I find that resisting war, and I estimate that I am now resisting my 8th or 9th war, from Viet Nam to the present war in Iraq, is an act of the most profound spirituality. Every march I participate in, every phone call I make to a legislator, every letter I send, every petition I sign, every fax I send, every vigil I join, every email I send, every plea for peace I say, every article and book against violence I write, every interview I give on why war is the consummate human rebellion against the will of God, is a prayer.

Resistance to war is prayer as action, the non-violent way to lift my voice in protest against the worst of human ills, the mass murder of some humans by others and all the attendant damage those acts unleash on generation after generation.

My grandfather spent more than a year in the trenches in France. He was one of those for whom the term shell shock was invented. He came home from the Great War without a scratch on him and he was a ruined human being. Those who knew him before he went off to France described him as fun-loving and kind; he returned furiously angry, unable to concentrate and became an alcoholic, self-medicating for his psychic pain. He lived with our family and most nights he would awake in the night, screaming. My father, whose response to his service in WWII was to never mention what he did in that conflict, would go outside and sit in the dark, even on the coldest winter night, until my grandfather stopped screaming. After the war, each of these men lived in hell for the rest of their lives. And the damage to their families is very real, let me tell you.

War must stop. All wars, everywhere, for whatever reason. There is no Just War, not from the perspective of those who die in war and those who live with the memories.

The only task for a person of good conscience, a person of faith, is to resist war and in that resistance honor our Creator and the good people who suffer as a result of war.