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Gandhi Questions, Citizen Questions, Trends of Thought — William Stafford (1914-1993)

Source: https://www.williamstaffordarchives.org/

Following my address for Remembrance Sunday at this morning’s Service of Mindful Meditation, Music and Conversation I added the following questions posed by the poet, writer and pacifist, William Stafford (1914-1993) which were found in his notes for a high-school class discussion of pacifism. If invited, he would volunteer to visit classes to discuss writing, the creative process, and a life of witness.

(From Every War Has Two Losers: William Stafford on Peace and War, Milkwood Editions, 2005, p. 141)

GANDHI QUESTIONS, CITIZEN QUESTIONS, TRENDS OF THOUGHT

  • Can a good person be a good citizen in a bad country? Is there such a thing?
  • Can a good person be a good friend of a bad person?
  • Can you speak truth to power?
  • How loud do you have to say no to an evil command? Can you safely say yes? 
  • They give you a flag and watch to see how hard you wave it. 
  • Should your effort be to overcome those who oppose the good as you see it? — or should you try to redeem them? No matter who...
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My name is Andrew James Brown. I’m a philosophically/theologically inclined writer with sympathies towards Imaoka Shin’ichirō's understanding of a creative, inquiring, free and liberative religion/spirituality (jiyū shūkyō 自由宗教), Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism, Konkokyo, Christian non-theism, D. G. Leahy’s “thinking now occurring for the first time”, a Lucretian inspired religious naturalism, new materialism and Kyoto School philosophy; also a photographer, cyclist, walker and jazz bass player. In addition to this, I’m the minister of a small, liberal, free religious community in Cambridge (UK)

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