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Reclaiming the Soul of Our Nation
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A. The “soul” of America – its vision and compassion
“…with liberty and justice for all” (Pledge of Allegiance)
"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-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" (Emma Lazarus on the Statue of Liberty, 1883)
“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who died here that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have hallowed it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is rather for us the living, we here to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." (President Abraham Lincoln, the Gettysburg Address, Nov. 19, 1863)
“O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me; and yet I swear this oath – America will be!” (“Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes, 1902-1967)
“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country…” (President John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 1961)
I was a college freshman when I watched the inauguration of President Kennedy and I’ve never forgotten those words. It was the rallying cry for my generation, the calling that rekindled our vision of America and shaped our sense of patriotism and service. It did not replace the “vocation” that God was calling me to, but expanded it. To serve God’s people included compassionate service to the people and ideals of this country. It was the beginning of a decade when many would say America’s soul was becoming its healthy best, when our vision was clearer and our compassion deeper and broader that ever before, when the “Peace Corps” began replacing the “ugly American” as the image of America overseas. But then those leaders who most embodied America’s soul were assassinated – John and Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. How we “60-somethings” long for a recovery of this sense of vision and compassion, for a rebirth of the principle of “the common good.” But “longing” isn’t enough.
And so, bereft of such visionary and compassionate leaders, we are left with some troubling and challenging questions. In the words of African American poet Langston Hughes, will America be? Will America become America for all? Will we respond to President Lincoln’s plea to keep this “nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all [men] are created equal” from perishing? Is “America” in danger of perishing?
B. Our soul is sick - the analysis of Christian prophets & leaders
1. Martin Luther King, Jr. Even in the midst of a decade of rebirth, this vision of a truly compassionate America was blurred by the Vietnam war, by the expansion of US economic exploitation overseas and consumerism at home, and the undoing of the gains in dealing with racial injustice and poverty in the US partly because of the vast redirection of resources to the war and escalating arms race. It was in this context that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, risked his life and political gains on civil rights to challenge us the break the silence on the war and poverty and reclaim the soul of our nation.
2. The Catholic Bishops of Appalachia. Dr. King and the SCLC weren’t the only people of faith recognizing this crisis in vision and values. The Catholic Bishops of Appalachia in their 1975 pastoral letter, THIS LAND IS HOME TO ME, saw clearly and proclaimed prophetically that America had forsaken the principles of justice and the common good for the idol of greed and power – “the maximization of profit” for the privileged few in corporate America. In their analysis -
3. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops. A decade later, the US Catholic Bishops challenged war, the arms race, and economic injustice with the same basic concern – the soul of our nation, recalling the words of Jesus – “What does it profit a person to gain the whole world but suffer the loss of their soul?” (Mark 8: 36)
C. Reflection on this analysis
1. On the passages by Dr. King –
Is our nation “approaching spiritual death”? If so, in what ways and why? If not, why not?
When I think of all the generous individuals I know and how caringly we as a people respond to tragedies in our midst, it’s hard to believe that we may be losing our soul. But then I am overwhelmed by all the political decisions being made at state and national levels that promote the interests of wealth and power at the expense of the working class and poor in the US and of other peoples and nations. There are three life-threatening and soul-threatening areas that concern me the most -
But that’s my reflection. What do you think? Are we “approaching spiritual death”? How so or why not?
2. On the passages from the Appalachian bishops –
D. What can and must we do?
1. Extend the common good – break down barriers of race and class
If we are to make the ideal of “liberty and justice for all” a reality, we have to do all that we can to break down racial and class barriers and include everyone at the table. In other words, live the “Eucharist” and embrace the whole Body of Christ, especially the poor and the marginalized in our communities, nation, and world. There are many ways to do this, which I have spelled out in several worksheets, excerpted here. You are free to copy and distribute them as helpful. First, from “Solidarity with the Victims of Domination” http://www.ipj-ppj.org/Solidarity%20Worksheet.htm
We need to provide learning experiences for ourselves and others where we can listen to the stories of the poor and other marginalized people and learn their realities. This can include
We need to stand with them in their struggles and develop personal and mutual relationships (“doing with” vs “doing for”). This can include
We need to economically support/empower groups struggling against their domination, even if we pay a little more for what we buy. This can include
We need to engage in political action on their behalf. In our local communities, we can promote “free days” at our public places of fun and learning – e.g., museums, botanical gardens, zoo, summer concerts, so that all have access to these enrichment opportunities. In terms of national legislation, there are several helpful groups, in addition to our own Church agencies
We who have more need to live more simply and share the savings. We need to live more in solidarity with those who have less. This can include
We need to open our homes to others, so that we experience solidarity as a matter of daily living. How we use our home shapes our sense of the common good at least as much as how we use our talents. In contrast to the mentality of “my home is my castle” with gates and other barriers to keep others out, our home provides unique opportunities for inviting others into our lives and hearts. In addition to the poor, hospitality at home can include welcoming new neighbors, inviting school friends to dinner who are having a rough time at home, reaching out to relatives or neighbors living alone, offering a place to stay for teens needing temporary shelter or respite, and including international students who can’t go home for holidays. For other specific suggestions for how whole families can participate in some these activities, see “How Families/Communities Can Challenge Materialism & Promote Stewardship”
For additional suggestions for how to break down racial barriers, see “What to Do About Racism” - “What Can Individuals and Families Do?” and “What Can Schools and Congregations Do?” http://www.ipj-ppj.org/Reflections - Advocacy Suggestions - Lesson Plans/what_to_do_about_racism.htm
2. Extend the common good – promote environmental care and solidarity with the earth
As the Catholic bishops of Appalachia so dramatically pointed out, the soul of America is being sold for higher corporate profits and more affluent lifestyles. “Many times before, outside forces have attacked the mountain’s dream. But never before was the attack so strong. Now it comes with cable TV, satellite communications, giant ribbons of highway driving into the guts of the land. The attack wants to teach people that happiness is what you buy - in soaps and drinks, in gimmicks and gadgets, and that all of life is one big commodity market. It would be bad enough if the attack only tried to take the land, but it wants the soul too.” What is happening to us as a nation, to our land, and to our own souls as agribusiness increasingly replaces family farming; as energy and logging companies increasingly take our forests, coastlines, and wilderness areas? What is happening to us when we can’t find the political will to require significant gas-saving standards for our cars?
We desperately need to return to the environmental ethic of those who first inhabited these lands we now call America. We need to evaluate personal as well as national decisions about resource consumption on the basis of their impact on the 7th generation. We need to treat the earth as our mother and rivers as our brothers. There are many ways to integrate this vision into our daily living as well as public policy advocacy and they are all family-friendly.
3. Break the silence and reclaim our “soul” from those who are threatening it.
Returning to the words and witness of Dr. King, who gave his life in reclaiming the soul of our nation, he challenges us to go beyond a narrow national allegiance and speak out for who are the victims of our nation’s policies.
"A time comes when silence is betrayal. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men [and women] do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in the case of dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on.
"Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. For we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.
"We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls "enemy," for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers. I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries… This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all humankind…” (“When Silence Is Betrayal”)
This further challenge from Dr. King raises several questions for each of us to answer.
E. Concluding prayers
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