The author under arrest, March 2003 (photo by Charlie Jenks)

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten
that we belong to each other.
—Mother Teresa
________________________

When I look back on my life, one moment stands out to me because of the courage and beauty I experienced that day – and yes, the feeling of liberation.

In March 2003, I took part in an act of civil disobedience along with 53 other people in Western Massachusetts.

It was, as you may remember, the onset of the war in Iraq. On the day after spring started, and three days after the war officially began, our group walked to the entrance of Westover Air Force Base in Chicopee, MA. We were accompanied by more than 2,000 people who were raising their voices for peace as the drums of war were being sounded by the U.S. government. Westover was one of the bases from which heavy equipment was being sent to Iraq to enable the war.

I was pretty scared. I’d never done anything like that before.

While we were well prepared from hours of training in nonviolence and equipped with information and support if we were arrested (phone number of lawyers to call, friends in our affinity group who promised to feed our pets and water our plants if need be), you never know what will really happen when you put yourself in a position of being subject to police action. All kinds of questions were buzzing in my mind… what would actually happen to us in jail? how long would we have to stay? how would having an arrest on my record affect my future ability to get jobs or housing?

As we walked through the neighborhood that surrounded the Air Force base, we got a mixed reception from the residents, many of whom were friends or family of those stationed at the base. Some cheered our signs and our presence, others were clearly displeased and gave us the finger or worse. I drew on every ounce of my meditation and lovingkindness practice to meet whatever the reaction we encountered with compassion and understanding. It wasn’t easy.

By the time we got to the entrance gate of the base, the gravity of what we were about to do began to sink in.

We had once last chance to make a decision about how far we wanted to engage in this action.  Ultimately 54 of us committed to actually sitting on the road, blocking the way in to the base. Our commitment to each other was to stay there, practicing nonviolence, no matter what.

At first, I could feel my heart fluttering with fear and I felt tentative about taking part in this action. But as we sat down next to each other, a song started to well up… “Ain’t Gonna Study War No More.” All 54 of us began to sing and we were joined by our 2,000 friends on the sidelines who stood in support of us. Courage began to grow.

After a while, the police captain picked up his megaphone and gave us the obligatory warning – if we did not move in 5 minutes, we would be subject to arrest. Our singing only grew louder. Someone had a ball of thread and began passing it around the group, and we created a web of connection between each other.

Fear started to be replaced by something else… a feeling I don’t think I’ve ever had before or since.

When I say it was a feeling of liberation, I don’t use that word lightly. Something huge broke open in me as we all continued to sit there on the pavement and sing together, no matter what the consequences.

We faced a wall of police officers, batons held upright, handcuffs ready to be used. And yet we sang.

I remembered some of the lines from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s letter from the Birmingham jail:

I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

As each of us was arrested and put into the school bus that served as our paddy wagon, the crowd let out a cheer.

This was one of the most beautiful moments I have ever experienced in my life, surrounded and embraced by a community of people who were unified in their commitment to peace and justice for all.

The hours that followed were tedious rather than exciting. But it didn’t matter because it felt like something essential inside of me had shifted.

Those of us under arrest were corralled into the cold, concrete basement garage at the police station and waited our turn for processing. The high point of that portion of the day for me was sitting next to the Buddhist monks and nuns from the Peace Pagoda, who were also arrested, and learning how to fold paper peace cranes with them.

By the time I was released (I opted to post bail and return for a hearing later), it was near midnight, more than 14 hours after we started our walk that morning. Friends were waiting for me, and one gave me a button that I still have: “I was arrested for disturbing the war.” It was another moment of great gratitude and connection.

I’m taking a political stand in this post, but my intention is not to exclude you if your politics aren’t the same as mine. Nor does it mean that you have to do exactly the same thing that I did. Civil disobedience is not for everyone.

What I want to share here is the sense of liberation that comes when you commit to a deeply held value and follow this commitment through, no matter where it leads.

Often it entails some kind of sacrifice, because so much of the way our society is constructed is at odds with those values.

We get things mixed up. We think that we’re “free” because we’re not in a literal prison, because we can go shopping whenever we want, we can get in a car and drive wherever we want. What we are missing is that we are actually imprisoned by a set of subtle and often invisible conditions that keep us complicit with systems that deprive us of our connection to each other, our creativity, our innate beauty, and our sense of agency.

The great feeling of liberation I experienced on that day in 2003 came from that moment when I could see clearly through all that to what really mattered and break out of the prison of my own fear. And that was one beautiful moment.

How about you? What are you willing to stand up for? What prison are you ready to break out of?

___________

I’d love to stay in touch with you! When you sign up for my mailing list, you’ll receive my monthly newsletter with reflections on life and liberation, as well as my e-book, “9 Keys to a Liberated Life.”