“The Patriot's Call”
by Reverend Charles Blustein Ortman
July 9, 2006
READINGS:
The first reading is by the founder of Taoism, Lao Tzu, from the Tao te Ching:
Cultivate harmony within yourself, and harmony becomes real;
Cultivate harmony within your family, and harmony becomes fertile;
Cultivate harmony within your community, and harmony becomes abundant;
Cultivate harmony within your [nation], and harmony becomes enduring;
Cultivate harmony within the world, and harmony becomes everywhere.
(What we do in our lives…we do in our world…)
The second reading is from a speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to members of a group called Clergy and Laity Concerned, in 1967, at Riverside Church in New York City :
A time comes when silence is betrayal. Men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. For we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness so close around us... We are called upon to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.
SERMON:
It was October 15, 1969. Across the country, millions of protesters in hundreds of cities joined together to support a moratorium against the Vietnam War. It was the largest turnout to date and perhaps the pivotal moment for the American people in refusing to accept the continuation of a war for which there was no just cause, and for which the people no longer had heart. It was a cool, damp autumn evening in Davenport, Iowa where, along with several friends, I headed down toward the levee overlooking the Mississippi River. The protest was going to take place at the Le Clair Park band shell. Normally we would go there during the warmer months to hear rock 'n roll, or jazz, or blues concerts. That night would be different.
Numbering in the thousands, the crowd was probably about equal in size to some of the larger concerts held at the park. And even though music was included in the protest, the mood was hardly a festive one. The disposition of the crowd ranged in a very narrow margin from serious to angry. We wanted the country to know, we wanted the world to know that it was time for that ugly war to come to an end.
My friends and I listened to the music and the speeches for a while. Then we started to get a little restless and needed to move around. We looked off behind the gathering to the opposite end of the park, to the foot of the bridge that crossed over the water to an island that had once been known as the worst prison camp operated by Union forces during the Civil War. Now it was the Rock Island Arsenal, a weapons manufacturing and storage facility. Even from our distance of several hundred yards, we could see that the entrance to the bridge was barricaded with jeeps and trucks. We could see several soldiers and a number of guards, who were employees of the Arsenal. And so we thought, hey, why should they miss out on all the fun? We decided we'd walk on down just to say hello.
I mentioned that it was a cool evening, and so I suppose that the five of us were a pretty motley looking crew, each wrapped in a blanket, vigil candle in one hand lighting the way, and a flower, that we thought we might give as a little peace offering, in the other. Of course we had on the rest of our uniforms too: ponytails, headbands, ratty looking bellbottom jeans and fatigue jackets. We started walking away from the crowd of protesters and into the quarter-mile or so expense of darkness that ended with the troops at the other end of the park. Our intentions were peaceful and good spirited and so at the beginning of our trek we didn't really anticipate that at the other end there would be anything other than peaceful and good spirits receiving our greetings.
It didn't take us very long to realize our naïveté. As we walked toward the bridge, we watched several more jeeps and trucks filled with armed troops pull up. It was clear that our approach had not escaped their attention. Within what seemed like seconds, there were dozens of men lined up, facing our direction from behind the barricades. Their guns weren’t pointing at us, but they certainly were in hand. The shootings at Kent State University would not occur for another six months, but everyone knew that such an event was becoming more likely all the time.
The air between our little band and their brigade seemed to intensify with every step we took. I don't remember whether or not the five of us even spoke a word once we had realized that we were becoming part of a situation that we had mistakenly not anticipated. We looked through the candlelight into each other's faces, and what we saw there was growing determination. We had set out on a peaceful mission, and we were going to see it through.
The speeches over the loudspeakers behind us faded as we got farther away from the protest. The intensity of what lay before us though seemed to get louder with every step. The only other sounds that might have been audible in that moment, besides the lapping of water against the levee wall, would have been the heart beats of those men and boys who were about to meet at the foot of the bridge.
Even as we drew within the last few feet, still another jeep arrived with yet more guards. Eventually, with the gulf between us nearly closed, we were close enough to begin to see one another's faces. I don't know what they saw in ours; we were scared to death. I do know what I saw in their faces. It was fear too; they were every bit as afraid of us as we were of them, even though we were armed with only candles and flowers. There was no stopping now, and so we continued to walk forward.
Finally, with silence nearly screaming in our ears, with shortness of breath and our hearts racing, we got to within about 10 yards of what was looking to become some kind of line of scrimmage. Then, all of a sudden, the silence was abruptly shattered. A man's voice came booming from deep in the middle of the crowd on the other side of the line, "Charlie Ortman, what are you doing here?"
Charlie Ortman? He had yelled my name. And he’d asked, What was I doing there? In an instant the energy field around us deflated; the charged atmosphere was set free, as though the gates of the dam that ran along under that bridge had been all of a sudden let open. There would be no bloodshed; there wouldn't even be any arrests.
I recognized the voice. "Joe? Joe Zeigler, is that you?" Joe was the father of a former girlfriend, someone that I’d been classmates with through all of grade school and high school. Her dad had worked as a guard on the island for as long as I'd known him. It was Joe Ziegler on the other side of those barricades. We were safe, and so were they.
"Charlie, what are you doing here?" he asked again.
"We just came by to say hello. And we had these flowers we thought you all might enjoy," I said, extending my peace offering.
"Are you crazy?" he asked.
"Probably," I said. "But everything seems to be a little crazy. So, we thought we'd spread a little friendliness and good cheer. It's good to see you, Joe," I said. I was so grateful that in the end our greetings had been received in peace and with good will.
“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “Good to see you, too.”
"What are you doing here?" That was the question Joe had asked. That's probably a good question for any of us to ask ourselves at nearly any time and in most any situation. "What are you doing here?"
And so by extension we might ask, what are we doing here? And the "we" that I want to talk about is both we Unitarian Universalists, as well as "We the people of the United States..." There's a historical perspective here that intrinsically relates these two groups that we are a part of. It was a Unitarian that penned those words to the Preamble of the Constitution -- "We the people of the United States..." -- over 200 years ago. In fact it was Unitarians who wrote much of the text for both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, Unitarians all, provided much of the thought and wrote most of the words that created the framework of our democratic republic. It’s not a coincidence that our religious principles can so easily be recognized in those historic documents.
It's difficult for us today to imagine, in any real sense, the potential of tyranny in a non-democratic state. It was quite a different story for our forebears. Democracy was the political offspring of the Enlightenment and Unitarianism was its religious counterpart. Both of these social institutions were based in opposition to the idea of divine sanction. Instead they relied on a radical faith in the potential for humanity to govern itself in a manner that would serve humanity – all of it – and serve it well.
Fortunately, our idea of humanity has grown over this last couple of centuries to include more than white, male land owners. But even then it meant that there were no chosen few selected by a deity to reign over the masses, which for the most part were already damned – it was generally considered – to an eternal future of fire and brimstone. It meant that a potential for good and the potential for serving a good was an inherent human quality – one that could best be expressed by the majority of an educated population dedicated to the motto: E Pluribus Unum, All for One.
Our forebears believed in a process of public deliberation that could produce an outcome which would provide for the greatest common good. That was an incredibly radical notion. Still though, they did not labor under the delusion that their answers would be the right answers for all times. In a letter to Abigail Adams written in 1787, Thomas Jefferson did not, as is often reported, call for a revolution every 20 years. But he did call for a "rebellion" every couple of decades, one that would net a revised constitution. The revisions he had in mind, by the way, would be intended to protect the rights of states and citizens, not to limit or abolish their rights in order to suit the moral whims of an intolerant majority, as many might want to fashion amendments today.
So, the Patriot’s call, as it was initially envisioned, was never intended, as it mistakenly has been used of late, to limit discussion or dissent. In fact the opposite is quite more the truth. The call of the Patriot is indeed to question and then to dissent if the answers to the questions don't add up to a total that includes E Pluribus Unum, All for One.
The call of the Patriot is a call for faith in our fellow human beings, faith that we might yet create a society in which all people are encouraged and nurtured toward living to their fullest humanity, and are held accountable as productive members of society. It's not so different from our Unitarian Universalist Principles to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person; to affirm and promote justice, equity and compassion in human relations; acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth; a free and responsible search for truth and meaning; the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process. The Patriot’s call in a democratic nation is quite the same as the religious call to which we hold ourselves accountable as Unitarian Universalists.
As Unitarian Universalists, we do not have the luxury of private spirituality. Our personal spirituality – that most intimate of relationships that holds us in the very bosom of life – is the same spirituality that binds each of us to every man, woman and child and to our entire planet. For us the phrase E Pluribus Unum means that none of us can be saved unless we all are.
We live in a very dark age in which much of the liberal thought that provided the fertile ground for our democratic nation is being held captive by those who would promote individual gain over the common good. The word Patriotism is used today to stave off discussion and to nullify dissent. It is used as a ploy to protect the Halliburton's of our world, as 60% of US companies pay absolutely no income tax whatever. It is used as a ruse to provide those self-serving ambitions of individuals who are slick enough to convince the majority (if in fact there has been a majority) that they are acting in the nation's interest.
And all the while, the rights of citizens are being eroded and diminished. In fact for many who belong to the newest group to experience severe oppression in our culture – Arabs and Arab Americans – rights have been totally suspended. I know that I'm not telling you anything that you don't already know. But if indeed the call of the Patriot is to question and then to dissent if the answers don't add up to serving the greatest common good, then I have to ask, where is the moratorium against this insane, inane war that we are fighting today in Iraq? Where is the moratorium against the detention centers and the concentration camps that are sponsored by our government – a government supposedly dedicated to liberty and justice for all, but seemingly more intent on secrecy, manipulation of the media and the use of force in order to obtain whatever it feels it needs in order to stay in power?
The Patriot’s call is beckoning. The question is – where are our voices? Where is our response? There is no just cause here. We have no heart in this.
It took our country a little over 10 years to recognize the wrongness of the Vietnam War. With a concerted effort it took several more years to extricate ourselves from that war. How long are we willing to wait in order to answer the Patriot's call this time around? I pray to whatever God there might be that it doesn't take us so long this time. It would just be too unpatriotic!
Here's the deal. I don't have any great plan for taking to the streets, although I do think it is going to have to come to that before we cease this imperialistic occupation of another land. But there are some religious questions that need to be raised if we are going to prepare ourselves for the opportunity once it arises. The Patriot’s call is a clarion call to question and to dissent. The fact that this war is being fought thousands of miles from here, the fact that some other mother's sons and daughters are fighting this war on our behalf, does not give us the right to feel complacent in ignoring that call. We are responsible, we the people, for the destruction that is wreaked and the blood that is spilled in our names. If we want to feel good about ourselves, it can't be accomplished on any kind of spiritual level that I know, if we are denying the reality of that responsibility.
Let us begin, as Lao Tsu instructed, by cultivating harmony within ourselves. But let us not end until we have done all that we can to cultivate harmony in our homes, in our community, and in our nation. And let us not end until we have promoted harmony in the world and until harmony becomes everywhere.
I think of the commandments: thou shalt not steal and thou shalt not kill. I think of the great commandment: to love your neighbor as yourself. I have to imagine that those principles were never intended to be applied only when it's convenient or conventional. And when any of those commandments are broken in our names, is it not the same as breaking them ourselves? If we need motivation, perhaps there's some value in the uncomfortable speculation of how we might be held accountable – if by nothing else, then at least by history.
And here's another part of the deal. The folks on the other side of this argument – the other side of the barricades – they're all Joe Ziegler's. They're all somebody's father or mother, somebody's daughter or son. That is to say that they are us and we are them. And if we are ever going to move toward peace from this mess we're in, we will need to learn to recognize one another from across that line. We're going to have to learn how to accept one another and how to work together, because otherwise we will continue to go nowhere except to shrink further and further from the principles that originally set this country with the ideal of being, "Of the people, by the people and for the people." That too was a line written by a Unitarian, Rev. Theodore Parker, who included it in a letter to his friend Abraham Lincoln.
As hard as it might be sometimes to believe that it's possible to get there, as frightening as it may be as we approach the divide, we have to realize that it is only our faith in that possibility that can get us from here to there and through to the other side. We are here to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person – not just those who agree with us.
Perhaps the brightest days for this republic still lie in our future. To some very considerable extent it is up to us to determine the brightness of that future. And so I invite you/us to work with one another in the building of such a faith. Once again, it is a faith that our developing nation requires, a faith in this country's people and in our inherent potential to serve the possibilities of goodness… And maybe it would be helpful to keep the candles and flowers in good supply.
What are you doing here?
What are we doing here?
There is a Patriot’s call that has been given.
May our response be sincere. |
