WRITING ON THE WALL

A Sermon by James Ishmael Ford
20 October 2002

The Text
At that very moment they saw the fingers of a human hand writing on the plaster wall of the king's palace, near the lampstand. The king himself saw the hand as it wrote… Daniel 5:5

These are perilous times. These are times that call for us, and for our political leaders to make difficult and dangerous decisions. These are decisions that will affect our lives, our children’s lives, and the lives of people we do not know and never shall know. But known or not, thought through or not, these decisions made by us, and our leaders will, without a doubt, shape the world for generations to come.

Of these public decisions I believe perhaps the most problematic centers on what has come to be called the Bush Doctrine. Now, I don’t feel this pulpit was meant to be a political forum, a platform for one party or another to dress itself in the garb of piety and to proclaim its virtues. But, I do believe our liberal religious tradition calls us to examine our principles as individuals, as citizens, and as people of faith.

Our liberal faith is always focused on how we live, it is a constant reflection on those principles by which we live, examined and re-examined. And so as a natural consequence of this spiritual way of ours, as citizens of a republic and in these dangerous times we must not turn from considering our public policy decisions. It is a calling of our faith to do so.

This is a call to spiritual maturity, to integrity. Unfortunately as we consider our public life, the life of politics, it is often hard to remember that term "integrity." In our age of irony this can be particularly hard to remember. So, for instance, in my web searching in preparation for this sermon it was much easier to find cutting remarks than analysis.

In this context one of the many many interesting things about the World Wide Web is how it has given new life to people who in the ordinary course of time might otherwise have slipped out of public consciousness. One such figure is that old essayist and public cynic Ambrose Bierce. For two sermons in a row as I’ve web surfed looking to put some humorous highlights to admittedly grim subjects, I’ve found myself stumbling upon Bierce quotes.

Mainly they come from The Devil’s Dictionary, published in 1911 and, I believe the last book he wrote before his famous disappearance into the Mexican civil war, probably the victim of one too many sarcastic comments thrown at Pancho Villa. There can be no doubt Bierce had a sharp tongue. And so small wonder a quote from him popped as I was searching for definitions of politics. In the Dictionary, Bierce defined politics as "A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage."

These are perilous times. And it is easy to be ironic or cynical. As we consider our situation no wonder Bierce’s ghost haunts us. In that spirit Jay Leno can refer to the proposed invasion of Iraq as "operation re-election." Nor is Leno the only late night host offering comments on this possible conflict and its surrealistic elements. Conan O’Brien quips how "The New York Times is reporting that the Bush administration has a post-war plan to turn Iraq into a democracy. If the plan works it might (even) be tried in Florida."

Of course, with the specter of this invasion, facing as a consequence the possibility of tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of deaths, the humor is strained. And while there is a place, a necessary place for humor, these times are too dangerous to give over to glib cynicism or facile sarcasms.

Rather we need to examine such profound public policy assertions as the Bush Doctrine, reflect upon them in the context of our searching faith, and then decide how we might best act in that light. So, maybe some ground rules are in order.

Those of us who are more left leaning need to move beyond collections of "Bushism," anthologies of the President’s tendency to mangle the language, and I suggest to give up our quick dismissal of his intelligence. He is not a stupid man. Now I join those who are concerned that he isn’t adequately curious about the world, that he is perhaps too smug and complacent in his world-view. I will be addressing that directly. But even if this perspective is true, that doesn’t make him dumb. And dismissing him as such takes us in wrong directions.

Also those of us who fall more to our contemporary political definition of "right," also need to be wary. The fears and hesitations of so many on the left about this possible war are not all birthed out of a knee-jerk reaction against anything the Bush presidency calls for, or a facile dismissal of as I’ve heard it phrased, "real world concerns."

There are terribly important questions here. And we need to look at them with as clear eyed a perspective, as honest an analysis as we are capable. The fate of our nation and the world for decades, maybe a century or more into the future hangs in the balance.

So, the Bush Doctrine. It was first presented by the President during a graduation speech delivered this past 2nd of June at the military academy at West Point. A very good speech, by the way. As we all know these are not times in which we expect our politicians to write their own speeches. But they do approve them and all their details, and this was a well-chosen speech.

After a few jokes in which he shared his humanity as well as insight into the traditions of the military academy he spoke with eloquence about the honor of those traditions. Even someone like myself, who distrusts violence, who tries to live a life closer to pacifism than not, cannot deny that our republic has been a beacon of hope in a world of misery.

Suffering surrounds this globe, a shroud of sadness. And our nation, at its best, has been about a kind of freedom that is more than cultural identity—rather it has been about possibility and human hope. And our military, as the President said, has relentlessly defended this vital hope.

The President went on to speak of the cold war that dominated the greater part of the last century and the newer shift to international terrorism, and how this demands new perspectives and new ways of engaging. He then called upon those present to "moral purpose." That is a direct quote. Moral Purpose. As is his statement how "John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan refused to gloss over the brutality of tyrants, (and how) they gave hope to prisoners and dissidents and exiles, and rallied free nations to a great cause."

Then came the fateful sentence. Even knowing to look for it I had to read this speech three times before I could actually find it, it flows so naturally within the text. "America," that sentence begins. "Has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge." This was said to vigorous applause. He paused for that applause, then concluded the sentence, "thereby, making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace."

The speech continues. There are stirring lines about, and I quote, "Non-negotiable demands of human dignity, the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women and private property and free speech and equal justice and religious tolerance." He said we can’t impose these views, but we can support them and their implementation through numerous venues of engagement.

He refuted the term "clash of civilizations." And instead spoke of these freedoms that he had enumerated as human rights equally significant for us in the west, for Africans, for Latin Americans as well as for the entire Islamic world. He then concluded the speech with exhortations to remember the line of honor and service that marks the American Army.

As I said a good speech. And, as I said, the telling sentence, the formal enunciation of a national, of an international political doctrine could easily have been missed. One sentence, but of such enormous consequence. I repeat it without the pause. "America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge -- thereby, making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace."

Tod Lindberg, who writes for the Washington Times, one of the most conservative newspapers in America today, tell us about this sentence. "What Mr. Bush is saying here is that the United States will never allow a ‘peer competitor’ (in the international relations lingo) to arise. We will never again be in a position of ‘superpower rivalry,’ let alone a cog in a multilateral balance of power."

In the name of profound liberties, of a search for freedom that inspired both the creation of this nation and was the cradle of our liberal religious faith, our faith held within the walls of this building; President Bush has called us to become an empire, the sole world-straddling empire.

Here we begin to see a web of delusion cast over us, clouding our eyes, and leading us in terrible directions. We need to notice. Already we’ve accepted as a matter of course terrible restrictions on our human rights in the prosecution of criminal justice. Former President Carter wrote a comment to the Washington Post at the beginning of September. In it he warns us.

"We have ignored or condoned abuses in nations that support our anti-terrorism effort, while detaining American citizens as ‘enemy combatants,’ incarcerating them secretly and indefinitely without their being charged with any crime or having the right to legal counsel.

"This policy," our former President tells us. "Has been condemned by the federal courts, but the Justice Department seems adamant, and the issue is still in doubt. Several hundred captured Taliban soldiers remain imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay under the same circumstances, with the defense secretary declaring that they would not be released even if they were someday tried and found to be innocent."

The American nation is a beacon of hope in this world. This is true. But we are also greedy and violent and our highest ideals frequently fall before our grasping. And here is an overreaching that is unspeakable in its malign possibility. Here we are, at least as our current leadership is proposing it, reaching for unilateral and historically unparalleled power. How can our ideals flourish in the shade of such a tree? How can our best be the fruit of such a plant?

Is there not another way? How might our nation achieve the greatness of our dreaming? Well, here we should go back to the sources of both nation and faith. Here as we re-examine that which informs our communities we discover the possibility held within a dynamic tension of faith in the individual and certain knowledge of our mutual need for each other.

Before the American experiment there was too little faith in the individual, too little opportunity to explore what it means to be a person. Others dreamed the possibilities of the individual, but we dreamed this into reality. Our nation showed how the individual can be trusted, and what free women and men can achieve.

But, we also discovered we cannot act alone. We are formed out of each other, out of genes and family and community. And as we’ve considered what this actually means, we’ve seen, we as Unitarian Universalists have seen that we are indeed woven out of a web of connections that spreads across the globe. It can exclude no one.

As we’ve explored the possibilities of our faith in that twin hope, our precious individuality and our wondrous connections, we have seen a way through the morasses of life. And I suggest this vision can guide us as we engage the current crisis.

We must be open. We must not close ourselves off. This openness is how we’ve achieved all that we have. To be open is to discover hope. As we learn to open ourselves then greed can become generosity, anger can become clarity and certainty can become a glorious curiosity. This is also what is sadly lacking in the tenants of the Bush Doctrine. Instead it is relentlessly retrogressive, closing us off from each other and even from our own true nature.

This Doctrine rejects any questioning of our grasping, calling it an appeal to a dead economic philosophy. It rejects questioning of our anger, appealing instead to the righteousness of our cause and justifying our striking out against any who stand up against us or our central place. And maybe saddest of all, it rejects curiosity for a cold dead certainty.

If we, as a nation, choose to go alone, to stand alone, and then to defend that isolation by any means at hand, we will forgo the dream dreamt of true human liberation. But we need not walk that path. We can reject this doctrine, in letters, in public statements, in elections. This is the promise of democracy; we need not follow our leaders when they would take us in wrong directions.

So, here we are today, just a few days from the annual celebration of the founding of the United Nations. Here is a true dream of openness. Flawed, of course. In constant need of reform. Of course. But the active dreaming of our hope. And a hint for us, I feel, as we consider these perilous times. With out a doubt we find ourselves at the edge, facing choices. We go alone. Or we can go with the world.
Let us choose wisely.

And faithful to our way let us act.

Amen.