Abolition of Nuclear Weapons
I spent Thursday, July 14, in Strafford, Vermont at the home of William Sloane Coffin, who had invited a group of us to meet with him to discuss launching a national, even international campaign for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Twelve other individuals attended. They included Rev. Dr. Steve Sidorak, Director of the Connecticut Conference of Churches; Marilyn Mecham, Director of Nebraska Interchurch Ministries; and David Lamarre-Vincent, Director of the New Hampshire Council of Churches; Susan Schaer and Karen Jacob of Womens Action for New Directions; Duane Peterson, Director of Stuff, True Majority (who drove the Pentagon Pig mobile to Strafford); Jonathan Schell, author of The Fate of the Earth and The Unconquered World; Randy Forsberg, one of the founders of the Nuclear Freeze Movement in the 1970s; David Cortright of the Fourth Freedom Forum and professor of peace studies at Notre Dame University; John Lindner, director of development at Yale Divinity School; Jessica Wilbanks of the Fourth Freedom Forum office in Washington, DC.
What follows is a much shortened and edited portion of the sermon I gave Sunday, July 17, in response to what I had learned and decided at the meeting with Bill Coffin and the others. The title was: "The Seeker and the Sought". The texts were Genesis 28:10-19; and Psalm 139:1-12.
The story of Jacob, on the run from the consequences of his betrayal of his brother, Esau, tells of a profound spiritual experience incurred by one who wasn't looking for it, who hadn't prayed even for help.
Jacob's experience reverses everything we usually think about spirituality-that we are the seekers, and God is the one sought. This biblical story, like so many others we could tell, shows a different reality: God is the seeker and we are the ones sought. The psalmist knows this reality as well: O Lord, you have searched me and known me...You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
Now it is true that dreams and spirituality often correspond. But dreams are free gifts. I don't know how to make dreams happen; they just do, and some mornings you awaken with a profound sense and clear memory of a dream. We ought to pay attention to them. But it is also true that sometimes we encounter something that seems to be an impossible dream in the midst of our waking hours. Either in the dark night when we are not seeking, but are the ones being sought, or in the bright light of day, again when we are not seeking, we become the sought, and a calling is laid on our hearts and our minds.
Such was my experience on Thursday. Here I am in my early 60s, trying my best to figure out how to deal with the things that are worrying me, how to cope with multiple demands of my job to be knowledgeable about many different things, and, moreover, trying to figure out how to respond to a world going insane with violence--as if I have any power to do that.
Just because I know a man, I get invited to a meeting. Just because I love the man, and am fed by his hopefulness, I go. The man has a dream, an impossible dream, some would say...but I don't think it is the man's dream, anymore than Jacob's dream belonged to him. In Jacob's case, it was God's dream that through Jacob, rascally scoundrel that he was, all the families of the earth would be blessed in him. And God was going to make that dream come true. In Bill Coffin's case, I have a hunch that it might be the same: it's not Bill's dream, but God's dream, that we rid the earth of nuclear weapons, weapons that are now more tools for terrorists than they are serious military options for any civilized nation on earth.
Jonathan Schell has written a less well known book, The Unconquered World, in which he compares conventional warfare as exposited by Clausewitz, the great Prussian general, and, on the other hand, what Schell calls "peoples' wars", beginning with our own Revolutionary War, which are politically and militarily unwinnable by conventional military methods. It would have been nice if someone in the defense department and in the Executive Branch of our government had read Schell's book before the US and its few allies in this matter were gotten into the war for "regime change" in Iraq. With the insurgency increasing daily, with terrorists home grown in our democratic nations, using traditional military means against what the insurgents see as a "peoples' cause", and with fissile material easily available from a weakened and corrupt former Soviet Union, unless we act now to lock down, and stop funding nuclear weapons projects, it is only a matter of months until someone unleashes a dirty bomb in one of our cities. And the annihilation of God's earth is begun.
Coffin says that "only God has the authority to end all life on the planet, all we have is the power. To live in a world within minutes of possible annihilation is clearly to oppose, not to do God's will."
Impossible, quixotic dream, you say. Maybe so. But not to do anything is more insane. And anyway, I don't think it is Bill's dream, I think it is God's dream, seeking us to be a blessing to all the families of the earth. And who are we to do it? Well, I don't think we are as awful as Jacob, and God used him, so God can use us as well. And I'm laying it on you, just as it was laid on me Thursday.
At the end of the day Thursday, Bill told the dozen of us on whom he has laid the task of starting a new movement the story of Michaelangelo's poignant painting of "...the man in the Last Judgment being dragged down to hell by demons, one hand over one eye and in the other a look of dire recognition. He understood, but too late. ...Rarely," Bill said, " do we see the truth that stares us in the face until it hits us in the face. A crisis is seldom a crisis until it is validated by disaster. Michelangelo was right: hell is truth seen too late." And then Bill said, in words that are written also in his book, Passion for the Possible, we have to avoid wishful thinking and unwarranted despair. "If we aren't optimistic, we can be hopeful, hope being a state of mind independent of the state of the world. If faith puts us on the road, hope is what keeps us there. It enables us to keep a steady eye on remote ends. It makes us persistent when we can't be optimistic, faithful when results elude us. For like nothing else in the world, hope arouses a passion for the possible, a determination that our children not be asked to shoulder burdens we let fall. Hopeful people are always critical of the present but only because they hold such a bright view of the future." (unquote) [also available in Passion for the Possible, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993, p.3]
And as I read Jacob's story and reflected on it this week, I believe that God continues to seek us out...not the other way around for we are far too comfortable most of the time to go searching for God...to take on this dream of God's that we save the planet, that we be new Jacobs for the blessing of all the families of the earth. This religious vision, or dream, is now a pragmatic necessity. God is the seeker, and we are the ones who are sought by the dream, the ones called to be the new Jacobs by whom all the families of the earth will be blessed.
ACTION YOU CAN TAKE:
Contact Senators McConnell and Bunning. Ask that they remove any funding for new nuclear weapons, or weapons in space from S. 1042, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 (Placed on Calendar in Senate) for week of July 18.
Contact Rep. Ben Chandler, and Senators McConnell and Bunning regarding the defense appropriate bill, H.R. 2863, which will be marked up by the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, on Tuesday, July 19. Again, ask that there be no funding for new nuclear weapons testing or development, and no money for weapons in space. Especially, ask funding for bunker busters to be eliminated.
Over 68% of the American population believe (according to recent poll by True Majority) that nuclear weapons should be abolished. It can be done!
Because of the anthrax scare several years ago, it is better to call, fax, or e-mail members of congress.
Below are addresses:
Senator Jim Bunning
316 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510
Ph. 202.224.4343
e-mail: bunning.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Email
Senator Mitch McConnell
361-A Russell Senate Office Bldg., Washington, DC 20510
Ph. 202.224.2541
e-mail: mcconnell.senate.gov/contact_form.cfm
Rep. Ben Chandler
1504 Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC 10515-1706
Ph. 202-225-4706
to send e-mail go to: http//www.house.gov/writerep/ and enter Chandler's name
