Julie:
I came to America in 1914 by way of Philadelphia…that’s where I got off the boat. And then I came to Baltimore. It was the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen in your life. There were lights everywhere! You should have seen the lights they had! It was a holiday. I don’t remember which one, but there were lights everywhere! It was a celebration of lights! I thought they were for me. Sam was an American… Sam was an American….
---Sam…on
the 4th of July, from the movie “Avalon”
Nancy:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe
free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
---
“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus
Roger:
I have enjoyed my life, its disappointments outweighed by its pleasures. I have loved my country in a way that some people consider sentimental and out of style. I still do and I remain an optimist, with joy and without apology, about this country and about the American experiment in democracy.
---
Hubert Humphrey
Nancy:
With malice toward none; with charity for
all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us
strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care
for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to
do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves,
and with all nations.
---Abraham
Lincoln
Julie:
Come. I will make the continent
indissoluble;
I will make the most splendid race the sun
ever yet shone upon;
I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
With the love of life-long comrades.
Nancy:
I will plant companionship thick as trees
along all the rivers of America,
And along the shores of the great lakes,
and all over the prairies;
I will make inseparable cities, with their
arms about each other’s necks:
By the love of comrades,
By the manly love of comrades.
Roger:
For you these, from me, O Democracy, to
serve you, ma femme!
For you! For you, I am trilling these
songs,
In the love of comrades,
In the high-towering love of comrades.
Julie:
Democracy! Near at hand to you a throat is
now inflating itself and joyfully singing.
---Walt
Whitman
Song: Simple Gifts verse and chorus -
congregation
Julie:
“We won’t talk about losing. There is enough talk about
losing. What has been done this summer cannot have been done in vain.
Roger:
I did not say anything. I was always
embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, sacrifice and the
expression in vain. We had heard them now for a long time, sometimes
standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came
through, and we had read them, on posters that were slapped up over other
posters. There were many words that you could not stand to hear, and finally
only the names of places had dignity. Beside the concrete names of villages,
the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the
dates, abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow
were obscene. I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious
had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if
nothing was done with the meat except to bury it.
---Ernest
Hemingway, “A Farewell to Arms”
Nancy:
September 11
changed the world. Our deepest fears now haunt us. Yet I am convinced that
military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism
against the United States.
We must not rush to judgment. Far too many innocent people have already died.
Our country is in mourning. If we rush to launch a counter-attack, we run too
great a risk that women, children, and other non- combatants will be caught in
the crossfire. Nor can we let our justified anger over these outrageous acts by
vicious murderers inflame prejudice against all Arab Americans, Muslims,
Southeast Asians, or any other people because of their race, religion, or
ethnicity. Finally, we must be careful not to embark on an open- ended war with
neither an exit strategy nor a focused target. We cannot repeat past mistakes.
We cannot become the evil we deplore.
---Barbara Lee, member of the US House of Representatives, Sept. 14, 2001. The one member of Congress to vote against the resolution authorizing military force in Afghanistan
Julie:
St. Joan of Arc is a community blessed by
the presence of peacemakers and prophetic voices. Today, many of us are
exhausted and disheartened by this time of war. The news of mounting
casualties, atrocities and loss overwhelms us. It breaks over us like waves and
our spirits fight an undertow of despair.
Let us take a moment to reflect on the
following questions:
Where are you on your journey as a
Christian, an American and a peacemaker? Who do you hold in your heart as an
enemy? What keeps you from the work of peace?
Song: Simple Gifts verse and chorus -
congregation
Julie:
A human being is part of the whole called by us the universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.
---Albert
Einstein
Roger:
The Dalai Lama told President Clinton, in a private meeting at the White House in the early 1990s: ‘You are the most powerful man in the world. Every decision you make should be motivated by compassion.’ In reality, each of us is the most powerful person in our own world. We too would do well to follow this audacious advice.
---
Lama Surya Das
Julie:
The future will not belong to those who are cynical or those who stand on the sidelines. The future will belong to those who have passion and are willing to work hard to make our country better.
---Paul
Wellstone
Nancy:
History says, don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a farther shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.
---“Cure
at Troy” by Seamus Heaney
Song: Everything is One/Simple Gifts -
congregation