Spirit in Action

Marty Webb/Nonviolent Peaceforce

Marty Webb has spent the last 6 months in Sri Lanka with his wife, Rita, where she's been serving the Nonviolent Peaceforce since 2003. Marty, raised Catholic, was refused CO status during the Vietnam War, and ended up convicted for refusing induction.

Duration:: 59m
Broadcast on:: 25 Dec 2005
Audio Format:: mp3

I have no hands but yours to tend my sheep. No handkerchief but yours to dry the eyes of those who weep. I have no arms but yours with which to hold. The ones grown weary from the struggle and weak from growing old. I have no voice but yours with which to see. To let my children know that I am out and out is everything. I have no way to feed the hungry souls. No clothes to give and make it the ragged and the morn. So be my heart, my hand, my tongue, through you I will be done. Fingers have I none to help I'm done. Welcome to Spirit in Action, my name is Mark helps me. Each week I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service. Above all, I'll seek out light, love and helping hands, being shared between our many neighbors on this planet, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. Today's Spirit in Action interview is with Marty Webb. Marty has spent the last six months in Sri Lanka with his wife Rita where she's been serving the non-violent peace force since 2003. Marty, raised Catholic, was refused CO status during the Vietnam War and ended up convicted for refusing induction. Marty's experience in confronting the draft and the alternate service he ended up performing became a turning point in his life. He eventually ended up in Eau Claire, got first an undergraduate degree in Philosophy, then an MA in Religion and Theology. Marty has attended the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Eau Claire since about 1990 and has taught ethics courses at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. Thanks Marty for joining me for Spirit in Action. How are you doing today with this wonderful winter weather after your time over in Sri Lanka? Unlike most of the people in town, I'm loving this winter weather, I think, because for the last seven months in Sri Lanka, I've had day after day of the dampest, most humid August that I can ever remember spending. Sri Lanka, except in the highlands, is always August. So this, for me, is a very refreshing change. I loved winter even before I left, more than most of my friends, and so the snow and the cold is fine. And for a six-week hiatus, I will enjoy it immensely. I can relate my time in Equatorial Africa when I was part of the Peace Corps was an experience of sweating for two years. You're going right back to Sri Lanka after this six-week hiatus, and do you anticipate staying there for the foreseeable future or is there a limited time? Well, I'm in Sri Lanka because my wife is in Sri Lanka, and she's working with, as you know, a group called the Nonviolent Peace Force. It's difficult to say how long we'll be there. She has just had her visa extended, as well as her colleagues. Visas have been extended through March of 2007, but the commitment that she originally made for two years, and which has now stretched beyond that, could end at any time, you know, the job could become so frustrating or another opportunity could come up in this kind of work that could take us to a different part of the world. Or the situation in Sri Lanka could deteriorate to the point where even an NGO like Nonviolent Peace Force, which theoretically would be the last one to leave, might also have to leave the country, or might be asked to leave the country. So it's a tenuous situation in that regard. It's hard to say when we'd be back, if all goes well, we'd probably be back toward the end of next summer for another visit. But the commitment there right now is somewhat open-ended. What is Rita doing there, and what is your role in Sri Lanka? Well, Rita's part of this inaugural project by this international group called Nonviolent Peace Force. Their mission is somewhat complex, but I guess the easiest way to describe it would be to say that Nonviolent Peace Force goes into situations, or at least went into a situation in Sri Lanka, of 20 years of civil war, which has now been broken ever so slightly by a ceasefire, which has lasted for tenuously, for two or three years, and not always successfully. The supposition is that in most violent war-torn situations, the majority of people would want peace if they could get it, and that there are always peacemakers in these countries who are striving at great risk to themselves to establish peaceful solutions to problems rather than violent solutions, but that these local peacemakers are intimidated and sometimes killed by those who have a vested interest in violent solutions. What Nonviolent Peace Force operates on is the supposition that if local peacemakers are accompanied by, assisted by, supported by, internationals who share the same values, that the local peacemakers will have a better chance to prevail in terms of situations on the ground in places like Sri Lanka, so whereas local peacemakers might not be able to find their voice in the absence of international support, nonviolent peace force tries to provide that international support, to say to local peacemakers, you are important, you have the solutions to problems, but you're not able perhaps to implement them, as well as you might because of intimidation, threats of violence. The mere presence of support of international people is frequently enough to provide safety in that for you. First they came for the Communists, then they came for the Jews, but I wasn't a Communist, and I wasn't a Jew, so I didn't stand up, and I didn't ask why. By the time they came for me, there was nobody left to even try, Then they came for the pacifists, then they came for the priests, but I wasn't a pacifist, and I wasn't a priest, so I didn't stand up, and I didn't ask why. By the time they came for me, there was nobody left to even try. Then they came for the Unionists, and they came for the gays, but I wasn't a Unionist, and I wasn't a Jew, so I didn't stand up, so I didn't stand up, and I didn't ask why, and I didn't ask why. By the time they came for me, by the time they came for me, there was nobody left to even try. Now they come for the Muslims, and they come for the refugees, though I am not Muslim, and I'm not a refugee, now I will stand up, now I will stand up, and I will ask why, and I will ask why, when someday they come for me, and when someday they come for me, I hope there's someone standing by my side. Yes we will stand up. Yes we will stand up. Oh yes we will ask why. Yes we will ask why. And when someday they come for you, there'll be lots of people standing by your side, a world of people standing side by side. I read in her teammates, work with local peacemakers in the eastern district of Sri Lanka, trying to see that the ceasefire evolves into something like a permanent solution to the problems in Sri Lanka, and next to that very important work that she does, the things that I have done since my arrival in June or July have been more or less trivial, but we agreed when she went in 2003, she made a two-year commitment to this, and the idea was I would stay home in Eau Claire, and when I went to visit her last year just about this time, right, at the time of tsunami, it became obvious to me that's the first time I was seeing Sri Lanka that she loved the work, and with her two-year commitment coming to an end, some of the most important work was still ahead. She wouldn't have ever asked, but I suggested that perhaps if I moved there, she could continue the work for a longer period and see it to a successful conclusion, and over the course of that three-week visit last January, we decided that that's exactly what would happen. So what I'm doing is I'm supporting her. She and I rent a house in the town where she works, and we are living a life as comfortable as we possibly could, given the circumstances, and I think that has enabled her to continue doing her work with nonviolent peace forces. Nonviolent peace forces in an organization, like many organizations, does not hire spouses, does not hire married couples as teams, so I have been involved in a few other projects to date, and when I go back, we'll see about hooking up with some more. There are always things to do in countries like this. After tsunami, a number of school children in the area raised a good deal of money to help with some restoration projects, and I took that money over there from specifically school children from Altoona and Falk Creek, and we've worked with a group of parents who are building a library addition onto a school in an area that was badly damaged by tsunami. I've been working in that project. I spent six weeks as an election monitor with a group called the People's Alliance for Free and Fair Elections, because the Sri Lankans had a presidential election this past fall, and so I was one of the international election monitors for six weeks prior to the election, and I've worked with some local groups of people in Valentina, different minor projects, where I felt I could help, based on years I spent doing administrative type things here in the U.S. I think you probably shouldn't discount your role. You know, the great saying that behind every great woman, there's a man who's supporting her. It's wonderful that you comfortably feel that role. What is it like in Sri Lanka now? I mean, obviously you don't care for the climate so far. What are the people like? What's your experience? Do you like being there? Well, the people are marvelous. The people, I think, are marvelous. Almost everywhere you go, everybody is thrilled to see that there are people in the international community who care about Sri Lanka, who even know about Sri Lanka. So there's that situation. Also, because of the 20 years history of violence, there is a certain degree of fear, or maybe I should say apprehension, in the part of people who are always struggling with the idea of how they can best live their lives and keep their children safe and things that we take for granted in our country, to the extent that they know and see that we're there to assist in that process. However we can, we're greeted and made to feel very much at home. It's a very different country than the U.S. It's got an interesting religious mix which plays, unfortunately, into some of the history of violence that they've experienced. We live in a community that is half Tamil Hindu and half Muslim. And the split between the two sides of town is stark. We live about 200 meters from Main Street in our house in what happens to be the Muslim section of town. And it's all Muslims. And across the Main Street, you will find the Tamils, and they come together during the day to shop in the various market stalls on Main Street. But at the end of the day, when the sun goes down at 6.30, which it does every day, another one of the things I miss about not being in Wisconsin is the change of seasons. When the sun goes down, everybody goes back to their sides and there's kind of a level of mistrust there. Also, the political situation has hardened. Perhaps would be the best way to say it in the last several months. The Tamil Tigers, which has been the main rebel group fighting for independence for the Tamil people in Sri Lanka for the last 20 or so years, has suffered a group splitting away from them, challenging their authority, which has led to some internecine struggles between those two groups. And that's been a problem. A complicating factor in Valachina, the town that we live in, is that in addition to the Tamils fighting each other now, at least on some level, the Muslims have been an excluded group from the political arena in Sri Lanka. There is a majority population of Sinhalese speakers who are largely Buddhist by religion. And they live primarily in the southern part of the country. And because they're the majority, they control the power in this democracy at this point. Tamils felt excluded. Muslims have also, as a minority, felt excluded. And so there are groups of Muslims that are now clamoring for a seat at the table while everybody sits down to discuss what kind of a solution will be worked out to this problem. It seems to me extremely unlikely that an island, which is half the size of Wisconsin, is going to be able to support two countries. One might argue it's not even large enough to support one country. So the Tamil Tigers will ultimately be unsuccessful in gaining a homeland, a country of their own. On a portion of this island, some solution is going to have to be worked out, however, which devolves power from the capital so that local people have more power and control over their lives. And so the Tamil people who formed the majority in the north in a large subset of the east will be able to have some control over their own lives, speak their own language in the local courts or in the local schools or those kinds of concerns. Muslims are going to want that kind of power as well, local power, whereas for most of the past 20 years, the Tamils have said to the Muslims, "Trust us, when we get our own homeland, you'll be well taken care of." Now, large groups of Muslims are saying that's no longer satisfactory and we want peace. We feel threatened by the ongoing -- they are threatened by the ongoing hostilities, even at the low level they're at now, and they want a voice as the solution is worked out. There was a presidential election, which I referred to when I was talking about some of the things I've worked on. The newly elected president is considered perhaps something of a hardliner in terms of negotiating with the Tamil Tigers, and this may also serve as an obstacle. The Tigers have responded officially that they're willing to wait and see in terms of how the new president negotiates, but those of us who live in the east, and especially those who live in the north, some of whom are Rita's colleagues, have noticed that the level of violence seems to have increased somewhat over the last several months. Are the Tamils of a particularly religious group? Are the Hindus primarily, and Muslims aren't part of that group? The Tamils are Hindus, as you've indicated. The Muslims are not, obviously, Hindus. They're Tamil speakers. If they live in the east, they're Sinilla speakers. If they live in the south, the difference between the Muslims and the Tamils and the Sinilies is a religious difference rather than a language difference. All of these people, the Muslims, the Tamils, the Sinilies have been on this island for an amazingly long time. When the Sinilies majority talks about the Tamils going back to India, or the Muslims going back to Indonesia, or Indonesia, wherever they might have come from 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 200 years ago, they're talking about a situation which is confusing to Tamils and Muslims because they consider the Sri Lanka as their home as well. All these people lived together as part of the British Empire when it was Ceylon, and when Ceylon became an independent state for the first several years, they were looked at as a success story because these people lived together then as well too. But Sinilla nationalists, nationalist leaders back in the 70s made some political blunders, or maybe they were politically successful moves in that they got elected, but the cost of the country wound up being terrible. Sinilies in Tamil has always been seen as coal languages in the country, for instance, and the Sinilies majority at some point said, "Sinilla only." If you're speaking Tamil, you are not speaking the official language of the country and you need to either learn Sinilla or go back someplace else where they speak Tamil. Those kinds of decisions gradually made the significant minority of Tamil speakers and the significant minority of Muslims also, to a certain extent, feel like the Buddhist majority in the country, the Sinilla-speaking Buddhist majority was looking for a situation where the country would be unanimously Sinilla-speaking and Buddhist rather than just majority Sinilies and Buddhists. Even the name of the country Sri Lanka, those are Sinilies words that reflects for some people the idea that perhaps minorities are not going to be tolerated. Marty, I want to start tracing some of what got you, and maybe Rita, to where you are in your life. So let's start out with the child. I believe you were raised Irish Catholic. Were you an altar boy in all that? Did you go to Catholic schools? Did all that? Went to those schools. I was the oldest of eight children growing up in a suburb of Chicago back in the 50s. That golden, gauzy era when all of us lived the perfect childhoods going to our parochial schools. While I was growing up in Chicago, my wife to be was growing up in a very similar kind of a family in a suburb of St. Louis, going to the same kinds of schools. So for both Rita and myself, our background is, to the extent that we have a religious background, it's certainly we were both raised Catholics and grew up in Catholic schools. Somewhere along the way, I think you became disenchanted with your Catholicism. You start having doubts. Can you name any particular steps that led you to that doubt? I don't know if I can name particular steps. I think of all of us, not all of us. I think a large number of people, when they reach their teens or late teens or early twenties, begin to experience or question some of the received wisdom that was part of their childhood. And I don't think my experience was much different than that, rather than there being a catharctic moment. Some Catholics at that time, for instance, point of Vatican II, where they say, you know, when the Latin disappeared from the mass, the mystery went out of the sacraments. And it was the mystery that they enjoyed. I didn't have that feeling. I certainly did master those Latin responses to the mass. And I can still rattle some of those off, frighteningly enough, taking up brain storage space all these years later. But I think the first great disappointment I had with Catholicism as an institution came during the Vietnam War, especially in the mid to late sixties, when I was faced with a decision about what I would do, personally, if confronted with having to participate in the Vietnam War. It became painfully apparent to me that Catholicism as an institution, far from being a model of, let's say, positions that we might associate with Jesus of Nazareth, for instance, was institutionally a supporter of the war. In fact, the South Vietnamese leaders were Roman Catholics, and many Catholic leaders supported the American war in Vietnam, certainly in the early days. When I presented myself at my local draft board to request conscientious objector status, after dropping out of college and losing my student deferment, the people in the draft board told me that Catholics would have a very hard time being conscientious objectors because Catholics had a long, glorious history of warlike support for their country. I mean, that was the first time I had to look at my religious background. It wasn't something that I had. I mean, I didn't grow up dreaming of being a pre-straining like that. But, you know, it was always something I was comfortable in. All of my friends went to the same schools I did. We were all part of that Irish Catholic mix, whether we were Irish or not. The Vietnam experience forced me to look at that and say, "Are there things that I was taught in my upbringing in schools like Love One Another?" and that sort of thing that contrasted mightily with the institutional position that said we ought to expend much violent energy, making sure that some Catholics get to rule South Vietnam, and that I would have to contribute my own life directly to that at some point as well. I mean, it was comfortable enough to look the other way when I wasn't faced with that question. But once I was faced with the question, I had to deal with that. And at that point Catholicism, specifically Christianity, maybe in general, became something of a disappointment to me. Could you talk a little bit about the course of your CO application? Well, of course, when my CO application was short and bittersweet, I applied for conscientious objector status, you know, filled out the appropriate paperwork, met with my draft board, personally, and for the hearing, got the very strong sense from that meeting that my request was going to be looked upon unfavorably as it was. This would have been, when I was in my early 20s now, I was not, at that point, I wouldn't call myself a staunch Catholic. I wouldn't attend church quite irregularly. And I remember one of the members of the draft board coming out as I was leaving the room saying something to me like, "Regardless of how this turns out, Son, I certainly hope you get back to church on a regular basis." I could sense from comments like that that I had not in any way been adequately prepared to explain or defend my conscientious objector status. I wasn't part of any organized group that had a ready-made set of answers. I suppose if I was perhaps a Quaker, certainly a Mennonite, there would have been a long tradition behind me and that would have been understandable. But the only religious background I had to fall back on was Catholicism, which was failing me here in this stand. So they turned me down, classified me 1A, which meant that I was going to be probably conscripted fairly soon. I attempted at that point to enroll or to apply to the Peace Corps and VISTA and other groups that brought with them a deferment, and where I could feel like I was contributing usefully because the idea of government service or community service is not one that I, I mean, that wasn't the part of military service that appalled me. It was what we were going to be asked to do and what I was going to be asked to do with regard to military service. Peace Corps and VISTA people all told me that given my 1A status, they could not accept me at that point. So I put it around with jobs, waited for the inevitable announcement to come and it did. I had been doing this all on my own. At that time, I consulted some draft council people who said, "My goodness, if you're going to do this, let's see if we can get you some legal representation." This was not an unusual situation. By the time this was happening, 69, 70, much public opinion was turning against the war at this point. So I think probably it was late '68 when I was first inducted and then scheduled for induction. I met with an attorney who was recommended to me, volunteered his services through the American Friends Service Committee, which was very active then with the draft counseling. Still are. Presented myself for induction, was sent home by the people who said that I should think this over before I ruined my life and was subsequently scheduled for induction again about eight or ten months later. And at that time when I was at the draft center, I was pulled from the group, they had spotted something in my behavior that they felt was going to be disruptive. They were used to looking for these things by now, arrested by the FBI, who came down to the induction center and took me off and loaned me to the Chicago police overnight so that I could be presented to a magistrate the next day and was released on bond fairly quickly after that. The magistrate saying in, I remember US counsel, the US attorney's office saying there should be a very high bond and the magistrate said if this young man was going to leave, he would have left already. I think it's fairly strong possibility that he'll show up in court. Subsequently, I received scariest paper I ever received in my life in the mail, a document which said the people of the United States of America versus Martin C. Webb and I thought to myself, well, I've really done it now, this doesn't seem fair. But if I thought to myself, if I survive this, nothing else will ever be quite so scary again. I was tried in federal district court in Chicago, convicted of refusing induction by a jury that did not seem very sympathetic at all to what my plight was. The judge in the case at that point had typically sentenced draft refusors to three years in prison, which meant minimum security federal prison not hard time by any means, but a waste of time usually reduced to about two years and four months or something for good behavior. If you could behave well, which would have been comparable to military service, I would certainly be able to look at myself in the face every morning and say I wasn't being asked to do things that I couldn't do. There was about a 30 day period after conviction before sentencing. I was told to meet with the probation office for a pre-sentence investigation. The probation officer said I should try to arrange some kind of setting for alternate service. If the judge was so disposed in this case, I brush that off. I said this judge has never given alternate services, never given probation in draft case. Probation officer said well you never know and I wound up spending the 30 days mostly saying goodbye to friends and they had a couple of small concerts to raise some money for the attorney that had been defending me and I did toward the end of the 30 days meet briefly with a priest who was working in a parish on the west side of Chicago. This was a priest who had been one of my teachers in high school a Jesuit and I told him the situation said there really wasn't you know any chance that I'd be there. Well he said I'll write a letter and you know you never know how these things work out. I'll write a letter to the judge and maybe we can get you down here. I said great father thanks a lot see in a couple years. Showed up on the morning of sentencing fully expecting to be taken into custody to begin serving a sentence and the judge started out by brailing at my counsel my attorney and me or talking in general about how he thought young people just weren't willing to fight for their country anymore and he didn't understand that. This particular judge had fought in the Pacific in World War II as an enlisted man so he had a long history of not shirking his responsibilities himself. As he was railing on to my attorney I thought you know the maximum sentence I could get is five years and it sounds like he's gonna for some reason either my attorney upset him or whatever I think he's gonna I'm gonna get more than the three years. While I was worried about that he pulled some papers out of his robes and his whole tone changed. He said I don't understand what you people are doing but I have a letter here from a nice priest over on the west side now of course I'm not Catholic I'm Jewish but I grew up in this neighborhood and those priests do some good work and I think what I'm going to do is give you a chance to do something good with your life and quite frankly after that I don't remember what he said I could remember that there were people in the courtroom behind me and I could hear them all of a sudden and there was a murmur like they were saying oh my god he's gonna get probation they're gonna get you know and in fact the judge did sentence me to five years probation on the condition that I would serve two years alternate service living and working in this parish on the west side his whole neighborhood and as it turned out for Judge Miravitz Abraham Lincoln Miravitz my case was the case that was the turning point for him prior to that he had given three years in all draft cases subsequent to that he gave five years probation in all draft cases on the condition that people would do alternate service and each of the judges in the district you know the judges were making those kinds of decisions at that point it was just a fortuitous timing perhaps and my sentence hearing was in February of 71 so you know the time was such that by that time a lot of people were changing their minds about what was going on in Vietnam and the tide really had turned and when people like Judge Miravitz were changing their minds one could say that the times really were changing so I went to my alternate service site at Holy Family Parish on the west side and began doing what the judge suggested would be two years worth of work and what wound up being seven years worth of work at Holy Family and three or four months after I arrived at Holy Family a young woman arrived for a summer internship job in the office and that woman became my wife a few years later so so I was an interesting twist to the story the men men of course you know stories like that were frequent as young men faced this issue in the 19 late 60s early 70s about what to do when confronted with with a request to be part of a violent solution I certainly wouldn't have faced the question forthrightly if I hadn't been faced with it myself I could certainly I wasn't raised in a family that talked about war or non-violence or peace or anything like that and in fact my parents while lovingly supporting my stand I certainly didn't understand it and were sure that I was ruining my life by having a conviction and having to go to jail and whatever picturing all the bad things that could happen you in jail I had done more research than they and I knew that a minimum security federal prison was not going to be especially back in those days before drug offenses were the big deal minimum security federal protections were just it was just going to be a two-year waste of time but a small price to pay why do we kill people killing people to show that killing people is wrong one foolish notion that war was called devotion when the greatest warriors are the ones that stand of peace four toys are going stronger the problems stay the same the young ones join the army while general what's his name is feeling full of pride that the army will provide and does he ask himself why do we kill people who are killing people to show that killing people is wrong what a foolish notion that war was called devotion when the greatest warriors are the ones that stand for peace fifth row is growing longer the problems stay the same four ones get thrown in prison while war what's his name is feeling justified but when will he be tried but never asking why do we kill people who are killing people to show that killing people is wrong what a foolish notion that war is called devotion when the greatest warriors are the ones that stand for peace children are so tender they will cross the earth if they think they're saving a friend they get drawn in by patriotic lies right before our eyes they are home and then they find it once they're all alone they're asking the age old question why what a foolish notion that war is called devotion when the greatest warriors are the ones that stand for peace i was wondering Marty do you still consider yourself a conscience subjector i know somewhere you went from maybe considering yourself catholic i think you're a member of the unitary universalist congregation here in town how did you get there what has happened to your beliefs in between well as far as the unitarians my wife and i were part of a group in wasa called beyond war this was a group back fifteen twenty years ago now oh more than that i guess after we moved from chicago and were in wasa my wife was teaching and i was working in health care administration and we felt like we wanted to do something to continue to talk about those issues that had been important to us and so we were doing presentations for the group beyond war and the place in wasa that provided us with the space to do that was the unitarian unit actually in wasa it was the universalist unitarian church and that was the first time i had really come in contact with unitarians and universalist maybe i'm sure i must have known they were out there but i certainly wasn't at the same time i certainly wasn't a religious seeker i wasn't looking for any group of church people when we moved to all clear in wasa i had family and friends already but when we came to all clear we really didn't know much of anybody and shortly after well in fact when i first came to town i was working at the family medicine clinic over on farwell and the unitarian fellowship was right down the street there and one of those early days i you know i put together the fact that oh yeah the unitarians the universalist those are the people that you know gave us space when we're back in wasa talking about beyond war and i glanced up every day and saw there they had a nuclear freeze on or something signed in one of their windows and i thought you know uh maybe there would be people there that Rita and i could meet and know who would kind of think along the same lines that we were thinking about many things world views might be similar and uh and so we did show up there 88 89 right after we first came to town and and we did find it a very congenial group although again to talk about unitarians and universalists and religion and theology is going to take us down i mean that's a that's a whole different discussion i after getting a degree in philosophy wound up earning a master's degree in theology and religion from a seminary in the queen cities united theological seminary and i told people at the unitarian fellowship and i told people at the seminary as well that there was a greater diversity of opinion any sunday morning in the pews at the unitarian fellowship then there was in the whole seminary that i attended with all the students there i mean it's just such a diverse group one of the things that makes it interesting i think for me and so Rita and i over the years consider as ourselves part of that group and many of our friends here in town are people that we met there i hesitate to call i i mean i wouldn't point to any in fact as a unitarian you wouldn't point to any dogma or any point of theological tenant that you would say that they hold there's no creed that you have to subscribe to and it was that openness that appealed to us about the unitarians marty what led you to go to the seminary to get your master's what i've heard you say before just talking with you is that religion really doesn't fit from you much you're not a religious seeker yet something led you to go to the seminary what drew you there i went to university as a traditional age student in the middle sixties and hated it studying business administration or something else appalling like that i don't mean that business administering businesses is appalling because that's what i did most of my life for a living and i found it in many cases rewarding but the study of business administration wasn't anything that i was interested when i was an 18-year-old or a 19-year-old or a 20-year-old and so i dropped out of college which led to the draft problems that we've already talked about went back to college during the time that i was at holy family parish at one point they asked me if i would help in the classrooms there and i actually wound up teaching junior high school math for two years for them maybe three years this was a small parish on the west side in the middle of the ghetto and they couldn't attract any teachers that were qualified so they figured i could do it without a college degree or anything else and there was nothing keeping me from doing it so i began doing it and i very much enjoyed the classroom experience and i thought well maybe i should get a degree in elementary education which i then began pursuing while i was teaching i was pursuing a degree in elementary education and i loved its teaching and i hated the classes and so i didn't get a degree that time either several years later when i was here in eau Claire i felt like well you know i've never gotten a college degree i've always thought well i'm wonder if i could should get that i know i can't get a can't stand taking courses in business administration or elementary education i've ruled those two out but i've got all those credits and so i showed up over here at uw eau Claire with a pile of credits and the instructions that i was sure i couldn't major in business administration or elementary education was there something else that the academic advisor could suggest you know i said i just i just want the degree just the credential it might open some doors for me even at this point in my life she suggested looking at my credits that maybe i should major in psychology i already had some psychology credits maybe i had a couple of anthropology credits maybe i would minor in anthropology so i said well okay great let's try it one more time i'll do some night courses here and work it around my work schedule so i began classes majoring in psychology minoring in anthropology in the first semester that i was taking courses there i realized that this wasn't going to be for me either i was somewhat depressed by that i was wandering around hibbert hall during the break time somehow wound up on the sixth floor of the building where the philosophy department was located and i said to myself and i looked at some of the boards and some of the i thought to myself philosophy maybe you know boy maybe i would enjoy philosophy met with an advisor up there the next day or that week or something and shortly changed my major to philosophy and i loved it i loved the courses i loved the teachers in the department got my degree eventually majoring in philosophy and by that time minoring in history because at that point i'd said hey i'm just going to take courses i enjoy i'm not doing this for work i'm doing this because these are the questions that i enjoy exploring having gotten the degree in philosophy i was at that point i felt like my appetite was just wetted i was interested in exploring those questions further i had heard about the united theological seminary in the twin cities which catered to adult students and explored those philosophical questions uh from the different angle and they were non-denominational more or less but liberal religion i wasn't going someplace that was stringently training ministers and i wasn't training for the ministry i was just i was just continuing to explore the questions that i had i had been looking at and reading about when i was a philosophy major and wound up with a masters of art in religion and theology from uts and very much enjoyed many of the courses that i took there as well and was able to feel like i was in some orderly way exploring the questions that had had been most interesting to me and i think are most interesting to a lot of people for most of their lives it was an opportunity something i could do i mean for me it was uh i was working the entire time so i was working part-time at the university and taking part-time classes united commuting back and forth from Minneapolis so i didn't took a while to get the degree and by the time i eventually earned it i was pretty well worn out and i decided i wasn't going to pursue any more degrees in my life that's what really took me on that path was that i felt like the you know at uw clear we have a department of philosophy and religious studies and one might think that there's a fairly clear line between those two and i've i've never been quite able to discern exactly what that clear line might be i mean they both ask questions of a nature that tries to explore what essential problems are we faced with what essential challenges do we have and do we face in life and and those are the things that philosophy and i think religious studies explores in both cases so that's how i got my master's degree in religion and theology it wasn't so much that i was i mean i certainly am interested in how people have tried to answer that question before what they put forth as suggestions christianity is a suggestion of how we might live our lives based on the role model more or less of jesus and azimuth i mean if you even if you take out the god part you know the son of god part jesus and azareth is an amazing role model for people to use students would sometimes ask me outside of class well so what religious tradition are you part of and i would say well i was raised as a christian but these days i would call myself perhaps a jejuin they would say jejuin and i say yes jeju it was a better word but it's taken so i would call myself a jejuin that is to say i would say a jejuin is a person who admires or at least in my case admires the teachings of jesus of netherith as i understand them it's hard filtered through two thousand years of tradition to know exactly but and to try to apply those teachings in my life without the accretions of the christian church and those sorts of traditions so perhaps if i have a religious tradition whatever it's evolved then perhaps it's evolved into this jejuin outlook although jesus of netherith is certainly not the only role model that one could use and he's certainly not the only role model that i would use for myself but certainly since he was the one that i was was most important in my formative years i would say that that would be a key part of what's been happening and i think when i was trying to talk to my draft board way back in the 1960s i was trying to tell them something about i think i'm a conscientious objector because i think that with regard to the phrase what would jesus do which is not something that anybody knew that or or bracelets or whatever but with regard to that kind of a question it's clear to me that jesus would not be fighting in the vietnam war in fact jesus would not be clearly would not be fighting in a or jesus would be saying we are to turn the other cheek and to love our neighbors as ourselves and however that hard that is so when i first asked you about your spiritual path you said you didn't have one or specifically maybe you said you didn't consider yourself along the way a religious seeker clearly you were seeking something but you don't like the name religion i think connected with it what do you think it is well let's see what do i think it is i think it's problem solving what i'm seeking is how to live my life the best way i can best for me and hopefully that'll be best for the people around me as well and i think that's ultimately what all of us seek and some level or another is how are we to live religions certainly will put forth a path for you all religions will do that and yet all of those paths to some extent or another trodden by others have led away from some of the basic truths some of the basic directions that they started out in this country for instance we tend to or at least i have many friends who would tend to say that the best spiritual path is the one laid out by the buddha and that buddhism a worthwhile spiritual journey to undertake and that makes sense to me and yet i've spent my wife spent two years and i've spent six months in the most buddhist country in the world Sri Lanka which describes itself as the country where buddhism will be preserved and the buddhist majority there knowingly or not including a party a political party made up of buddhist monks monks unlike tiknara and in the monks i'm familiar with where buddhist monks are agitating for a hard line response to Tamil aspirations for power that are taking the stance some of the buddhist monks that are taking the stance that tambles should all be sent back to india and that Sri Lanka should be a country for cinilies speaking buddhist worshiping people only now that's as far from my take on the buddha's eightfold path as i could as i could imagine it's just an example i mean the examples we're most familiar with of course are christianity with its its formative figure jesus this man of peace and and my draft board is telling me that christianity calicism oh my goodness you're the best warriors somehow those paths have have gone astray they don't work for me and somehow from the time i was 18 year old or so on maybe because of my experience with and facing what i would do in vietnam or maybe other it's hard to unravel where that all comes from but you know i've i've just tried to live on this path that i'm walking on as best i can and that's the question we're faced with how should we live and i haven't found one of those well-worn paths that have religious names or spiritual names to be particularly helpful so those labels and the baggage that comes with those labels are things that i've tended to resist maybe part of that is again my own experience as a as a young adult when people were trying to label my stand against the vietnam war and to label me as a hippie or a draft dodger or a person that didn't love their country or you know i wasn't a draft dodger or certainly i was every time i was instructed to do something by this lectures i was i did it i was right there i was a draft resistor perhaps in fact i was a vietnam war resistor and i certainly was as mainstream and as mainline as any of the americans i knew and including some friends of mine who were in the military so this idea that that i could be labeled because of a stand i was taking was offensive to me i wanted people including the judge in my trial and anybody that came into contact with to look at me and say what is you know this is me this is not i'm not part of the in fact that consciously i think tried to avoid large anti-war groups that could have been affiliated with just so that it would be harder to label me and i think this labeling thing while it's inevitable we need to do some kind of shorthand as we go through life in terms of groups of people and whatever while that's inevitable i think it's dangerous and wherever possible we ought to look at the people we come in contact with and look at their individual paths and see what we can draw from those and that means that one of the ways that we label people i.e religious or spiritual or whatever because of the baggage that goes with that is something that i've tended to try to rule out so people say well you must have a spiritual background or a religion i said no not particularly which forces them to then ask other questions of oh how did you get here because it looks to me like you're in maybe they're going to wind up calling maybe someone's going to look at the path i've taken or that my wife and i've taken and say what a marvelous spiritual path you've taken well if that's the description that somebody wants to use then use that but that's not the description i would use i would just say this is the path my wife and i have led because of the things that have happened during our lives and this is where we wound up and this is where we are at least is where we are today where is it going to be five years from now ten years from now i don't know i don't really look for a guide in the terms of a creed or a spiritual mentor or somebody like that i just look around me and try to listen and see what's going on and hear what's going on and then be open to the possibilities one of the things that happens when you do that is you wind up with career ADD so you don't have a big pension program waiting for you at the end of the rainbow because you weren't at the same place 20 or 30 years or something it seems to me every few years i would be more or less contented with doing what i was doing and then something i'd hear something about something else and i'd say to myself oh boy that sounds interesting maybe i could and then i'd be off doing that or somebody would say boy it'd be great if you could and i'd say well sure let's try that and and that's been a marvelous way to live i'm happier about my life choices than almost anybody i know one of the big lucky parts of that is i found and married a woman who feels almost exactly the same way about all of this so i may say let's do this and she may say let's do that and we follow each other around and now she's dragged me halfway around the world and she's far more adventurous than i am about that she might be able to describe her path as spiritual more than i would be able to describe mine she's been involved in different meditation practices over time and she's a seeker in that same way but i i think you know especially maybe my experience at seminary as a graduate student you have to do a lot of translating i can use the word god but the word god is almost meaningless for me because it's used so many different ways and in so many different settings that i mean we have to spend so much time describing what it is we're stuck using the language that we have and the language that we have with regard to religion and spirituality as far as i'm concerned is badly corrupted by thousands of years of misappropriation for all kinds of wrong reasons i think reasons i would consider wrong or less than ideal and when a religious path or a spiritual path can lead to something like war violent solutions to problems it probably would behoove us maybe to develop new language but that's i'm too busy trying to figure out what to do next week and next month and and it's always when people look around there there's always plenty to do marty you're heading back in uh several weeks here back to Sri Lanka how are you living how are you supporting you and Rita how are you supporting yourselves while you're there and is there a way that other people can help out well actually westerners can live quite frugally in a place like Sri Lanka as it turns out so we're supporting ourselves on the earnings that Rita makes from nonviolent abuse force nonviolent abuse force doesn't pay a lot something like 800 dollars a month plus some expenses reimbursement which as it turns out is plenty for two of us to live in Sri Lanka maybe it wouldn't be in the capital i guess if we live in the capital but the city that we live in in a rural area the house that we rent small house and not one that would be adequate by western standards i suppose but very adequate to our needs in Sri Lanka rents for $25 a month for instance so we can live very comfortably in Sri Lanka on what Rita makes so that projects that i've worked on in Sri Lanka haven't involved pay and don't need to involve people there are people who have asked is there a way to help with what we're doing there with what i'm doing there i do have people in Sri Lanka that i'm in contact with who need some kind of financial support from time to time and then we'd like to try to help out from time to time and that runs a wide gamut of ways of helping but in general anybody who hears this and would be interested in helping me out with my Rita and i set up a foundation here at rcu before we left called tint t-i-n-t and any monies that go to tint will be monies that i will disperse in Sri Lanka using my best judgment when we're called upon to try to help people those school monies for instance that kids race help build this library and off the school or monies that are in the tint fund if somebody was attracted by that and said boy i'd really love to write a check i don't know what to do with it they could certainly write a check to t-i-n-t foundation send it to rcu and rcu would put it in our account and i would make sure that it got taken care of that we dispersed that kind of money in Sri Lanka is that just the rcu central office is there a special address they need i was told by the people at rcu that if a check showed up at any branch made out the t-i-n-t foundation that they would look up the account and deposit it in that that there's only one t-i-n-t foundation and it's a not-for-profit 501c3 it's uh you know any donation would be tx deductible and if people wanted to find out more about the situation with the non-violent peace force and their work in Sri Lanka how can they do that there's always a website there's always a website if you use your favorite search engine and type in non-violent all one word peace force all one word you will find the website of the non-violent peace force and there will be all sorts of links at non-violent peace force that will direct you to Sri Lanka project in particular and what's going on there how to make donations to non-violent peace force the main office in the u.s. is in minneapolis there's also an office in brussels there's non-violent peace force groups working in various parts of the globe they're getting ready to start their second project the Sri Lanka project as I mentioned was the alpha project so they're getting ready to do that and you will find several links that will answer lots of questions about non-violent peace force yes i think they can just go and find non-violent peace force dot o-r-g and just no spaces in there and they'll find that information Marty i'm disappointed all the subjects we didn't get to talk about your teaching of ethics in the philosophy department at the university for instance your experience with health care and the downward spiral that that industry is going through there's so much that i would love to talk to you about and i'd love to talk to rita the next time she's back too thank you for taking the time to speak to the people of wise radio and to me and thank you for sharing the way that your spirit is in action in the world well i certainly appreciated the invitation and the opportunity and all the good work that people are doing done it wise when rita and i are back in town we'll make it a point to contact you and see if there aren't other discussions that we could have around those topics good luck on your work and read his work there you've been listening to an interview with Marty Webb you can read more about Marty and the non-violent peace force via my website northern spirit radio dot o-r-g and you can also listen to this program and other programs at that same website music featured in this program includes stand-up by charlie king and karen brand-au and foolish notion by holly near the theme music for spirit in action is i have no hands but yours by carol johnson thank you for listening i welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit you can email me at helps meet at usa dot net may you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light this is spirit in action i have no higher call for you and this to love and serve your neighbor enjoy selflessness to love and serve your neighbor enjoy selflessness oh You [MUSIC PLAYING]