The Witness of Cindy Sheehan

From Chuck Gutenson on HuffPo:

"Overwhelmingly, they [neocons] did not serve; overwhelmingly, their children do not serve. While having plenty of young, metaphorical lambs of all kinds, they choose to sacrifice the lambs of others."

"I suspect this is part of what makes Cindy Sheehan so impossible for the administration to deal with -- she has made the sacrifice they are only willing to require of others. They have given no lambs, but want all that attends a "war administration"; she has given the lamb, but will not be granted even her small request: face-to-face dialogue with the one who sent her son into harm's way.

One last point from the story of King David and Nathan, a point that I would love to see embodied in this president. After Nathan tells his story and identifies the King as the perpetrator of injustice, the King, to his credit, responds, "I have sinned against God." I am not holding my breath; since this president can admit no errors at all, it is hard to see how he could ever admit that the thing he most uses to identify himself was mistaken. But, we can hope, and we can support the Cindy Sheehans of the world who will stand before the president and say by their actions, "You are the man!"'

Indeed, they have all that they want, but they demand much more, because they demand that their violence will ultimately lead to the reign of heaven. May we pray that those who use others as gloss to shine the shield in the inner movie of their glory may come face to face with a mother's grief. Not for their shame, at least not only, but so that the tide of truth may at last wash away the lies that degrade all they touch, and all we touch, who by our silence endorse their lies. Somehow, the heart always pierces through the deadening paralysis:

How slippery the paths on which you set them;
you make them slide to destruction.
How suddenly they come to their ruin,
wiped out, destroyed by terrors.
Like a dream one wakes from, O Lord,
when you wake you dismiss them as phantoms.
- Psalm 73.

Let us pray that Bush will repent of his violence and embrace the cross, in which all sacrifices will be made fruitful. May peace at last spring up in his heart - let us believe in this miracle.