Living on the near West Side, it’s impossible to ignore the roar of jet planes overhead every Labor Day weekend during the Cleveland National Air Show. It’s also been impossible for me to ignore the messages I believe are conveyed there: that war is glamorous; that warmaking is fun family entertainment; that might makes right; that the militarization of our society and our economy is the “price of freedom.”
Since moving here twelve years ago, my family and I have participated in an annual peace witness outside the Air Show gates with the Cleveland Catholic Worker community. We hold signs that try to encourage reflection on our national priorities. We pass out “seeds of peace” in opposition to the seeds of war planted by the jet fighters and military recruiters. We fold and distribute paper “peace planes” to children.
Several years ago, my wife Marge wrote a reflection for the Catholic Worker newspaper on some of the reasons for our family’s participation in this witness:
“Our handouts are very appealing to children who come with their folks. They eagerly take anything freely offered them, not having acquired the cynical attitude of adults who look suspiciously on anything from a stranger. It’s the willingness of children to take so eagerly what is offered that worries me so much about the air show. I would suspect the vast majority of parents bringing their children there do so for the thrill they expect they’ll experience at seeing those incredible stunts. Not many, I would guess, go with the intention of showing their children the glory of war. But how can we not think they’ll soak up that message as well? How can we naively believe they’ll go and have a good time and be amazed by the stunts, and not believe they’ll also come away with the impression that the army and the navy and the wars they plan and train for are also amazing and glamorous.
“Our presence outside the gate is not a condemnation of those who go inside. There is nothing inherently evil in people watching stunt planes perform. Our presence is more an exhortation to stop and think. Think about the connection between the financiers behind the air show and their real goals of recruitment and persuasion. Think about the pull they have on our sons and daughters.”
Resisting this pull on my children and me — in ways visible, clear, and direct — is why I go. I want my children to believe that the messages they heard from Marge and me when they were younger — “people are not for hitting, use words to tell your friend that you’re angry; pulling toys away from your brother isn’t allowed, let’s figure out a way to play that feels fair to both of you” — are not childish contrivances to be discarded when one grows up. I want my children to believe that the skills for resolving conflict we try to live by at home don’t have to be checked at our front door. I want my children to have the courage to challenge the assumptions made about the rightness, the efficacy, the inevitability of war, even (and especially) in times like these.
For me, this is an impossible task to do alone. But I’m not alone. I stand on the shoulders of a tradition of peacemaking that has made its home on the near West Side for over 30 years. I have the privilege of living and struggling to build community with friends from whom I learn, with whom I strategize and organize, and to whom my children can go to find support in believing that another world is not only possible, but already happening. I want my children to learn from the struggle and celebration of sustaining a community committed to doing the work of justice. I want my children to believe that this work is worth doing.
So we’ll be back this year at the Air Show, with our seeds of peace, our signs and our peace planes. We’ll look up as the Air Force Thunderbirds roar overhead and imagine a world and a country that supported reconciliation and justice rather than the destruction of war. And sooner than I’m ready, I’ll send off my children, now 17 and 13, to find their own way, and hope that the seeds of peace this community strived to plant in them will ripen into a bountiful harvest in their own lives.
This year, we are also planning something different. The Cleveland Catholic Worker Community and the Cleveland Nonviolence Network invites your family to “The Peace Show: Free Concert at the Free Stamp” on Labor Day, Monday, September 2, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Willard Park, on the northwest corner of East 9th and Lakeside Avenue in downtown Cleveland. A sound stage will feature local musicians and performers. Childrens’ activities will include face painting, sidewalk chalk, bubbles, peace cranes, peace planes and more. Bring lawn chairs or a blanket and a picnic lunch. Call me at 216-771-1142 for more information.