Can Someone Be Patriotic and Anti-War With Iraq?  I Am!

 Sermon given by Rev. Albert Boyce

9 February 2003

Unitarian Universalist Church Of Valdosta, GA   

A giant claw reached out from a submerged iceberg, and ripped a 300 foot gash in the side of the unsinkable "Titanic" plunging it to the bottom of the sea.  On that horror filled night of April 15, 1912, laughter turned to screaming, merriment to weeping as 1,517 souls were swallowed by the black and icy waters. The most tragic truth was that most, if not all, could have been saved.  The Titanic sank within the sight of another ship.

Subsequent testimony revealed officers of the Californian watched while the Titanic was swallowed by the icy sea.  They testified, they did not realize what was happening although distress rockets filled the sky for over an hour.  Testimony of those recounting the tragedy revealed the Titanic sailed within sight of the Californian at 11:00 p.m. and radio contact was made.  The Californian was bedded down for the night when at 11:30 the captain and wireless operator went to bed.  Ten minutes later the Titanic slammed into the razor-sharp iceberg.

Aboard the Titanic, now sinking, officers tried to re-establish radio contact.  After failing because of the sleeping captain and wireless operator, distress rockets were sent up.  The Californian's officer on duty, called down the speaking tube to the sleeping captain notifying him of the signals.  The captain asked, "are they company signals?"  Flares and roman candles were used as company signals between passing ships at night.  White rockets meant distress.  The novice officer said:  "I don't know."  The captain went back to sleep.

Fifteen minutes later there were no more rockets in sight.  The Titanic had been sucked to the bottom of the sea, a watery coffin for over 1,500 human beings.  The investigative committee's report concluded, "the night was clear, the sea was smooth.  When it first saw the rockets, the Californian could have pushed through the ice without any serious risk and so it might have saved many if not all the lives that were lost."

This morning my dear friends, we need not look all the way back to the sinking of the Titanic to find apathy.  I suggest this morning that indeed it is the status quo of our day.  This account of the Titanic depicts, admittedly, rather dramatically, how as in many situations of life, if we are not affected personally, the cause, regardless of how noble, lacks a compassion that compels involvement.

Indifference can be found in all our lives, our homes, our churches, community and, this morning, in our country.  Almost daily we are presented with situations that cry out for our involvement.  And though we intend to respond to the cries, time slips by and the opportunity is gone.

I fear this is so in the case of a vast number of U.S. citizens this morning when we consider the ever-growing threat of war with the nation of Iraq.

How often have we thought concerning controversial situations:  "what will people say?"  The opinion of others is important to us.  Often to an uncomfortable extent.  We want to be well thought of, so we conform in trifling or stifling ways.  We refrain from saying what we really think.  We try in ways we ought not, to live up to the expectations of others.  Instead of being just ourselves, with quiet, or maybe even stubborn insistence, we bend to the pressures to do and be what others expect.  Bit by bit we surrender a measure of our real selves, and our freedoms, not wanting to be thought strange and off beat.

Unitarian Universalist, writer, and poet, ee cummings wrote:  "To be myself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make me somebody else, means the hardest battle which any man can fight, and never stop fighting."

My friends as our nation prepares for war, with 150,000 young men and women from the states, cities, towns, streets and neighborhoods from across this land I have no doubt that if we enter into war with Iraq this will certainly not be another Desert Storm, no small Gulf War, but the blood of our nation’s children will flow across waters and desert.  The lives of mothers and babies in a country most of us have never visited nor understood culturally will be taken in the most heinous of ways.  We need not know them by name nor understand their culture to know the look of pain in a mother's eye at the loss of a child or the vision of utter hopelessness on the face of a child.

White rockets are filling the skies this morning.   I, for one, must not be apathetic and leave the decisions to our nation’s leaders without having a clear understanding of truly what the reasons for this war are fundamentally about.  I am not satisfied with the answers thus far.

Today I must balance my position regarding this potential war, or any war, with the sages of old, as read this morning, with human compassion and love.

Albert Einstein put it this way:  "the life of the individual has meaning only in the service of enhancing and ennobling the life of every living thing.  Life is holy, that is, it is the highest worth on which all other values depend.  The sanctification of the life that transcends the individual brings with it reverence."  Here, for me, we have the secret to an affirming faith.  The very principle held up also by Albert Schweitzer.  To paraphrase Schweitzer's words:  let a person once begin to think about the mystery of his or her life and the links which connect it with the life that fills the world, and one cannot but bring to bear upon one's own life, and all other life that comes within reach, the principle of reverence for life and manifest this principle by ethical world life affirmation expressed in action.

As responsible individuals, as responsible United States citizens we cannot defer our moral and ethical decisions, and say "fate" or "god" knows best.

It is up to us to determine right from wrong for ourselves.  It is for us to realize that as science has helped us become aware of the interrelatedness of life our moral horizons have been enlarged.  Deciding what is right and wrong is not a simple exercise.  We need to draw upon the experts.  We need a wealth of insight and information.  And finally, it is up to us to make our stand for what we believe is right and against what we believe is wrong.  We can no longer consult a person, roll holy dice, consult a Bible, accept the policies of politicians, let the experts decide, or feed data into a computer and abide by the results.  An action is moral, I believe, if it improves human relations; if it helps us to cooperate and contributes to our self-respect and happiness.   That which divides people, which makes cooperation difficult, which is indifferent to the feelings and welfare of others, is immoral.  Who is to decide?  You and I must be the decision makers.  To defer or neglect that responsibility is to become like a computer, less than human.

As for the church, I avow the eloquent words of Dr. Samuel H. Miller, former dean at Harvard Divinity School:  "Only one religion counts today and that is the kind which is radical enough to engage in the world's basic troubles.  If it cannot do that then it can do nothing which merits our concern or the world's respect."

In preparing for this sermon I went to the video store and rented the film entitled:  "Saving Private Ryan.”  As many of you know I greatly appreciate the arts as they often speak of the human condition and express one's spirituality.  Therefore I can find appreciation for all genres of film.  The film "Saving Private Ryan" received high acclaim in several categories a few years ago.  It especially got much recognition for the first twenty minutes of the film.  Those minutes depicted what D-Day, June 6, 1944 was like for thousands and thousands of U.S. soldiers who landed on Omaha Beach in Normandy during WW II.  That day bodies were blown to bits, waters turned to blood and men were everywhere in shock at the sight of death in progress on all sides of them.  That was the horror of war fifty-eight years ago. Now multiply that innumerable times given today's warfare capability and you might have a glimpse of what we can expect from war.

There were a couple of men in my last parish who were among those landing on that shore on D-Day.  They told me how terribly painful it was to see the film because it was so true to life of the real event.  My ex-father-in-law, whom I love to this day, told me that he simply refused to see the film because it would bring back too much pain.

I believe, that if we go to war, that this war with Iraq will be no Desert Storm.  With 150,000 young men and women along with the military might of the greatest nation on earth, unimaginable devastation and unwarranted death of innocents will have the potential of being a crime against humanity like none other.

You may ask:  Al, are you a pacifist?  And the answer is:  No, I am not.  I believe the Revolutionary war was necessary for freedom from oppression for this budding nation.  I believe the Civil War was necessary to stand against the tyranny of the injustice of slavery.  World Wars I and II were causes for which the whole world could unite because they were clear.  I simply do not have enough facts to agree that sending our children to kill and be killed is justifiable.

I agree with Charley Reese in his column found in February 8, 2003 Valdosta Daily Times entitled:  "Provide us with Intelligent Information." 

"The American people should not let Bush get away with the game of saying 'intelligence tells us' or 'defectors tell us.’  He needs to provide harder evidence than claims by anonymous sources if he is going to subject the American people to all the risks and dangers of war and prolonged occupation.”

I am not a political analyst.  Some in this sanctuary, I am sure would be much better at that than me.  So I do not attempt to do such.  Nor am I one who has a clear understanding of the secret types of negotiations that go on behind closed doors in war diplomacy where leaders juggle the very lives of human beings as they were pawns in a chess game.

However, there are some facts that my seeking to know and understand daily has left me with. 

I do know ......

That demonizing a leader, or culture, in a far off land and not respecting their right to life is immoral.

That to glamorize war to very young men and women who have no clear understanding of death when they see themselves at that age as invincible is unjust.

That no human being, no leader of any nation, even the so-called greatest nation on the earth, is infallible.

That any leader (ex:  V.P. Cheney) of this nation who would call a U.S. citizen un-American for questioning their motives and seeking further dialogue has lost touch with the democratic process upon which this nation was founded.

What do I fear?  I fear that if we do not dialogue at the table of diplomacy we may risk global annihilation.  And, I do believe this is possible.

You may be asking in your mind:  well Al, what would you have us do?  What can a single person, such as ourselves do?  You may be asking:  what can we as a small congregation, that holds the democratic process as sacred, do?

First, I ask you to seek all the knowledge you can about the threat of war in Iraq.  With the facts you learn, decide how you feel about what you have discovered.  Then, get involved by contacting your legislatures, calling the White House and joining a local support organization that supports your position.  For those who feel as do I, that we should not go to war with Iraq without further dialogue, I invite you to attend the organizational meeting of VSU faculty, staff, students, members of the greater Valdosta community and other members of our parish.   The meeting will be held Tuesday, February 11, 2003 here at the parish.  The meeting will address the issue of how we might speak out from our particular location in Valdosta.

I invite you to join me, and others, who will stand in public to protest the threat of war with Iraq as led by the coalition for peace when the opportunities are presented.

I remind you that, I believe, the only action that has kept us out of the Iraq war to this point is the pressure given the current administration by the protest of citizens like you and me who called on our leaders to work through the U.N. and not go solo into Iraq with guns flaring.

Yes, one person, added to the voice of another person...and so on ...and so on.... can make a difference.

You!  Can make a difference.

Why get involved?  Because white rockets are arching the world's skies and maybe, just maybe, our voices can make a difference.  At the very least there will be the inner peace that we have done what we could and in that act alone there remains hope.

I close with the words of one of our nations most beloved leaders (Abraham Lincoln):  "Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people?  Is there any better or equal hope in the world?"

"Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."

AMEN  

of the UU Church of Valdosta