspiring oneness with all of humanity.

The fact that I reject all that national citizenship seems to stand for in no way means that I don’t like America.  America is my earthly birthplace.  To me, there is no difference between the value of Americans and all others.  The United States of America convinced its citizenry to steal the land from its indigenous residents, who generally invited outsiders to share it and to nourish it.  America does not own the land, no matter what we are told by its empire-builders.  This land is mine as much as it is yours, as is all of the earth.  If you wish to exert your temporal, nationalistic authority to remove me, you are already forgiven; eternity is already ours and we are already sharing it...somewhere in time.

Renouncing the institutions and conventions of my religion also seems a no-brainer.  Religion which seeks to dogmatize, control, manipulate, coerce, threaten or cosign nationalism and war is cult.  What I shed was merely cult.  I love our Creator and all of humanity, boundlessly and indiscriminately.  This is my true religion.  All else simply got in the way.  All I did was to relieve myself of an illicit weight which was never mine to carry.  

As to being afraid of God and hell, my answer is “No” and “No.”  If God is Love, there is nothing to fear.  If there is a hell, I would be honored to go there and minister healing and life to the damned.

To declare war on violence is to love our Creator and all of humanity.  Violence, in all forms, is the human substitute for love.  Any oppression of another human being or of our earth and its resources is violence.  If I need Love, I do not need violence.

To destroy military property is to destroy the means of many forms of violence.  It would not be my way to destroy simply for the sake of destruction.  This would be, in and of itself, violence.  Nor would I destroy property in any manner which would physically harm any person.  Yet I do believe that we should destroy all things military, acknowledging that military is  but a small segment of all that is violent. 

While I do have pride in people, I do not believe that it is people who buy or protect my freedom.   That was and is our Creator’s doing.  Whether military, police, prison guard, lawmaker, president, etc., I need and want the person yet have no need of their position or institution.

Regarding my choice of friends, I consider myself to be a friend of everyone, in spite of your chosen behavior, good or bad.  We have the ability to heal each other of the vast majority of all addiction, compulsion and disease.  That others will not choose to do so is not my issue.

The fact that many valued and precious relationships have been breached by my actions and subsequent imprisonment is of no light concern to me.  Relationships are priceless and are the product of love.  If our love is illicit, our relationships will be shallow at best, continuing to foment destruction and death.  But if our love is selfless, and thus licit, we will find the ways to cause destruction and death to cease.

     “The final destination of man is Love.”   --Thomas Merton

Recommended reading (These books contain some crucial insight and are great springboards to continuing research):

A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES  by Howard Zinn

THE NEW JIM CROW, by Michelle Alexander

CROSSING THE RUBICON by Mike Ruppert

THE GREAT DEFORMATION by David Stockman

THE JESUS DRIVEN LIVE by Michael Hardin