{"id":1236,"date":"2022-05-19T15:47:18","date_gmt":"2022-05-19T20:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/?p=1236"},"modified":"2022-05-19T15:47:18","modified_gmt":"2022-05-19T20:47:18","slug":"solitary-quaker-night-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/?p=1236","title":{"rendered":"Solitary Quaker Night Birds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>By Bill Powell<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Editor&#8217;s Note:  The author wrote this as a &#8220;stream of consciousness&#8221; and thus there are no standard paragraphs or line breaks.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-verse\">Pacifists ponder, search,\nWalk from the crowd\nOf rationalizers endlessly debating which side\nIs right and which is wrong.\nNot arguing about the \u2018cowardice\u2019 of making plowshares\nRather than swords, bullets, bombs.\nRather than widows, orphans, weeping lovers.\nDebating with their own kind, taking sides, wielding sharp words,\nThe love of besting others.\nRighteous words about life\u2019s Chess game.  \nTurning pawns into casualties, body counts.\nTheir deaths protecting kings, queens, rooks, and bishops,\nPrivileged oligarchs of all persuasions, saved.\nGod weeps for the cannon fodder, the unseen souls.\nThe cannon fodder of mad dictators and soulless mad elites.\nHumans wring their hands over right versus wrong,\nLoving the exquisite art of judgment.\nWhich pawns should do the dying,\nWhich oligarchs saved from secular damnation?\nSome pacifists are given to solitariness, \nTo standing alone, in sacred silence,\nSaying No to wielding death to any pawn.\nMisunderstood, fodder for righteous debates, saying\nNo to choosing death over life.\nOpening their soul to the divine,\nTo the heavens, saying no to war,\nSaying \u2018here I will stand alone\u2019, be alone.\nStanding separate from the crowd,\nThe debaters.\nPreferring the sentiment of a crafty soul to a crafty mind.\nWeeping, their souls disregarded, unfelt,\nThe tears of their \u2018still small voices\u2019 echoing\nBack to God, the same\nGod who birthed the pawns \nUnder the grass.\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;God weeps for the cannon fodder, the unseen souls.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Image by Bill Powell<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1178,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-peace-may-2022"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1236"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1238,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions\/1238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareletter.milwaukeequakers.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}