Since the terrorist attacks, the bombing of Afghanistan, the assault on civil liberties and the threat of an invasion of Iraq, it's been easy to lose patience — and hope — with such acts. But we must not, even as we're on the verge of war.

And it will help if we can gain strength from the recent passing of one of our generation's greatest pacifists, Philip Berrigan, who died Dec. 6 of cancer. That column of May 19, 2001 was dedicated to Berrigan, who was in prison at the time, and others like him who over the decades have dedicated themselves to working for peace through civil disobedience.

You know, sometimes it seems like 9/11 didn't change anything substantial at all. For example, that column began:

"With the president prepared to scrap a major 1972 arms-control agreement and build an anti-missile shield (Star Wars II), I can't help hoping that it and other reactionary military attitudes by our government are going to spawn a new wave of peace protests.

"Somehow, the madness has to be stopped before this new obsession with chest-beating - represented by a new nastiness, threats of nuclear attacks and celestial rocket launchers - sends the world's insecure leaders (and there are many besides George W. Bush) racing to the brink of war."

That madness has not been stopped, and has been exacerbated by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But the anti-war movement is growing and more and more Americans say they're not convinced that an Iraq invasion is justified.

On Dec. 8, hundreds of mourners followed a blue pick-up truck carrying Berrigan's simple wooden casket from Baltimore's Jonas House, the community of peace he founded, to the church to which he was assigned 36 years ago as a priest.

Since then, he spent 11 years behind bars for peace activism that often resulted in destruction or damage to government property. From the draft files in Catonsville, Md., in 1968 to the nuclear warheads in King of Prussia, Pa., to the jet fighters at the Air National Guard base, he fought the tools of militarism.

Did the man of peace die at peace? With himself, certainly, because what more could he have done? But Berrigan was not at peace with the world he was leaving. In a final statement, dictated to his wife while near death, he said:

"I die with the conviction, held since 1968 and Catonsville, that nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth; to mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use them, is a curse against God, the human family, and the earth itself...

"Our nuclear adventurism over 57 years has saturated the planet with nuclear garbage from testing, from explosions in high altitudes (four of these), from 103 nuclear power plants, from nuclear weapons factories that can't be cleaned up — and so on.

"Because of myopic leadership, of greed for possessions, a public chained to corporate media, there has been virtually no response to these realities..."

He wasn't able to complete his final thoughts, and the loss is ours because what we needed was some hope and inspiration that it is not too late, that we can finally win this battle, at least, and put a stop to the impending war against Iraq.

And then move on to the next struggle, and the next.

Perhaps the saddest aspect is that the world is as far from peace in 2002 when Berrigan died as it was in 1968 when he desecrated Selective Service files.

If, indeed, the fight for peace can be likened to a Sisyphus-like struggle that can never be won, then bring on the rocks. We have to keep pushing. We know that when the back cover is closed on the final capter of of history, we'll have been right.

Cary Brunswick is managing editor at The Daily Star. He can reached at (607)4417217 and cary@thedailystar.com