The Child Takes a Hero
Sunday the child, who had been listening to Dar Williams CD's, wanted to know about Daniel Berrigan, cause he likes the song "I Had No Right," and he wanted the lyrics explained. So I talked about the Berrigans, and the draft, and napalm, and we googled the Berrigans so that we could find pictures and find out what Daniel's up to these days, and he spent the rest of the day upstairs singing the Daniel Berrigan song over and over.
One could do worse than choose Catholic activists as heroes; and I'm cheered by the fact that while Berrigan spent time in prison, he wasn't a martyr in the sense that my own heroes, when I was, like the child, 10, were. A child who takes Joan of Arc and Edith Cavell as her heroes is going to have a dicey relationship to survival. I'm lucky to have made it this far.
I figure that I may need to visit the child in jail later, or walk door to door trying to get the neighbors to sign petitions for his retrial, but maybe we can dodge the stake and the firing squad.*
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*Related remarks: last time I was in Albuquerque, talking to my mom, she reminded me that once when I was in jail for civil disobedience, I called her up. We were at the time refusing arraignment, in solidarity with somebody or other, I forget whom, and everybody else's mom tried to get their daughters to agree to plead, and therefore get out of jail, but my mom said, oh, honey, you have to stay in jail! You can't break solidarity!
Not your usual mom remark.
But as Berrigan says about his mom, "she was so clear. And she was so clearly on our side when very few would be."
One could do worse than choose Catholic activists as heroes; and I'm cheered by the fact that while Berrigan spent time in prison, he wasn't a martyr in the sense that my own heroes, when I was, like the child, 10, were. A child who takes Joan of Arc and Edith Cavell as her heroes is going to have a dicey relationship to survival. I'm lucky to have made it this far.
I figure that I may need to visit the child in jail later, or walk door to door trying to get the neighbors to sign petitions for his retrial, but maybe we can dodge the stake and the firing squad.*
********************
*Related remarks: last time I was in Albuquerque, talking to my mom, she reminded me that once when I was in jail for civil disobedience, I called her up. We were at the time refusing arraignment, in solidarity with somebody or other, I forget whom, and everybody else's mom tried to get their daughters to agree to plead, and therefore get out of jail, but my mom said, oh, honey, you have to stay in jail! You can't break solidarity!
Not your usual mom remark.
But as Berrigan says about his mom, "she was so clear. And she was so clearly on our side when very few would be."
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