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Prayer Vigil and Rally
9:00 a.m. October 26, 2002
All Souls Church, Unitarian
1500 Harvard Street NW
Washington DC
Notes on the Order of Service by the
Rev. Lisa Presley
Music for Meditation Peace Piece by Bill Evans
performed by John Strang, Director of Music and Organist
Welcome The Rev. Robert M. Hardies, minister, All
Souls Church Unitarian
Using the words of Isaiah 2:4, the Rev. Robert
M. Hardies, minister at All Souls Church, Unitarian, greeted
those in attendance at the prayer vigil and rally: "They
shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears
into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war any more." Hardies
continued with words from Micah 4:4: "They shall all
sit beneath the shade of the vine and fig tree, and none shall
make them afraid."
Hardies then spoke about how we do know fear, but
that together none of us need to fear, for we have
gathered in the shelter of the vine and fig tree.
Hardies welcomed participants on behalf of All Souls
Church, Unitarian, and the UUA Washington Office for
Advocacy. He welcomed UUs from around the Washington
DC area, as well as from Massachusetts at the service,
and that other UUs from Buffalo, Cleveland, New York
and Philadelphia that would be joining participants
at the rally.
After logistical announcements, Hardies reminded
participants that they were gathered in the sanctuary,
joined by a great cloud of witness, for All Souls
has been a gathering place for UUs and others of good
faith for many, many years. He cited gatherings in
the 1950s to organize the integration of lunch counters
in DC, the 1963 walk with Martin Luther King, Jr.,
in the March on Washington, the marches against the
Vietnam War in the 1970s, the 1993 march for gay rights,
and then today, this march for peace. "We follow
a long line of people in our faith tradition who have
gathered in this sacred space," said Hardies,
"and let us remember them today as we gather
for peace."
Chalice Lighting
Archene Turner, a ministerial student in
Meadville/Lombard Theological School's Modified Residency
Program, offered the following words as Tonisha Weaver,
a young person from Falmouth, Massachusetts, lit the
chalice.
To face the world's darkness, a chalice of light;
To face the world's coldness, a chalice of warmth;
To face the world's terror, a chalice of courage;
To face the world's turmoil, a chalice of peace;
May its glow fill our spirits, our hearts, and our
lives.
Hymn #170* - We Are a Gentle, Angry People
Holly Near
Pastoral Prayer Rev. Richard Nugent, Interim
Minister, UU Congregation of Columbia, MD
"As people of faith, I invite you to join with
me in the spirit of meditation, reflection, and prayer.
As you do so, I invite you to look around this sanctuary.
Look around and see the faces of people who have traveled
near and far to be here this morning. Look around
and see the faces of concern-concern because of the
misguided policies of our political leaders. Look
around and see the faces of hope-hope that our national
leaders will hear our voices and the voices of all
who oppose unilateral preventative military action.
Look around and see the faces of peace-the peace that
is so elusive in so much of the world today. Look
around and see the faces of love-love for each other
and love for our neighbor whether residing a few doors
from our homes or continents away. Look around and
see in the faces of others the reflection of your
own concerns, hopes, and dreams for peace and love.
Look around and see the face of the sacred.
"O God of many names and all nations, we come
together this morning in the quest for peace. We gather
here in this sacred space made holy, generation after
generation, by the prophetic words and deeds of people
of faith whose lives made a significant difference
to this city and to our nation.
"We are a people of peace.
"Let us be mindful on this day of the police
we will encounter on our walk. They are men and women
who are tired from having worked unceasingly during
the past three weeks while our city and suburbs were
terrorized by the cloak of fear as fourteen of our
neighbors were shot down in the course of their daily
lives. Let us be mindful that so many in this city
and in so many other cities throughout our land live
daily with the fear that comes from the reality of
unsafe neighborhoods.
"We are a people of peace.
"Let us be mindful that our actions today are
only one step. Let us commit to being advocates for
peace when we return to our home communities. May
our actions model the peace that we seek in the world.
"We are a people of peace.
"Let us be thankful that 133 members of the
House of Representatives and 23 United States Senators
found the courage to vote against the congressional
resolutions authorizing unilateral military action
by the United States. Let us return to our homes,
whether near or far, with a commitment to communicate
to our elected representatives how we feel about their
vote and let us commit to casting our own vote in
judgment in just 11 days.
"We are a people of peace.
"If your home is not here in this city, go home
with the knowledge that the 572,000 residents of this
city do not have voting representation in Congress.
We, who live in this city, are residents denied the
right to govern ourselves. We are a colony of the
Congress.
"We are a people of peace.
"Let us remember with great sadness the loss
yesterday of Paul Wellstone, his wife, and daughter
along with five others in the tragic plane crash in
Minnesota. His was a prophetic voice on so many issues
of concern to so many here today. His voice and vote
will be missed. Our prayers, thoughts and love are
extended to the families of all who died in this terrible
tragedy.
"We are a people of peace.
"Let us return to our homes committed to defend
our civil liberties. Today is the first anniversary
of the USA Patriot Act. Let us inform ourselves of
its provisions and let us work with others to ensure
constitutionally guaranteed rights. Let us help shed
light of the fate of the "disappeared" in
our own communities.
"We are a people of peace.
"Let us pray that those elected on November
5th rise above the politics of narrow self-interest
that has so dominated this nation and this city for
far too long. Let us pray that our national leadership
recognizes the full implications of their current
foreign policy that fails to address the pressing
needs of so many throughout the world-particularly
the peoples of the Middle East, Africa, Central and
South America, and Asia. Let us pray that our leadership
recognizes that American imperialism is not a recipe
for long-term national security. Let us pray that
our leadership recognizes that the greatest weapons
of mass destruction are ignorance and poverty.
"We are a people of peace.
"Let us pray for peace. Let us speak for peace.
Let us march for peace. Let us work for peace. Let
us be the peace that we seek. In the name of all that
is holy and good, we pray for peace.
"So may it be. Amen."
A Letter from The Rev. William G. Sinkford
Robert Cavenaugh, Director of the UUA Washington
Office for Advocacy, read excerpts from UUA
President William Sinkford's pastoral letter of September
20th, 2002 which outlined Sinkford's call to religious
people, and particularly Unitarian Universalists, to
speak out of their values and their love for each other
on the issue of US military action in Iraq. Sinkford
pointed out that our role is not merely to advocate
for a particular position, but to ask the difficult
questions about Iraq, and to contribute to a richer
imagination that can lead to peace. He acknowledged
that "In these troubling days and all those that
lie ahead, my deepest prayer is that we stand in this
faith with Universalist Olympia Brown, who wrote, over
one hundred years ago, 'Every nation must learn that
the people of all nations are children of God, and must
share the wealth of the world. You may say this is impracticable,
far away, can never be accomplished, but it is the work
we are appointed to do. Sometime, somehow, somewhere,
we must ever teach this great lesson.'"
Anthem Balm in Gilead, African American Spiritual
sung by soprano Angela Wray
Dramatic Reading The House That Fear Built:
Warsaw 1943 by Jane Flanders
Several members of the congregation performed a dramatic reading of
Jane Flanders' poem, The House that Fear Built: Warsaw,
1943:
I am the boy with his hands raised over his head
in Warsaw.
I am the soldier whose rifle is trained
On the boy with his hands raised over his head in
Warsaw.
I am the woman with lowered gaze
Who fears the soldier whose rifle is trained
On the boy with his hands raised over his head in
Warsaw.
I am the man in the overcoat
Who loves the woman with lowered gaze
Who fears the soldier whose rifle is trained
On the boy with his hands raised over his head in
Warsaw.
I am the stranger who photographs
The man in the overcoat
Who loves the woman with lowered gaze
Who fears the soldier whose rifle is trained
On the boy with his hands raised over his head in
Warsaw.
The crowd, of which I am each part, moves on beneath
my window,
For I am the old woman, too,
Who shakes her sheets
Over every street in the world muttering . . .
What's this? What's this?
Hymn #159 This is My Song
Homily - "Acts of Faith in Times of War"
- The Rev. Lynn Thomas Strauss, Associate
Minister, River Road Unitarian Church
The Rev. Lynn Thomas Strauss, associate minister
at River Road Unitarian Church, began her homily with
reflections on it being a good morning, and a beautiful
day, and the beginning of something wonderful. She then
said, using words from Isaiah, that God has anointed
me to release the prisoners, build up ancient ruins,
repair the ruined cities, and then stated that this
is our work, the work of repair. We come with good news,
she said, for the oppressed, the broken-hearted, the
cynical, captives and for cities that are ruined by
war and violence. That good news is that a new cry for
peace is heard across the country, and around the world,
and that we stand now at the beginning of a new peace
movement, one that grows out of the old peace movements.
Strauss spoke of how fear has become a weapon of
our government, and that resistance to President Bush's
resolutions on Iraq was slow in coming, but that slowly
the small flame is growing brighter as the hope of
the world has fanned the flame, and this is making
a difference. In reporting on a conversation she had
with a friend who works on the Hill, she said that
the faxes, letters and emails coming in are making
a difference. Ninety-five percent of the letters coming
in, said Strauss, are against war.
Yet fear is a powerful weapon, and the government
wields it effectively as terror and violence come
home to America. The question becomes, though, is
how we act when we are afraid. Strauss says that we
are called to act on our faith, and our principles,
even in terrible times, even when we are afraid.
Hebrews 11:1 says that faith is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,
quoted Strauss. She said we don't always see what
it is that is moving us, and we can't always see where
we are going when we commit to act on our faith, and
on our principles. Yet even when we can't see evidence
that we are getting anywhere, people still need to
work. Then our small insignificant acts come together
to make something bigger, and we find that each act
of faith makes a positive difference.
Strauss then asked us to remember the people whose
faith has inspired us to be here this morning. She
stated that she was walking for a cousin who hasn't
been the same since his return from Vietnam, and who
is opposed to this war. She is walking for friends
who live far away, and those who can't be here because
of illness or incarceration. She is walking for her
son who just turned eighteen, and doesn't know what
it will mean if the draft is reinstated and he is
called up. She is walking for those who died on September
11th, and those killed and injured in Afghanistan,
and for those in Iraq who fear not only Saddam Hussein,
but also the United States. She is walking for the
grandchild she will have one day who will, in their
time, stand in this place.
Sometimes, said Strauss, people pay a high price
for being faithful to their principles. She cited
the example of Pete Seeger, and others in the folk
movement, who stood faithfully against the Vietnam
War throughout, despite being blacklisted and threatened.
Strauss said that once again we are at a time in the
history of America when speaking out for peaceful
means takes courage, and invoked the names of Barbara
Lee, Jesse Jackson, Bill Sinkford, and Paul Wellstone.
As Unitarian Universalists we do not speak with one
voice, and that we come to our individual positions
based on our own values and conscience. Strauss has
decided that peace is better than war, that President
Bush does not speak for her when he talks of preemptive
strike, that war is not the answer to terror but is
immoral, that reconciliation is always possible. The
flame of peace, she said, is meant to burn brightly
in every age, even now. She said we needed to move
from an old paradigm of fear and violence, revenge,
intimidation and bullying into a new paradigm of interconnection,
interdependence, shared hope, and respect for all.
Only we, she said, can determine whether President
Bush acts with the consent of the people. She refuses
to consent to killing, to responding to violence with
violence.
Strauss said that last week, the Rev. Rebecca Parker
spoke of five effects of violence: that it isolates,
fragments and fractures the soul, creates false bonds
and false community, and it replicates itself. Parker
stated that there have been more suicides of Vietnam
veterans than there are names on the walls of the
Vietnam Memorial. So many souls have been fractured
by violence.
Strauss invited people into a moment of silence for
all of those whose lives have been touched by violence-the
families in Maryland, Virginia and DC, as well as
those in Israel, Afghanistan, Moscow and Chechnya.
Following the silence, Strauss said that now is the
time to engage of acts of faith, now is the time to
begin a new peace movement. Let us not give our consent,
she said, to war in Iraq. Let us give our consent
and energy and hearts to peace. She encouraged participants
to go home and tell those in their congregations,
workplaces and families where they were today, and
what they have faith in-hope in the world of mutual
interdependence lit by the flame of peace in our time.
Anthem Great Day, the Righteous Marching!
African American Spiritual Sung by Angela Wray, soprano
Benediction - Rev. Robert Hardies
Hardies offered the benediction after taking a tally
of those gathered there. Members of congregations
in Maryland, Virginia, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts,
West Virginia, Ohio, Connecticut, California and Michigan.
Participants then held hands and prayed for peace.
Recessional Hymn #121 We'll Build a Land
*All Hymn numbers from "Singing the Living Tradition."
The Rev. Lisa Presley is Interim Minister of the
Paint Creek Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Michigan.
UUs across the US say NO to War with Iraq
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