Variety: Matthew 5v5

“Blessed are the meek,” (Matthew 5:5) Jesus says in the Beatitudes. “Meekness” is the biblical word for nonviolence. Blessed are the meek, the gentle, the nonviolent—they will inherit the earth. A life of nonviolence leads to oneness with creation and her creatures. 

A life of violence, of course, leads to an abrupt discord with creation. In a time of permanent warfare, nuclear weapons, and catastrophic climate change, the message couldn’t be clearer. The God of peace, the nonviolent Jesus, and his Holy Spirit call us to practice nonviolence. In that way, we’ll renounce and stop our environmental destruction, tend our Garden of Eden together, and restore creation to its rightful peace…. 

It’s that vision of peace, nonviolence, and the new creation, the vision of the promised land before us, the practice of proactive nonviolence, that offers a way out of environmental destruction, as well as permanent war, corporate greed, systemic racism, and extreme poverty. 

All we have to do is open our eyes to the reality of creation before us, to be present to it, to take it in and honour it, and welcome its gift of peace—and do so within the boundaries of nonviolence.

John Dear