Salad on Pilgrimage

At yet another funeral event tonight a friend who is an administrator at Marquette University asked about the pilgrimage of peace. After I responded she asked a very thoughtful question: “Did you find that the experience affected your spiritual life?” I do not separate parts of my life but I did understand what she was saying. Already I am slipping away from my renewed commitment after the pilgrimage to take more time for reading, reflection and silence. I am doing some but not nearly enough so I can say, as Thomas Merton says in one of his canticles talking about solitude:
“I am the appointed hour,
The ‘now’ that cuts
Time like a blade.”

In other parts of my life that I am constantly trying to make whole, the journey to India has also affected me. Today for our monthly meeting of Dawn, Marna and myself of the DMZ community garden I found myself preparing food with an Indian base. We had balsamic lime rice with peas and Indian seasonings, a chorizo, red potato and onion dish flavored by Indian spices, some Indian candy and my specialty, home grown salad with my middle eastern dressing, spices, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and lemon juice. Also there was plain yogurt and pineapple. I am discovering more and more that the important thing in Indian cooking is the timing of putting in the spices.


Timing is important in life as well as Indian cooking. The person at Marquette who asked me the question above is a high-ranking administrative official who has serious disagreements with me about Marquette’s hosting the military on campus. Tonight was not the time to talk about this issue but I hope the time is right soon.

My pilgrimage to India reinforced my belief that it is immoral for Marquette University, a Catholic Jesuit University, to host military training centers for war and violence on campus. But rather then argue with people, I now realize that I must show them in living my life my message. With other pilgrims of nonviolence we are coming up with ideas of nonviolent actions that will communicate our message dramatically with few words. How to do this, is food for thought.

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