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April 23
Saint George, Margaret Fell, Toyohiko Kagawa, Silas Soule, and Cesar Chavez
David Barnhart
April 23, 2025
Graffiti in Berlin, June 2022. Own photo.
Today is the feast day of Saint George, who was executed in 303 by the emperor Diocletian for refusing to renounce his faith. George was an imperial guard and his family was admired by Diocletian, who attempted to bribe him to worship Roman gods. Later legends about Saint George fighting a dragon mythologize this struggle.
Today in 1702, Margaret Fell, one of the founders of the Religious Society of Friends (the Quakers) died. She and her daughters were major influences in one of the few Christian denominations who have been consistently and faithfully abolitionist, pacifist, and egalitarian. She was jailed repeatedly for her civil disobedience for religious freedom, and wrote forcefully for equal rights for women and religious minorities.
Today also marks the martyrdom, in 1865, of Silas Soule, an abolitionist, Union soldier, and whistleblower for the Sand Creek Massacre. He led jail break attempts for those who were helping with the Underground Railroad. Later, during the Sand Creek Massacre of Cheyenne, he disobeyed orders to shoot and reported to congress on the genocidal attack. He was murdered a few months later, likely as retaliation for his truth-telling.
Today also marks the death, in 1960, of Toyohiko Kagawa, Japanese Christian pacifist. Like Cesar Chavez (below), he was an advocate for women’s rights and cooperatives. He was jailed for his public statements of apology for Japanese occupation of China.
Today also marks the death, in 1993, of Cesar Chavez, a labor organizer who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association. He named his dog “Boycott.” He promoted a philosophy of nonviolent resistance and believed that cooperatives were a way of organizing grassroots social and economic power.
Reflection:
Cesar Chavez wrote:
“It is possible to become discouraged about the injustice we see everywhere. But God did not promise us that the world would be humane and just. He gives us the gift of life and allows us to choose the way we will use our limited time on earth. It is an awesome opportunity.”
He wrote of nonviolence:
“The non-violent technique does not depend for its success on the goodwill of the oppressor, but rather on the unfailing assistance of God.”
“There is no such thing as defeat in non-violence.”
Margaret Fell wrote:
Mark this, you that despise and oppose the Message of the Lord God that he sends by Women; What had become of the Redemption of the whole Body of Mankind, if they had not cause to believe the Message that the Lord Jesus sent by these Women, of and concerning his Resurrection?
Toyohiko Kagawa said:
“Though my muscles may stiffen,
though my skin may wrinkle,
may I never find myself yawning at life.”
Prayer: God of non-violence, who sends words by the prophets of any gender, race, class, or background, speak a word of non-violent liberation to us in this world of violent oppression. Amen.