Mother’s vigil stirs questions about war

I’ve discovered that part of writing a religious column every six weeks or so is that folks make a number of suggestions about things that might be written about.

I’ve had several e-mails this month and have read a growing number of editorials about Cindy Sheehan’s vigil, kept at the entrance to President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. Sheehan, a former Catholic youth minister from Vacaville, Calif., is the mother of the late Casey Sheehan, a former altar boy and Eagle Scout who was killed on his fifth day in Iraq, April 4, 2004.

Spc. Sheehan of the 82nd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, died when his unit was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire in Baghdad. He was 24 and one of 15 U.S. troops who died that day.

As you no doubt have read, Cindy Sheehan is requesting a meeting with President Bush to express her conviction that U.S. troops need to be withdrawn from Iraq sooner rather than later and to ask for clarity about the reasons for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. She, like many Americans, is troubled by the weapons of mass destruction that never were found, the general terms in which the president has described his exit strategy, and the growing number of deaths among the U.S. military (a number close to 1,900 as of this writing, according to CNN).

No matter what one’s position on the invasion-liberation of Iraq, religious issues are intimately entwined with the politics. Some have spoken of the conflict as a spiritual duty of a Christian nation. Some have decried the violence of a Western nation against a mostly Islamic people. Some have appealed to St. Augustine’s just war theory to justify U.S. actions; others have argued for a pacifism rooted in the teachings of Jesus or have argued that the war, once justified, rapidly is becoming (or has become) an “occupation” that exceeds the moral-ethical mandate of a free people to combat one of the world’s nastiest tyrants.

Many mainstream religious and political leaders in 2003 asked President Bush not to invade Iraq without a clear international mandate, stronger evidence of both WMDs and an Iraq connection to the 9-11 terrorists, and a specific exit strategy. If polls are to be trusted, 54 percent of Americans now wish that President Bush had listened to those voices (according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted in early August).

It is clear that people of faith are torn between a desire for a rebuilt and politically stable Iraq, compassion for grieving military families who question the sacrifices they have made, and concern for those with boots still on the ground who are the targets for insurgency anger while the politicians debate constitutional and other questions.

There has been much discussion lately about whether Sheehan’s protest will serve as a “tipping point” in American attitudes about the war, the symbolic “last straw” that breaks a camel’s back, the spark that ignites a tinder-dry forest, the act of defiance that emboldens others to break their silence or acquiescence.

As the dust of the vacationing president’s motorcade settled on the grieving mother and her companions this month, one almost could hear America’s center of balance begin to shift. As August draws to a close and Crawford becomes once again a small remote Texas town, perhaps the question is no longer whether President Bush will listen to Sheehan for 30 minutes, but whether the rest of the country will.

I did a funeral for an Aroostook County woman some time back. While sitting in her farmhouse kitchen, her family told me of a day many years ago when she grew impatient with a long-delayed plan to remove a wall between two small bedrooms upstairs. Her dream was to have one larger room, but one project after another and endless excuses kept getting in the way. One evening the family returned home to discover that their loving, gentle mother had taken a sledgehammer and slammed a 2-by-2-foot hole in the wall in question. She was perhaps naive about architecture, the cost of building materials, and the time required for such a project. Nonetheless, without a word ever being said, the rest of the job was finished within days.

The Rev. Thomas L. Blackstone, Ph.D., is a United Methodist pastor in Presque Isle and a brother in the Order of St. Luke. He may be reached via tlbphd@yahoo.com. Voices is a weekly commentary by Maine people who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.