Easter: On earth as in heaven



(NTS Baneberry Blast, 1970)

It seems to be no cosmic fluke that Earth Day and Easter have so closely coincided during this year of Fukushima.

While many are readying themselves for a day of joy and celebration, some are solemnly protesting the nuclear “time bombs” that are still ticking in our own backyards.  For the past five days, participants in the annual Nevada Desert Experience Sacred Peace Walk have been moving closer and closer to their final destination: the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), formerly called the Nevada Test Site (NTS).  According to nevadadesertexperience.org, capabilities specific to this site include Atlas, the Big Explosives Experimental Facility (BEEF), the Device

Assembly Facility (DAF), the Joint Actinide Shock Physics Experimental Research (JASPER) Facility, and the U1a Complex for subcritical nuclear tests.

If these capabilities sound as incomprehensible as “rocket science” to the average person,  that’s because they are “rocket science” - but with a particularly lethal bent that is blanketed by acronyms such as good old red-blooded BEEF.

The destructive potentiality of these capabilities is only exceeded by the peaceful reality of these protesters.  John Amidon, President of Veterans for Peace in Albany NY, has been chronicling the highlights of this year’s walk in videos and print.  In his article - Who’s Next? – he recalls this incisive verse from the similarly-named 1965 Tom Lehrer song:  Egypt’s gonna get one too, just to use on you know who.  Israel’s getting tense, wants one in self-defense.  The Lord’s our shepherd it says in the Psalm, but just in case – WE GOTTA GET A BOMB!

Within this same dynamic article, Amidon points out that the use of weapons capable of destroying every

living thing within entire cities is “perverting the message of Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha and the Torah, the Koran and the New Testament along with a host of other prophets and faith traditions.”   In this season of Buddhist, Bahai, Jain, Hindu, Sikh, Ancestral, Jewish and Christian high holidays - may heaven and earth

instead be truly reflective of one another.

Resources

http://www.nevadadesertexperience.org/programs/2011/peacewalk2011.htm

http://www.youtube.com/user/pazamidon

http://www.vfpchapter10.org/blog/2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Test_Site

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FgMTAj4f_o

Who’s Next? (e-mailed article by John Amidon)

Copyright April 24, 2011 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved