Christian Peace Witness for Iraq
On Friday, March 16 I traveled with over 20 seminarians, mostly from McCormick Theological Seminary, and a couple from Chicago Theological Union to the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq gathering in Washington DC. We were a part of over 3,000 Christians uniting in response to our faith, to call for an end to the War in Iraq. This was the first of a weekend of protests around the country to mark the fourth anniversary of the war. The CPW gathering started with a service at the Washington National Cathedral at 7:00pm, where we sang songs of hope and heard from several speakers, including Celeste Zappala, who lost her son in the war, and shared the following words:
“Tonight we’re in the National Cathedral, the alter of the nation, and we lay before God the sorrow that lives in all of us because of this war. Since Sherwood (her son who died in the War in Iraq) died protecting the Iraq Survey Group as they looked for the weapons of mass destruction 2,483 more American lives have been lost… And how many limbs? And how many eyes? And how much blood? And what about the souls of soldiers who pick up the pieces of their friends? Or fearfully fire into a car and discover a minute later a shattered Iraqi family? In Iraq shamefully no one could say how many children and old people have died, those counts are only kept in the hearts of the people who lost them, keep these people in your heart. An Iraqi mother searches a morgue for the familiar curve of the hand of her child beneath a pale sheet. An American father watches his son beheaded on video tape. An Iraqi child wakes up in a shabby hospital in excruciating pain, because of the loss of his arm. An American girl writes letters to her dead soldier father. An American vet wraps a garden hose around his neck, and leaps away from the nightmares that beset him. And the ocean of tears spreads across both countries along with the numbers: 1,950 US kids have lost parents, 25,000 wounded and struggling through the VA system, scores and scores of suicides, 500,000 and more dead in Iraq, 2 million refugees, a wail rises from the throat from all who love these people and shakes our hearts as it reaches the crucified open arms of Jesus. We’re here tonight as the church, each one of us is a witness to this war and to our own complicity in it, when were we silent when we should have spoken, whose eyes would we not meet to face the truth? Now we are prostrate at this alter, begging: ‘Lord, help us, war is our failure to love you, and peace is your command, peace isn’t the easy way out, its creation is the most confounding, the hardest thing we can do, help us, we lay our souls open to you and question, how can we follow your command to love each other?’ Surely it cannot be by mindlessly sending the children of others to kill people we don’t even know. I know that nothing I say, no amount of logic or protest will bring my son back to me, or any of the lost ones home. Yet I ask the Lord to help us, we lay this grief before the Lord, our souls broken open, ready to rise to witness, ready to love God’s world to peace. Bless you and thank you.”
Other speakers included Rev. Dr. Raphael Gamaliel Warnock, Senior Pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church (home of Martin Luther King Jr.); Rev. Dr. Bernice Powell Jackson, President of the North American Region of the World Council of Churches; and Rev. Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners/Call to Renewal.
After the service we marched in the snow and cold with battery-operated candles to the White House singing hymns of peace and hope. When we arrived at the White House, 222 people prayed on the sidewalk (an area where it is required to keep moving), and were arrested, and put on buses to be processed, and fined $100.
It is hard to believe that this war has gone on for four years. This gathering gives me hope, and the bill the House of Representatives has just passed (March 23), is a good start. May our faith call us to sing in choirs of peace, and speak out against this war, and plans for surges of troops. As Rev. Raphael G. Warnock said: "Mr. Bush, my Christian brother, we do need a surge in troops. We need a surge in the nonviolent army of the Lord," he said. "We need a surge in conscience and a surge in activism and a surge in truth-telling."
For the full story, see: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WAR_PROTEST_CHRISTIANS?SITE=TXHOU&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
On Friday, March 16 I traveled with over 20 seminarians, mostly from McCormick Theological Seminary, and a couple from Chicago Theological Union to the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq gathering in Washington DC. We were a part of over 3,000 Christians uniting in response to our faith, to call for an end to the War in Iraq. This was the first of a weekend of protests around the country to mark the fourth anniversary of the war. The CPW gathering started with a service at the Washington National Cathedral at 7:00pm, where we sang songs of hope and heard from several speakers, including Celeste Zappala, who lost her son in the war, and shared the following words:
“Tonight we’re in the National Cathedral, the alter of the nation, and we lay before God the sorrow that lives in all of us because of this war. Since Sherwood (her son who died in the War in Iraq) died protecting the Iraq Survey Group as they looked for the weapons of mass destruction 2,483 more American lives have been lost… And how many limbs? And how many eyes? And how much blood? And what about the souls of soldiers who pick up the pieces of their friends? Or fearfully fire into a car and discover a minute later a shattered Iraqi family? In Iraq shamefully no one could say how many children and old people have died, those counts are only kept in the hearts of the people who lost them, keep these people in your heart. An Iraqi mother searches a morgue for the familiar curve of the hand of her child beneath a pale sheet. An American father watches his son beheaded on video tape. An Iraqi child wakes up in a shabby hospital in excruciating pain, because of the loss of his arm. An American girl writes letters to her dead soldier father. An American vet wraps a garden hose around his neck, and leaps away from the nightmares that beset him. And the ocean of tears spreads across both countries along with the numbers: 1,950 US kids have lost parents, 25,000 wounded and struggling through the VA system, scores and scores of suicides, 500,000 and more dead in Iraq, 2 million refugees, a wail rises from the throat from all who love these people and shakes our hearts as it reaches the crucified open arms of Jesus. We’re here tonight as the church, each one of us is a witness to this war and to our own complicity in it, when were we silent when we should have spoken, whose eyes would we not meet to face the truth? Now we are prostrate at this alter, begging: ‘Lord, help us, war is our failure to love you, and peace is your command, peace isn’t the easy way out, its creation is the most confounding, the hardest thing we can do, help us, we lay our souls open to you and question, how can we follow your command to love each other?’ Surely it cannot be by mindlessly sending the children of others to kill people we don’t even know. I know that nothing I say, no amount of logic or protest will bring my son back to me, or any of the lost ones home. Yet I ask the Lord to help us, we lay this grief before the Lord, our souls broken open, ready to rise to witness, ready to love God’s world to peace. Bless you and thank you.”
Other speakers included Rev. Dr. Raphael Gamaliel Warnock, Senior Pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church (home of Martin Luther King Jr.); Rev. Dr. Bernice Powell Jackson, President of the North American Region of the World Council of Churches; and Rev. Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners/Call to Renewal.
After the service we marched in the snow and cold with battery-operated candles to the White House singing hymns of peace and hope. When we arrived at the White House, 222 people prayed on the sidewalk (an area where it is required to keep moving), and were arrested, and put on buses to be processed, and fined $100.
It is hard to believe that this war has gone on for four years. This gathering gives me hope, and the bill the House of Representatives has just passed (March 23), is a good start. May our faith call us to sing in choirs of peace, and speak out against this war, and plans for surges of troops. As Rev. Raphael G. Warnock said: "Mr. Bush, my Christian brother, we do need a surge in troops. We need a surge in the nonviolent army of the Lord," he said. "We need a surge in conscience and a surge in activism and a surge in truth-telling."
For the full story, see: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WAR_PROTEST_CHRISTIANS?SITE=TXHOU&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
