Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Dear Jack and Felice,
Thanks for the great card from the Tucson Peace Fair. These cards are always filled with grand encouragement, to be sure!
After numerous delays, my trial took place yesterday. Sentencing will take place after a presentencing investigation. Had I chosen, after the many judicial conferences along the way, to cease my protests and to agree to participation with parole, etc. I would have been freed (as I have served more than the usual sentencing time for felony 3 trespass). As it stands, my presiding judge states it is to be his duty to sentence me more severely, due to my stated commitment to consistency and persistence in my willingness to choose civil disobedience in my protests.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Of late, I have been rereading and meditating on Elie Wiesel’s Night…. a most humbling, haunting, sad, enlighteningly inspiring presentation.. to be sure! I recall one particularly stirring thought from his Nobel acceptance speech – “…I swore never to be silent whenever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion or political views, that place must, at that moment – become the center of the universe.” Another hauntingly insightful statement gives voice to it’s contrast (sigh) – “Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.” (This makes me cry!)
Interestingly, last evening as I sat down to read, a fellow inmate saw the book and couldn’t resist the “opportunity” to apprise me of his particular take on just why the holocaust did not take place…
Today, your newest edition of the Nuclear Resister arrived. What utter joy it brought me to read it through!
Blessings, love and prayer…
Norm Lowry
Norm was arrested at a military recruiting office on August 1, 2011.