Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

A sermon given on Sunday, Dec. 5, 1999

First Unitarian Church, Portland, OR

You’ve been seeing the images on TV, reading the headlines in the paper—anarchists erupt in violence! Seattle police accused of brutality! Violence is sexy. Violence sells. I did three TV interviews this past week, speaking of our church’s participation in the World Trade Organization protest, and all the reporters kept pushing the same question: Are you expecting violence? Are you afraid of violence? Does the possibility of violence make you hesitant to go? Their editors are all looking for the same thing—images that will make people notice and tune in. News as entertainment. We tried to move away from those questions and get to the substance of the issue—but the inner workings of the World Trade Organization are not nearly as compelling as a flaming trash bin or a few anarchists in masks or lines of police with batons and gas masks. A hundred thousand peaceful marchers, and we hear about 25 anarchists.

We need to ask some basic questions here today: why are people so intrigued with physical violence? Why do we homo sapiens as a species so readily engage in violence? Why do nations battle nations, sacrificing hundreds of thousands of their young men, and why do people within nations kill their neighbors when the fever of civil war breaks out? There are theories, some of which I’ll share with you this morning. But let me say that no theory can explain to me why we engage in the horrors of war. I am undone by the stories of brother fighting against brother in our own Civil War. I am sickened by what we did in Vietnam, of the over 58,000 deaths of young people, mostly very young men--children by my standards--and mostly minorities and Southern whites from poor families. Not to mention the thousands upon thousands of Vietnamese killed.

Several years ago I spoke with a man who did surveys for a living, and he had been commissioned by the U.S. Government to interview Vietnam Vets in order to see if they were sound of body and mind, or if they still needed attention. He said to me with great feeling in his voice: "I have heard so much. Some of these men had never told their stories until I interviewed them. And what I heard was so horrible that I wouldn’t even think of telling you about it." And he shook his head and was silent.

Let me say now, though, that I am no pacifist. There are times when one must fight, I believe—I think there are just wars, and I think a case in point was WW II. Hitler just might have taken over the world had he not been stopped. I believe we have to have a standing army—we would be foolish not to. Though I believe we must sometimes become violent, I have no stomach for the realities, for the fleshly details, of violence.

My son Kash is in the service. He is at Ft. Campbell, KY, which houses a helicopter attack force—the only one in the world, my son says. I can believe that—helicopters, after all, seem a little cumbersome for attacking. But what do I know? In training operations my son has to hook trucks onto lines hanging down from helicopters and stand under these trucks while they’re being pulled into the air. He has to ride in these helicopters, not a few of which have crashed—though not his.

A few months ago Kash was out on a training mission when his buddy just a few yards away mishandled a hand-grenade, and blew off his thumb. Kash saw the anguish in his friend’s face, he saw the blood. That night he called me to tell me about it. He was grieving for his friend. He kept on talking and talking, he went on and on. "Mom, he’s such a nice guy!" He just kept saying that: "Mom, he’s such a nice guy," as though niceness could or should protect him from danger. Somehow, I couldn’t stop weeping every time I thought of my son’s words. I’m not sure why. Maybe I don’t want him to grow up in a world where hand grenades blow flesh away from flesh.

Theories. Back to theories. They’re easier to talk about. Theorists say that violence is rooted in a number of causes. Konrad Lorenz speculates that humans, like other animals, contain a store of aggressive energy that seeks release and can be rather easily triggered in situations of threat or rivalry. Edward O. Wilson believes that our brains are programmed to divide people into friends and aliens, and we deeply fear those we classify as alien. He thinks that these tendencies have evolved for hundreds of thousands of years and up until our own time, privilege and power have been given to those who are quite willing to kill their fellow human beings. So we have the aggressive drive inherited from our anthropoid ancestors and a highly developed intelligence which has allowed us to produce the atom bomb. Not an encouraging combination.

Freud’s theory was known as the "death instinct." In 1832, Einstein wrote to Freud for help in understanding why human beings kept going to war. Einstein wrote: "<We go to war> because man has within him a lust for hatred and destruction. In normal times this passion exists in a latent state . . . but it is a comparatively easy task to call it into play and raise it to the power of a collective psychosis."

"I entirely agree with you," replied Freud. He then summarized for Einstein his theory, saying that a death instinct functions in every living being and comes into conflict with the life instinct. Turned upon one’s self, this instinct leads to self-destructive acts including suicide, but when Eros, orthe life force, wins out, the death instinct is displaced onto others in the form of aggression. Eros, said Freud, needs to be relieved of its role as adversary to the death instinct and express itself in human creativity and love.

Erich Fromm locates the roots of violence in alienation, in those individuals and groups who are profoundly separated psychologically from other human beings. They are irrationally driven to avenge their terrible loneliness and feelings of impotence through "godlike" acts of destruction, he says. Reminds me of Columbine High.

Barbara Ehrenreich, whose latest book is called Blood Rites, believes that the emotions we bring to war have evolved from a primal need to survive, that goes back to prehistoric times. The weapons have changed immensely, she says, but the basic emotional structures have not. Ehrenreich.emphasizes the ritual elements of war, saying that whole societies can be swept up into an emotional frenzy by sacred images, such as the flag or yellow ribbons. This enthusiasm is not a liking for killing and certainly not a love of imperialism—but a longing for something far more worthy, something that could lift one out of the prison of self by single-mindedly giving that self to a noble cause and so for a time give meaning to life. War releases participants from emptiness and offers a fierce kind of community that often is missing in our lives. American psychologist G. E. Partridge observed that WW I, despite its horrors, had brought "ecstasy." He said that war is an attempt to meet the same psychological needs usually fulfilled by "love, religion, intoxication, and art."

It is interesting to me that some human societies are markedly more violent than others, even when the material conditions are pretty much the same. This strongly suggests that violence is at least partly socially conditioned, or taught. It may be taught directly, as in the Army’s basic training, when the raw recruit learns to subordinate his will to the unit and the leader, or it can be indirect, through myths and legends, through ideology and propaganda. What does it cost for us to turn our young men into warriors, able to kill, willing to be killed. What does it cost emotionally and spiritually?

In the case of intentional decisions to go to war, I believe that governments typically decide what is in their self-interest, and then they use propaganda (for God and country) to convince the citizens and the soldiers. Rather than go to war themselves, which most of them would never do, these politicians send young men—and increasingly young women--who are both idealistic and largely innocent of the ways of the world. When they are actually in combat, soldiers are fighting for their own lives and for their buddies, with whom they become bonded in a profoundly strong way.

I do believe that violence is an innate part of human nature, and I believe that whether or not we act on those feelings comes from what our culture teaches us is appropriate. If we are encouraged to go to war, as are citizens in most every country, then we can fall quickly into that very primitive instinct. On the other hand, war is a costly way to solve disputes, and if we were taught that conflicts should be solved in other ways, we would more than likely turn to those ways, unless pushed to the wall by another country. So far, though, we have no consistent procedures for settling world conflicts and no enforceable laws forbidding aggressive behavior. So it is tempting for a country to say, "I’m bigger, I’m stronger—I’ll have my way." The school-yard bully writ large.

One effort to settle disputes peaceably was, of course, the creation of the United Nations. Its most valuable role thus far is that of the peacekeeper. Actually, the concept has been around a long time. The medieval Catholic church tried to limit the feudal lords’ propensity for war by specifying certain days and certain places off-limits. The first modern conception of a united world with a durable peace began with Woodrow Wilson and his League of Nations. But the Americans and the British objected to an international force, and so the only sanctions were economic ones--and "reason and good will." Our country never joined at all. The League enjoyed a few notable successes, but without much authority and few resources, and the organization finally collapsed in 1937. The League, however, was not created entirely in vain. After WW II, the victorious nations went forward with the creation of the United Nations.

Thus far, the United Nations has been unevenly supported, certainly by the United States. We failed to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. We wouldn’t sign the agreement banning land mines. We need to rethink our military commitments and go forward into this next century with a new kind of internationalism. It would rest on the premise that a global balance of powers is needed. We must give up the idea of being the only superpower, yet we must not withdraw, but use our leadership to make a world organization that is strong.

How can our country move the world toward peace? We can begin by cleaning up our own act. First, the Middle East is the most likely place for a major conflagration to take place, and so the United States must become far less dependent on energy imports. Should we become more energy efficient, we will not be so tempted to control the politics of the oil-rich nations. Furthermore, we should be the leader, not the follower, in proposing naval and military force reductions. We should stop manufacturing and selling weapons to anyone who will buy them. We are the leading economic power in the world, but we must not use this power to exploit weaker, less developed countries. This is a form of violence that is no less violent than tanks and guns. In fact, economic exploitation is the main form of violence that we perpetrate today. We need to start at home.

Speaking of starting at home, let me tell you the story of a young man from Portland, Ben Linder. I didn’t know Ben myself—I wish I had. I knew a bit about his story, though, and I sought out his mother Elizabeth to learn more. It seems that the Linder family was always politically conscious—Elizabeth said they went on peace marches because, well, it was the right thing to do.

Ben was graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in mechanical engineering. In 1979, the Sandinistas came to power in Nicaragua, and Ben felt that this party was trying to lift the peasant population out of the direst sort of poverty. He wanted to use his skills as an engineer to help. So in 1983 he went to Nicaragua and offered his services. He was given a position with the Nicaraguan Energy Institute, and went with a couple of other North Americans and some Nicaraguans into a rural area, into El Cua, a village that had no electricity. A dam had been built but some of the machinery in the powerhouse had to be reworked. This was a long and tedious job—they had to travel days to get parts--but the plant finally went on-line in 1986.

Next Ben set his eye on a project in San Jose DeBocay, again a village which had no electricity. DeBocay was in the war zone where the American-backed Contras were active—he knew it was dangerous, but the project was one that appealed to him. He came back home to do a fund-raising tour in September of 1986, and soon he was back in Nicaragua, back to DeBocay. The village was very primitive: roads were rough, and he had to ford streams—and watch for land mines. Ben and 5 or 6 Nicaraguans were taking measurements at the site on April 28, 1987, when they were ambushed by the Contras. Ben and two Nicaraguans were killed, and the others escaped.

The authorities tried to notify the Linders, but could not locate them. Neighbors heard of Ben’s death on the 6:00 news, and a daughter finally found them at a motel in Burns, OR, and told them that Ben was dead. Ben had told his parents, "If anything happens to me, I want to be buried in Nicaragua," and so they did as he wished. They flew down the next day, which was a Wednesday, and on Thursday they held Ben’s funeral. Ben’s mother said that hundreds and hundreds of Nicaraguans came to the service. She asked them, "You have lost thousands of your young men. Why are you all coming for this one?" And they answered, "Yes, but he came from another country to help us." He, in fact, came from a country that was waging war against them.

The story doesn’t end there, though. The Linders asked those involved with the hydro-electric plant Ben was trying to build, "How much money would it take to continue the work?" They were told $200,000. They set up the Ben Linder Memorial Fund, and various family members and friends went on a speaking tour for 5 or 6 months. The cost of the plant went up to over $600,000, but in time Ben’s dream became a reality: the plant went on line in May of 1994. The Memorial Fund continues to raise money for engineering projects. As I heard this story, I was overwhelmed by the persistent caring, persistent acts of peacemaking by this family. Elizabeth was very matter of fact, though. "After such a terrible loss, what motivated you, gave you the strength to continue?" I asked. She just said, "It seemed important to continue the work."

In order to make peace, we have to become peace. We have to start, not in the world, not out there somewhere, but in our own lives. The natural way seems to be to square off and fight—fight for the right—or so we have been taught. Peacemaking takes courage, takes integrity. It is not for the weak or self-absorbed.

There is a Zen story about a man riding a galloping horse. Someone standing alongside the road yells at him, "Where are you going?" and the man on the horse yells back, "I don’t know. Ask the horse." We are riding so many horses that we cannot control. The horse of armament proliferation. The horse of unregulated multinational corporations. The horse born from the marriage of politics and big money.

Those of us in the peace movement want things to change, we want the world to change—to become more just, more compassionate, more set on life than on death. We must begin with the quieting of the heart. We must leave behind us the rabid activism that becomes in itself a kind of violence—to ourselves and to others. We grow silent and reflect. We look at our own efforts towards lovingkindness. Our own just actions. Our own compassion. When we look deeply at the problems in this society, we see our own prejudice, our fears, our greed, our ignorance. So we start there. In true humility lies our hope.

Peace is a source of new life. It binds the wounds, heals what has been broken, restores order. Peace stops the chaos of conflict and brings the harmony of common purpose. What is partial becomes whole, and where there was deceit, we find truth and honor. Peacemaking may start with the spiritual, but it moves soon to earthly matters. It transforms us and affects all our choices, from what we have for dinner to how we speak to our children. It demands that we stand honestly before our God, however we may conceive of the Holy. In the words of Kierkegaard, "We must enter into a fullness of life where everything we do is done in relation to the eternal."

We can give only what we have within. In the coming days as you walk down the streets crowded with shoppers, or as you stand in a slow-moving line at the grocery store—slow maybe because a little white-haired lady is counting her pennies or because you, like me, always get in the wrong line—or as you drive in the increasingly frustrating traffic, or wherever you find yourself, try being peace. If peace is alive in your heart, it will be given to those around you. We don’t even have to try—in fact, trying may be our problem. Just be peace. Let yourself smile, let yourself slow down, let yourself really see faces, hands, steaming cups of coffee, evergreen branches. Know you are truly blessed and bless others in this holiday season.

So be it. Amen.

PRAYER

BENEDICTION

May your heart be open, may your mind be quieted by the presence of the Divine. Go in love, and go in peace. Amen.

CALL TO WORSHIP

Good morning. Let us be at peace with our bodies and our minds. Let us return to ourselves and become wholly ourselves. Let us be aware of the Source of Being, common to all and to all living things. Come, let us worship together.

Copyright 1999, Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell. All rights reserved.