Lightning East to West
Jesus, Gandhi, and the Nuclear Age
Foreword by Raymond Hunthausen
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
We live in that final time which offers humans the clearest choice in history: the kingdom or the holocaust, Jim Douglass writes. Either end is a lightning east to west: the nuclear holocaust a lightning fire, the kingdom of Reality a lightning spirit. We will choose lightning east to west today as either nuclear fire or the kingdom of God, as either despair and annihilation or transformation through nonviolence. If we look to Jesus and Gandhi, and what they point to, we can hope to choose the lightning fire of nonviolence.
Jim Douglass is a writer and a Catholic Worker. He and his wife Shelley are co-founders of the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Poulsbo, WA, and Mary's House, a Catholic Worker house of hospitality in Birmingham, AL. He is currently writing three books on the assassinations of the Kennedys, Malcom X and King in the 1960's (with Orbis Books).
The James Douglass Reprint Series:
The Non-Violent Cross
Resistance and Contemplation
Lightning East to West
The Nonviolent Coming of God
"After I first read 'Lightning East to West', I was so moved that I immediately read it again. The book, each time, led me to some deep place of peace and emptiness and compassion. At the same time, it pushed me, encouraged me to take new risks, speak out, cross lines, and give my life for global peace through universal love. Reading this book is an experience of prayer, because it disarms, heals and draws us deeper into our inner, contemplative sources, the mystical depths of transforming nonviolence."
John Dear (from the Afterword)
"A wonderfully clear account of the relevance of spiritual energy to human potential in the concrete encounter with nuclear militarism."
Richard Falk, Princeton University
"Lightning East to West is one of the most moving and challenging spiritual journals of our time."
Robert McAfee Brown