The Eighth Station of the Cross: Jesus Meets the Women of Jerusalem

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Jesus tells the women to weep not for him but for themselves and for their children

Pablo Picasso's "The Weeping Woman"

Throughout the ages, it has been the women who bear so much of the suffering inflicted by Empire. When Jesus spoke to the women in Jerusalem on his way to the cross, he saw their weeping and knew the greater sorrow that they would endure in the years ahead when their children would grow up just to become fodder for the war machine of Empire. Picasso painted “The Weeping Woman” in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. He painted “Guernica” that same year to depict the tragedy and suffering brought on by the casual bombing of Spain by the Nazi war machine. While "Guernica" has come to be a reminder of the tragedy of war, "The Weeping Woman" is a universal image of suffering.

When you go out today, take note of the women you see. Many of them will be silently bearing the sorrow of having lost someone dear to them at the hands of Empire and its war machine. They bear the suffering brought on by lost lives, cripples bodies and shattered minds of their children who grew up to serve their country and were crushed by Empire.



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Celebrating the Spoken Word: Conscientious Objector

Celebrating the Spoken Word

In 2016, it was my privilege to participate in the My Favorite Poem event. I read "Conscientious Objector," by Edna St. Vincent Millay. 

In the the video below, you can hear my presentation introduced by Jim Reed, editor of the Birmingham Arts Journal.   

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The Seventh Station of the Cross: Jesus Falls a Second Time

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Jesus falls beneath the weight of the cross a second time

Abandoned gas masks litter the floor

Graffiti adorns the ghost city of Pripyat 

It was April 26, 1986, when the Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred. Pictured above we see the large nuclear power plants standing tall against the sky before the disaster. We also see the sad aftermath of nuclear power gone wrong.  Billed as "safe, clean energy" by the Empire in the U.S., nations of power naturally pursued greater sources of power. Near misses in the U.S. have sent warning signals, but accidents in the former Soviet Union and more recently in Japan have demonstrated how severely we can strike at the sacred body where we live. Empire shows little regard for the sacred body of nature. Under the reign of God which Jesus preached, life will come to all. Under the rule of Empire, however, death is always looming.

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