The Burden of Knowing
.png)
Centering the belief that the cost of nuclear weapons constitutes a direct theft from people suffering poverty, THE BURDEN OF KNOWING traces a direct relationship between the actions of radical Catholic nun, Sister Megan Rice (1930-2021), culminating in her trial and imprisonment after she and two fellow activists breached the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee in 2012––and the mission of Japanese Buddhist monastic order also confronting the existential threat of nuclear weapons through spiritual means in an East Tennessee. Weaving together a place-based vision of the power of interfaith anti-nuclear movements to raise consciousness for political change, this lyrical documentary raises urgent critical questions for our present moment--and our present day burden of knowing.
In bucolic Bear Creek Valley, twenty five miles northwest of Knoxville, East Tennessee, the largest stockpile of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) in the U.S. is stored at the Y-12 National Security Complex, built in 1943. At the height of its Manhattan Project operations during World War II, Y-12 employed over 22,000 workers, drawn from across the country, housed nearby in the “Secret City” of Oak Ridge. Local East Tennessee high school girls were trained here to operate the machinery that aided the gram-by-gram production of U-235, the uranium isotope sustaining the chain reaction of fission necessary to create a nuclear explosion. Y-12 is where the uranium fueling Little Boy, the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, was processed.
THE BURDEN OF KNOWING centers the beliefs and actions of radical Catholic activists who spent their lives protesting nuclear weapons, aiming to symbolically disarm the nuclear state. As members of the Plowshares movement (an anti-nuclear weapons and Christian pacifist movement founded by eight peace activists in 1980) and the Catholic Worker community, they sought to protest weapons as a threat to humanity and often faced long prison sentences for their acts of conscience.
By centering these activists’ beliefs and personal stories, THE BURDEN OF KNOWING seeks to ensure that their radicalism is remembered today alongside ongoing interfaith pacifist presence in the vicinity of Y-12. With this intent, the film explores the role of the chanting of mantras and hand held drumming and peace walks of Japanese Nipponzan-Myōhōji Buddhist monks, whose foundational mission calls on them to engage in worldwide pilgrimages urging abolition of nuclear weapons. While Nipponzan-Myōhōji peace pagodas (stupas), have been erected in various locations around the world, the film focuses on the Great Smoky Mountains Peace Pagoda, founded in 2000 by the Nipponzan-Myōhōji Buddhist order in Newport, TN (about 70 miles east of Y-12), and still under construction, with a temple, guesthouse, and gardens all built, using charitable donations, by volunteers.
Nuclear weapons have been the United States’ third-highest spending national priority since World War II. At a time of total impasse in the arms control framework, massive financial investments in arsenal modernization, and new technologies like AI being integrated into command-and-control systems, increasing the risk of accidental launch, THE BURDEN OF KNOWING is more relevant than ever.
Project Website:https://www.lightprojectsfilms.com/home-1-1
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/Da-owZqEdSt/
Director | Dr. Shara K. Lange