TRIDENT II PRUNING HOOKS

We come to Electric Boat in the spirit of Easter/Passover as six people struggling to be faithful to God's Law of Love.  We recall the ancient prophets' call: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks"  (Is. 2:4, Mi. 4:5)*  in response to this Biblical command we come to disarm components of the Trident II missile, a first-strike nuclear-weapon, the most inherently destabilizing weapon ever known.  With hammers of love, justice is forged and in the dawn the darkness is scattered.

We come to Quonset Point with rich traditions from the Jewish and Christian faiths to celebrate life's power over death and freedom's triumph over the slavery of killing and war.  We celebrate and work for the liberation of all peoples from oppression, as Passover commemorates; we celebrate Jesus' rising from the dead as the Easter feast recalls.

Disarmament is an act of faithfulness to the Covenant of Yahweh: "You shall love your God with your whole heart, mind, and soul, and your neighbor as yourself"  (Lk. 10:2?, Lv. 19:13, Dt. 6:5).

Disarmament is an act of hope.  "Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon and left one effort unexpended which might have saved the world" (Jane Addams).  Our hammers ring in a new day, the possibility of new life.  As certain as the returning Spring is the liberation of all humankind if we disarm our hearts and our weapons of war.

Disarmament is an act of love, for we love the earth and all its beauty, its creatures, its mountains, its flowers...  All these are threatened with total destruction by nuclear war and nuclear winter.  Nuclear weapons production, testing, and use over 40 years have already killed millions and endangered all others while also disrupting the ecological balance of life.  We love life and with our hearts and hammers we proclaim "NO!" to all that destroys life.  NO to first strike!  NO to General Dynamics! NO to Trident II!  YES to life!

We act out of a grave concern for humankind.  U.S. foreign policy relies heavily on its nuclear arsenal - use and threat of use - to back up its intervention practices and plans around the world.  As the U.S. government becomes increasingly committed to the first-strike use of immoral, illegal, and omnicidal weapons such as Trident II, MX, and Star Wars, the danger of nuclear holocaust escalates daily.

The priorities of our increasingly militarized society place these weapons of death over life.  30,000 children die daily around the world from hunger and malnutrition.  General Dynamics, the world's largest military-industrial contractor, leads us down the dark path to omnicide, the death of all life. In the face of such horrifying realities, we must remember and-live Martin Luther King's words: "The choice before us is no longer violence or nonviolence; the choice before us is nonviolence or non-existence."

Disarmament is an act of unity.  We have come together from different traditions and backgrounds.  We have conspired to carry out the work of peace and justice, not as six individuals, but as one community.  We plead for all our sisters and brothers to cast aside their fears and join us in disarming their hearts and our nuclear weapons.

We honor the broken and broken-hearted  of the world by breaking and sharing of the breads - matza, bread of resistance, representing the rush to freedom, and leavened bread, the symbol of Christ, the manifestation of God's love among us.  In our sharing of this meal and our vision of a nuclear-free world, we celebrate another liberating deed, for this sunrise witnesses yet another act of disarmament at Quonset Point.

Let our hammers ring out the good news!  Alleluia!