Love and War

Thanks to Dave Dellerba, I was turned on to a couple of profound pieces about the state of national security in the United States and the gaps between what we're being told, what is actually happening, and what we want to believe about ourselves as a nation. The book is called Citizen's Dissent, but you can read abridged versions of the essays here:

Wendell Berry's essay A Citizen's Response to the National Security Strategy of the United States of America and David James Duncan's essay When Compassion Become Dissent.

Just so you don't think they or I want you to take any of these statements out of context, here is the National Security Strategy, which most significantly created the official and "legitimate" notion of pre-emptive war: The National Security Strategy

The most important question these essays beg is the idea of who are we? Berry deals with "the royal 'we'", where more and more it just refers to a small cabal of ruling elite. They create these documents, policies, and laws in order to further strengthen their economic and political standing, either by convincing the public that more consumption is in "our" best interest, or that campaign finance restrictions violate "our" freedom of speech, or that universal health care will destroy "our" health system as "we" know it. In each of those cases, the only people negatively affected are those in power.

It is unfortunate that I can't seem to find on-line the most powerful part of the book, Duncan's postscript he wrote after the invasion but before chaos fully settled in Iraq (though you would never know that last part -- it is eerily prescient that way). He calls Gerri Haynes, to whom he speaks at the end of his essay above. They discuss how to stay in touch with the peaceful, loving center at a time when anger and violence make us (me, I suppose) so tempted to hate. She answers in three phases.

First, she says, "If I move outside that peace, if I give way to anger or rage due to what I see as patently wrong, then I have lost touch of my covenant with peacefulness, and with a life promise to be of love." Genius, but vague.

She expands: "[A]nger always covers sadness, and that sandess always covers something we're unable to do. So, whenever I feel anger I've trained myself to ask, 'What is it that I'm unable to do here?'" Holy moly. With small things, it's easy. I get angry in traffic because I am unable to control the flow, to control what is happening around me, and I have failed to come to grips with the fact that what I can control is my attitude, and I have given that over to someone else. It seems to relate to the old Bhuddist concept of unasking the question. So I am unable to get through this piece of traffic, but what is the real question I'm asking here? It's not how do I get through this traffic, it's how do I get where I'm going. This concept is where we get bogged down on details and the big picture disappears. How do you accomplish what you need without the distraction of the details in front of you now?

The problem, it seems to me, is that on something as huge as war, particularly a war where those acting in our names refuse to give us the information we need and refuse to listen to, now, even members of his own party about what needs to happen next, how do we discover what we are able to do?

So Gerri tries a third time: "If we believe that God is love [as I do], then anything we do must be of love in order to reflect God. This is the standard I use to monitor all my thoughts, my words, and my deeds. Not just my actions. It's a standard I apply to everything." Unending vigilance. And not keeping an eye on people I can't control. I can only control myself, my thoughts. If I start thinking on people with hate, I am playing their game.

This makes me think of an a-ha moment I had with regard to Dick Cheney, thanks to my dear friend Audra, whom I love and trust and respect. She also happens to be significantly more conservative than I am, seeing as how she does come from a family whose parents are friends with Dick and Lynne Cheney themselves. She asked her father why I would see Cheney as evil while he sees him in such an opposite light. The response had nothing to do with me, but with Cheney. When Audra's mom had a relapse of cancer, Dick and Lynne Cheney visited her in the hospital. Now I'm not saying this excuses any of the repugnant, traitorous, self-serving policies Cheney has over seen, but when I start to label people as "evil," I am failing in the need to apply the standard to everything.

That constant vigilance requires that we continue to speak out, continue to attempt to educate people, continue to try to get people to open up their minds. But to continue to do so with love. I fail to do so with love frequently, especially but not exclusively when I think on some of these people with hate. So then I get angry.

Duncan closes his postscript, again, remember this is before chaos settled in to Iraq, with this: "There will be decades of solid work, centuries of solid work, to be done in the wake of all this. But even in this time of war on the imagination, the body wants to follow where free imaginations lead. In our moment of seeming helplessness, our sending [love] helps save us."

Amen.