The LADY in the GARDEN

On a picture-post-card date near the swirling
Serpentine sway of the wide Schuylkill River
Meandering through Central Philly's park garden,

Towered over by leaning elms, while 3 long canoes
Swift by to the paddling of Ivy League rowers.
Gazing at my dear partner in this verdant garden;

My Friendly girl, Karen--ebony caped-round
In waist-length hair like a swaying black cloak--
She's an aspiring concert violinist and rights activist;

Vivid in her red chambray shirt and Levis, she
Converses intensely of King's D.C. March in 3 weeks,
Me listening intently to my companion in the garden.

I, the drafted conscientious objector, work for Uncle Sam
With forsaken kids confined to sterile mental wards,
Disturbed by parents' wrong living; but still am

So youthfully focused on my comely girlfriend’s
Figured shape more than humanity’s ship of state.
A warm date with my dear companion in the garden.

We sit cross-legged on a wide lush parkway green,
Getting ready to munch our carefully bagged meal
Of 2 peanut butter and grape sandwiches,

Yet we discuss war’s ravages in far-off Nam
And Bob Dylan's 'hard rained' croons.
Loving my dear concerned friend in the garden

But then I inhale a fuming putrid odor;
Twist my neck and see this bagged lady in a filthy rag
Of a dress lunging slowly forward, hanging

Onto her trashy mesh of a shopping bag, her rancid
Stench to high heaven wafts, and I pinch my nose;
Turn back to Karen, not this intruder in the garden.

But lo and hold--my violinist, instead, rises
And welcomes the old hag, “Hi Lady, will you join us
For our little Sunday snack here in the warm sun?”

The homeless stranger sprawls haggardly on our grass,
Her grimy shift wrinkling on her scraggly legs.
Karen gazes warmly at this unknown one in the garden

I'm all upside-down in my face as this invader,
Reaches out her grubby hand to our blanket,
Grabs one of our 2 sandwiches, and half crams

It in her narrow jaws, chews open-mouthed and teethed,
While I fume, separated from my date
By this chomping vagrant in our parked garden.

But then I awake, remembering almost too late,
The very deep story about the least of these; I turn,
And finally join my dear musician's caring psalm,

We now communing 3 of human kind,
Under these verdant swaying trees of warmth.
Sharing friends,--in this present park garden.


--Dan Wilcox

First pub. in The Oak Bend Review
in different form;
in Selah River, a collection of Daniel's
published poetry,
And before, in Dark Energy, a book of poems by Daniel
published by Diminuendo Press


In the LIGHT,

Dan Wilcox

The Lady in Our Garden

The Lady in Our Garden

A picture-post-card date near the swirling
Serpentine sway of the wide Schuylkill River

Meandering through Central Philly's park garden,
Towered over by leaning elms, while 3 long canoes
Swift by to the paddling of Ivy League collegians.
Gazing at my dear companion in our garden

My Friendly girl, Karen, chestnut-caped round
In waist-length hair like a swaying black ephod,
Vivid in her red chambray shirt and blue jeans,
Is an aspiring concert violinist but converses
Passionately of King's March to D.C. in 3 months.
Listening to my dear companion in the garden

I, the principled drafted objector, work for Uncle Sam
With forsaken kids confined to sterile mental wards
Disturbed by parents' wrong living, but still am
So youthfully focused on my beautiful girlfriend’s
Figured shape than humanity’s ship of state.
Desiring my dear companion in our garden

We sit cross-legged on a wide lush parkway green,
Getting ready to eat our carefully bagged meal
Of 2 peanut butter and grape sandwiches
As we discuss war’s ravages in far-off Nam
And Bob Dylan's 'hard rained' croons.
Loving my dear companion in the garden

But then I inhale a fuming putrid odor;
Twist my neck and see this bagged lady in a filthy rag
Of a dress lunging slowly forward, hanging
Onto her ugly mesh of a shopping bag, her rancid
Stench to high heaven wafts and I pinch my nose.
Focusing instead on my companion in our garden

But lo and hold it! my violinist instead rises
And welcomes that old hag, “Hi Lady, will you join us
For our delicious Sunday snack here in the warm sun?”
The homeless alien sprawls haggardly on our grass,
Her wretched, spotted, shift wrinkling on her scraggly legs.
Karen gazes at this unknown companion in the garden

I am all upside-down in my face as this invader,
This illegal, reaches out a grubby, dirty hand,
Grabs one of our 2 sandwiches, and half crams
It in her narrow jaws, chews open-mouthed and teethed,
Me fuming at this chomping ugly interloper.
Separating my dear companion in our garden

But then awake, remembering almost too late,
The very old story about the least of these, turn,
And finally join my dear musician's psalm,
We a communing 3 of human kind,
Under those verdant swaying trees of compassion.
Sharing, so dear companions in our Garden


--Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in The Oak Bend Review
in different form;
in selah river, a collection of Daniel's
published poetry.



In the Light of Sharing,

Daniel Wilcox

Part #2: From Baptist Warrior to Friendly Conscientious Objector

My Life Journey TimeLine--
Lifestance, Philosophies, and Spiritual Seeking

Age 17, 1964 Drastic Change #2

(For ages 4? to 17, see Part #1)

Gung-ho for Goldwater for president, promoting the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam, Christian warrior-to-be. God and Country.

BUT then the conservative Baptist edifice of ethical and political understanding came crashing down one Saturday evening at Youth for Christ when an avid Christian girl strongly disagreed with my militant support of the war including the bombing of Hai Phong, Vietnam.

I don’t think I had ever considered enemy civilians as real live people like you and me. They were all our communist enemies who needed to be destroyed for God, for Christ.

She demanded, politely, that I face what I was really saying.

She asked, Would Jesus gun down other humans? Would Jesus push the button that dropped napalm and other heavy bombs?

(In Vietnam War, the U.S. would drop more bombs than all of WWII!! At least 1,450,000 (maybe 2 million) civilians would die in the war, and millions more would be wounded. About 1,250,000 Vietnamese soldiers would die, and over 58,000 American soldiers. Also, remember many people died in Laos and Cambodia, too.)

Stunned, I kept dialoguing with her, while she emphasized for me to go back and study the Sermon on the Mount more thoroughly.

Up to age 17, it had been my understanding that in the Matthew text, Jesus was talking about personal enemies, such as a grumpy relative or the malicious next-door neighbor.

But I soon discovered, that on the contrary, Jesus was saying we ought to love the Roman soldiers (or any other enemy soldiers) who’ve invaded our country, abused us, oppressed us, killed us!

Whew! NO one else, not a single other Christian was saying ethical stuff like this. I studied the Sermon on the Mount intensely. Read various opposing views.

And I struggled immensely for months. I had already invited the Navy, Army, and Air Force recruiters out months previously to decide which military branch to join after high school; probably, the Navy like my dad and 2 of my uncles, but wanted to make a wise choice.

Now all of that was shot-to-heaven;-) by the Sermon on the Mount.

Finally at 18, contrary to everyone I knew except this one Christian family, and one former missionary (who seemed to view war similar to Desmond Doss),
I registered for the Draft as a Conscientious Objector.

I was going against my parents, my relatives, our Baptist church, nearly everyone I knew. And I lost my best friend because of my anti-war stance.
Yet, I really did think this was the way of Jesus.

Then I had to go before my draft board and answer their difficult questions about my commitment to Jesus’ ethics, etc.

Before C-O service, I worked one summer as a mission volunteer on the Cheyenne Reservation in southern Montana, near the Little Bighorn Battlefield (Custer's Last Stand).

I did youth work for Mennonite Missions and talked with a new friend, a Friend, one of a Quaker family doing reconciliation work on the reservation.

The town hall, Brent Barksdale Community Center in Lame Deer, had been built years earlier by a young adult Quaker Work-Team.

After I was drafted in the spring of 1967, I got assigned to serve at mental hospital if I continued to refuse military service.

I did the C-O service at Eastern State School and Hospital in Pennsylvania, just a hop and jump of history from Washington’s infamous crossing, escaping from the British.

And also living for weeks in Haight-Asbury as a spiritual hippie who didn’t do drugs, had never tasted alcohol--but will skip all of that--
this is a philosophical timeline, not an autobiography:-)

Age 20, 1967 Here come the Quakers

Working at a mental hospital with schizophrenic, autistic, and sociopathic children and teens, (after driving my van—the Mystical Hippopotamus—across the nation to near Philadelphia).

When I visited a Baptist church there, it was shocking, and disconcerting to hear the minister claim that the King James Bible was the only Bible, etc.!

Having already long ago—when I was about 13—ceased to believe in inerrancy, and knowing that the KJB wasn’t even the most accurate Bible in translation from the Greek and Hebrew, I left early, may have even skipped out before the sermon finished. Delusionary.

Also, most Baptists were very pro-Vietnam War, and Mennonites while against the war, tended to be as literalistic as Baptists when it came to the Bible.
Where could I find liberal theists?

About then, I remembered the Quaker option, the Society of Friends came into view, me remembering the good times I had spent dialoguing with the Quakers on the Cheyenne Reservation a year earlier.

And from my first introduction to Quakerism back in 1960, at about 13, when I saw them on the TV news opposing nuclear weapons. Who were they?
They mystified me, that some Christians weren’t in favor of the atom bomb. But why? How idealistic.

Now I had the opportunity to find out more, maybe become a Friend.

One Sunday, I visited the local Friends Meetinghouse in Newtown, PA. This first experience was incredibly disappointing.

In a huge plain church, there was almost nobody there, maybe a several oldsters, and only one other young adult. I got acquainted with her by walking her part way home (coming back for my van later).

The Baptist church had been packed. Why so few Quakers?

Later I took the L-train into downtown Philly to Backbench Friends Meeting, a young adult gathering (on some of my weekends off; at the mental hospital, we worked a 10-days-on-4 days off schedule).

Then I was kicked out of my apartment because of the anti-war poster on the back window of my van, so I lived during the summer in it on a small island in a campground near Newtown, fording over
the concrete ramp, through the shallow stream morning and evening.

To be continued
ISRAELI KIBBUTZNIK
YOUTH MINISTER
HITCH-HIKER
TEACHER
AI MEMBER
ETC.

Impressionistic, Psychedelic Sunburst Quilt

My sweetheart created this sunburst quilt of color for me recently. What if I had gotten this quilt from her back when I drove my Chevy van across country in September 1967? On the side of my van I drew a sign which scrolled--The Mystical Hippopotamus.:-)

I got my first draft notice when I was living in Haight-Ashbury in February, had dropped out of Long Beach State where I was working on a degree in Creative Writing.

As a conscientious objector to war, that fall I headed for Philadelphia to work in a mental hospital with emotionally disturbed teens and children.

Long ago, and far away.

Living in the brilliant Light of Beauty,

Daniel Wilcox

"Why Did You Come to Iraq to Kill?" asked the Muslim of the American.

A true story from Iraq of a dialog between a Muslim jihadist and an American soldier:

"...a young U.S. soldier and evangelical
Christian, Joshua Casteel, was sent to the prison to work
as an Arab language interrogator.

One day, during his interrogation of a self-described
jihadist from Saudi Arabia, the contradictions became all
too glaring.

Eager to trip up this composed and confident
young Saudi, Joshua asked him, "Why did you come to
Iraq to kill?"

The young Saudi quickly turned the question
back on Joshua, asking, “Why did you come here to
kill?”

A lengthy discussion ensued in which both Joshua
and the young Saudi talked about their duty to their
people and their country...

Joshua noting his Christian
faith and the Saudi referencing his Muslim faith.

Finally, the young Saudi looked at Joshua and said,
“You claim to be a Christian, but you are not following
the teachings of Christ to love your enemies, to pray for
those that persecute you, and to turn the other cheek.”

Joshua immediately felt the irony of being schooled on
the Sermon on the Mount by a self-declared jihadist.

Joshua soon realized that he had lost all objectivity in the
interrogation and could no longer continue....

“We were both idealistic kids devoted to our people, and
devoted to our religions, willing to kill and to sacrifice...

"Wouldn’t it be great if we were both able to put down our
weapons and find a different path?”

This experience became the energizing catalyst leading
Joshua out of the military with a conscientious objector
discharge.

Joshua’s vibrant voice for peace,
sparked in the dark cauldron of war,
blessed many until his death
from cancer in 2012."

from "Returning Veterans, Returning Hope"
The Peace and Justice Support Network
www.PJSN.org/vets

What a heart-breaker and healer of a true story!

Do you know of a another story that could be included with ones like these?

Live for Peace and Justice in the Light,

Daniel Wilcox