Hello my name is Josh and I am a monster (or at least I have the tendency to be)

So I just got done reading Thomas Merton's "Passion for Peace" which was an inspiring book to read. It was one of those books, that when you get done reading, you ask "What do I do now?" You can't just go on living like you never read it, and you can't not do anything, because that would be a great injustice. So I decided to read off some of the points that I got out of it. Here it goes.

The Root of all war is Fear. We fight and destroy each other because we fear one another and ourselves. We can not trust ourselves, so how can we trust one another? For if we don't strike first, we just give the other person the opening they need to destroy us. The reality is that neither one wants to destroy the other, but fear makes us think we have no other choice.

As Christians, we should be on the front line calling for the abolition of war. This is not some crazy unattainable ideal, but if we take Christ's words literally about "loving our enemy" and "praying for those who persecute you" then we realize that war is never an option.

Nonviolence does not mean passivity. Just because we are out killing or destroying other people does not mean we sit idly by while everyone else does it. That would in no way be Christ-like. In fact, I think we encourage violence by our own inactivity. Look at the Danish resistance to Hitler during World War II. They chose to hide Jews and refused to trade with Germany and resisted any attempt by Germans to remove Jews from Denmark. They did not wage war with Hitler or cry out that all Germans must be killed. Rather they stood up for what they knew was right.