Veterans' Day thoughts

When I was growing up in the 1950's all the boys in the neighborhood would spend our time "playing Army;" that was a big thing for us as we played together.  I remember talking with my Dad about World War II.  He told me that he hadn't gone to the war because of his work. Dad was born in 1916, married in 1937, and he and Mom had had two children (my older sisters) by the time he received an induction notice in 1942 shortly after the war had begun.  As I got older and reflected on all of this, I assumed that part of the reason that Dad had not been drafted was because he was married, was the sole source of income for his family, and had two children under the age of four.  When I finally asked Dad about this directly, he told me that the Army didn't really care about those issues.  Rather, he said, his boss went to the Draft Board and asked them to give him a deferment since he worked in a "necessary defense-related industry."  You see, Dad worked for Caterpillar Tractor Co., and they were busy churning out earth-moving equipment for the Army and the Seabees.  The Draft Board granted Dad the deferment.

Fast forward to 2002.  Dad was 86 years old, and we had just helped him move from South Carolina to a retirement community near our home in Omaha, Nebraska.  I was visiting Dad one afternoon in his apartment, and he told me about a conversation he'd had that day at lunch with some of his "buddies."  Those men were all approximately the same age, and so the topic eventually turned to what they had done during World War II.  Each apparently had shared where they served during the war, and Dad told me what he had shared with them.  "You know," he said to them, "I worked for Caterpillar Tractor Company, and I was deferred because my work was necessary at home to support the war effort.  But I've felt guilty all my life because I didn't go to the war." He could have knocked me over with a feather!  Like many men of his generation, Dad rarely spoke about things that went on during the war, even for him when he was working for Cat.  But Dad went on to relate his lunch conversation... One of the other men, who had fought during the war, looked at Dad and said, "Next time there's a war, Jerry, you go and fight... and I'll stay home... and I won't feel guilty at all!"  Another feather could have knocked me over the other way. Two old men, talking over lunch about events that had happened 60 years earlier.  One talking about the guilt he felt about not fighting in the war.  The other talking about the pain he felt about participating in the war.

I did not go to Vietnam, the war du jour of my generation... because of a complex interrelationship of academics, field of study, and physical issues.  Perhaps not surprisingly, therefore, I have mixed feelings about war and the military history of our nation.  I don't believe I'm naive about the reality of the fallen condition of our world, and about all of the wars that have been fought through the centuries. Yet I also can't see Jesus blessing military interventions, no matter the "justness" of their cause.  Having just engaged in extended discussions on Dietrich Bonhoeffer with colleagues at the Association of Stated Clerks meeting in Louisville, I was reminded of the tension he felt, being a Christian yet participating in a plot to assassinate Hitler.  So I'm not clear about how to come to some unambiguous clarity about all of this in my theology and in my thinking.  However, I am very clear that those who have served and are serving in the military, and their families, need and deserve our care, our support, our gratitude for their service.

So on Veterans Day this year I simply offer two prayers, both from our Book of Common Worship...

Righteous God, you rule the nations.

Guard brave men and women who risk themselves in battle for their country.

Give them compassion for enemies

who also fight for patriotic causes.

Keep our sons and daughters from hate that hardens,

or from scorekeeping with human lives.

Though they must be at war, let them live for peace,

as eager for agreement as for victory.

Encourage them as they encourage one another,

and never let hard duty separate them

from loyalty to your Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

And this prayer, attributed to Presbyterian ruling elder, President of Princeton, and U.S. President, Woodrow Wilson...

Almighty God, ruler of all the peoples of the earth,

forgive, we pray, our shortcomings as a nation;

purify our hearts to see and love truth;

give wisdom to our counselors and steadfastness to our people;

and bring us at last to the fair city of peace,

whose foundations are mercy, justice, and goodwill,

and whose builder and maker you are;

through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

I don't think Jesus was kidding...

"Blessed are the peacemakers," taught Jesus.

I don’t know about you, but to me those words seem sometime to be quaint or naïve at best, anachronistic or irrational at worst.  I mean, could peacemakers have stopped Adolph Hitler?  Could peacemakers stop Boko Haram extremists in Nigeria or Islamic State extremists in Iraq?

 

"Well, but it was a simpler time in Jesus' day," we might be tempted to say?  Really? Rome ruled Israel/Palestine with an iron fist in Jesus' day.  Anarchists and revolutionaries sought whatever means they could find to subvert Roman authority.  Public executions were horrific and commonplace.  Religious extremists encouraged public stonings for those they identified and labeled as "sinners."  People seen as collaborating with Romans were ridiculed and outcast from their communities.  People with leprosy were shunned and isolated, and people with mental illness were labeled as demoniacs.

"Blessed are the peacemakers," taught Jesus.

I confess I don't know what to do with this statement of the Lord's.  It stays with me.  It troubles my conscience.  It echoes in my head when I'm in church meetings that sometimes are less than cordial.  And I confess I don't know how to reconcile what often appears to be a conflict if one works for peace while at the same time advocating for justice.  It reminds me of one time when I was leading a training event for newly-elected ruling elders and deacons.  We were going through the questions for ordination/installation, and got to the seventh question:  "Do you promise to further the peace, unity, and purity of the Church?"  One of the candidates asked, "But what happens if working for the Church's purity disrupts its peace and threatens its unity?"  Good question.  I didn't have an answer then.  I guess I still don't.

"Blessed are the peacemakers," taught Jesus.

This coming Sunday is recognized in the Church as World Communion Sunday, reminding us of our Lord's prayer that we might all be one, be united, be at peace together.  Although I'm not sure all the ways this could/should be evidenced in the life of the Church and our witness in and to the world, what I know is that I'll be spending some time thinking, praying, reflecting about the need for peace:  in our congregations... in the Presbyterian Church... in the Church across the world... in places rocked by war and violence, whether in Mosul, Iraq or Ferguson, Missouri... in areas where Christians are persecuted... in my own life.

"Blessed are the peacemakers," taught Jesus.

And I don't believe he was kidding.

Mixed feelings about complicated issues - Ferguson, MO

The shooting death of Ferguson, Missouri teenager Michael Brown has stirred such a mix of reactions and feelings, most all of which have been deep-seated and strong. I posted someone's blog about this on my Facebook page, because I believed that he had some points worth pondering.  I didn't get many reactions to that posting, but the ones I did get were long and passionate... and far from complimentary!

Events like this spark such powerful reactions because they tap into long standing and deeply rooted issues that have divided our nation for generations.  They are issues of race... of privilege... of the use and/or abuse of power... of violence... of public protests... of fear and bigotry.  And in this particular situation in that suburb of St. Louis, there is more than enough bigotry to go around:  bigotry against blacks, especially young, black men, and bigotry against police officers who use deadly force, especially young, white officers who shoot young, black men. This is an event that tears at our society, and that also tears at my heart.  I'm not about to rush to judgment about anything in this situation, because so many facts still are not known.  I am appalled at what seems to be an overreaction on the part of the police officer.  I am saddened at the situations in which law enforcement officers often find themselves and at the snap decisions that they often are called to make.  And I'm angry that yet another young African-American male has fallen victim to a violent death.

Yet right now what tears at my heart the most is what two families are going through. Michael Brown's family buried their son earlier today.  I've lost both my parents, all of my grandparents, all of my aunts and uncles, some of my cousins, and my first grandchild.  Plus I've walked with families for almost four decades as I've been the pastor of people who are going "through the valley of the shadow of death."  I am no stranger to death and grief.  Still, I can't imagine losing one of my sons, AND having that death be in the crosshairs of an entire nation!  Darren Wilson is 28 years old.  His parents divorced when he was 3; his mom died when he was in high school.  He was a member of the police department in the small town of Jennings, MO where things were so bad between white officers and black residents that the entire police department was disbanded.  No matter the reasons behind his decision to shoot Michael Brown, I can't imagine what Darren Wilson must be feeling, living with the knowledge of what he did, and realizing that the nation and the world knows that he shot and killed a teenage boy; it will follow him the rest of his life.

There are serious, systemic, and deep issues about race and poverty and justice that are being raised, and we who are followers of Jesus Christ must not shrink away from asking difficult questions and having difficult conversations about these matters.  Yet let us not lose sight that these questions and conversations are not just about abstract principles or philosophical constructs.  Real people are in pain this day.  Grief and regrets are tearing at the hearts of some of God's beloved children this day.

Peace and justice often seem to be at odds with each other, and yet we Christians are called to stand for both and to be lights to a dark, pain-filled, fearful, divided world.  Let us walk and speak and act carefully and prayerfully, compassionately and intentionally as we journey through our world.

The closing prayer in today's service of Morning Prayer from our Book of Common Worship offers words that are helpful as I walk this road:

"As you cause the sun to rise, O God,

bring the light of Christ to dawn in our souls

and dispel all darkness.

Give us grace to reflect Christ's glory;

and let his love show in our deeds,

his peace shine in our words,

and his healing in our touch,

that all may give him praise, now and forever."

This prayer comes around at the end of every Monday morning service of Daily Prayer. I think I need to pray it more often than that, though.  Want to join me?

Lessons from the Civil War, or War of Northern Aggression, or Recent Unpleasantness, or...

Our daughter--in-law lent us book a while ago, and I've slowly been working my way through it.  It really is a fascinating read.  It's written by Pulitzer-prize winning author Tony Horowitz.  The book is titled, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil  

War.  

 As a student of history, there were many things in the book that I already knew.  It still is an astoundingly sobering fact to me that more Americans were killed in the War Between the States than in the totals put together from all of the other wars in which we have been involved!  But Horowitz wrote many things that were new to me.

 

He wrote that many southerners feel that the Civil War amounted to little more than a continuation of the long-standing conflicts between the English and the Celtic peoples; the north was settled predominantly by English immigrants, the south by Scots and Irish.

 

He wrote that the War is still so vivid to so many people in the south because of casualties and immigration patterns.  To quote:

"Roughly half of modern-day white Southerners descended from Confederates, and one in four Southern men of military age died in the War.  For Yankee men, the death rate was about one in ten, and waves of post-War immigration left a far lower ratio of Northerners with blood ties to the conflict."

 

Those were new things to me, and I'm still pondering those ideas.  But Horowitz also wrote about one particular town that he came across in the sojourn - really, in the pilgrimage - he took through the South.  He told the story about the small town of Fitzgerald, Georgia.  It is the county seat of Ben Hill County in south-central Georgia, and in 2012 had a population of 9,048.  Some of the streets in this village are named Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan, and others are named Lee, Jackson, Longstreet, and Bragg.  In other words, many of the streets are named after both Union and Confederate generals.  The town was developed by a Midwestern newspaper editor, Philander Fitzgerald, in 1895.  He had been a drummer boy for the Union army, and, in the midst of a severe drought in the early 1890's in the Midwest, concocted the idea of starting "a soldier's colony in the Southland and get all those old boys away from the bitter winters and drought."  He approached the governor of Georgia at the time, a Confederate veteran, and the two began to share the dream of a town that could be a place of refuge from the bitterness that still existed about the War.  Cautiously, the town planned its first veterans' parades, scheduling two of them: one for Union vets, the other for Confederates.  But when the band started playing, veterans of both armies "spontaneously joined and marched through the town together.  Thereafter, they merged to form Battalion One of the Blue and Gray, and celebrated their reconciliation annually."

 

Just imagine... After the tremendous bitterness and the losses inflicted during that dreadful time in our nation's history, people in this little village in southern Georgia, located less than 15 miles from the spot where President Jefferson Davis was captured on May 10, 1865, simply decided to put it all behind them, and to march - together - into a new future!

 

Wouldn't it be refreshing if even a small group of Republicans and Democrats simply decided to move beyond partisan politics and join together to forge a new way forward?  Wouldn't it be redeeming if even a small group of anti-abortion and pro-choice individuals could move beyond their impassioned rhetoric and see how they might work together in a new direction?  Wouldn't it be a sign of hope if some of the Shiite and Sunni Muslims throughout the Middle East could move forward in peace, holding on to the many things about their faith that unite them rather than going to war over the things that divide them?  Wouldn't it be a sign to the world if the Christian Church could stop our bickering over... fill-in-the-blank... marriage, ordination, property, denominational loyalty or denominational desertion, etc., etc., and instead find ways to forge partnerships in mission and service, in compassion and peace, in justice and grace that would be a fulfillment of Jesus' prayer that his followers be united?

 

I think that when I get discouraged about the many signs of division and hurt, of conflicts and fights in our world and in our society, I'll remember the folks in Fitzgerald, Georgia, who one day, long ago, simply decided that, in that place deep in the heart of Dixie, they would move forward together.

Thoughts on Veterans' Day

(From an e-letter column on Nov. 11, 2013)

I've been reflecting quite a bit today about the fact that it is Veteran's Day.   I confess that I feel a bit conflicted about this day.  On the one hand, I am profoundly grateful for those who have served, and who continue to serve, in our military services.  We too easily take for granted the freedoms we enjoy, and many of those freedoms have been enshrined by the sacrifices of our military members.  At the same time, I bemoan the fact that we have chosen to go to war as a nation numerous times.   I believe that war is most always indicative of a failure:  a failure of communication, of understanding, of diplomacy, of negotiation.  To be sure, the Church over the  centuries has declared certain conflicts to be "just wars."  But even the fact  that the Church came up with that concept early in its life indicates that there  had been some question about whether a Christian, as a member of society, could  participate in the actions of a government that was attempting to protect peace  and punish wickedness.

Here's what I think... First, war is an indication of the reality of sin and brokenness in our fallen world.  Second, I have the luxury of standing at my computer desk  to write this because people have sacrificed to protect our nation and our freedoms, and for those people I am profoundly grateful.  Third, we are called to work for  peace:  interpersonally as well as internationally.

I have a framed poster ready to hang in my study that speaks my heart's desire and my challenge about standing for peace.  Here's what it says:

"Peace plans its strategy and encircles the enemy.  Peace marshals its forces and storms the gates.  Peace gathers its weapons and pierces the defense.  Peace, like war, is waged. But Christ has turned it all around:

·      the weapons of peace are love, joy, goodness, longsuffering;

·      the arms of peace are justice, truth, patience, prayer;

·      the strategy of peace brings safety, welfare, happiness;

·      the forces of peace are the sons and daughters of God."

And so today, I have offered prayers of thanks for our military and civilian service members, and I have offered prayers for peace.  That's how I've tried to honor and observe this Veteran's Day.

Blessings and peace, Steve