Disturb us, Lord
This past week was something of a blur. Struggling with agonizing back issues, and in addition to my regular routine of research and writing, I acted as a co-docent at the Monterey Battlefield Museum, and presented a proposal to our town’s Recreational Committee. On Memorial Day I acted as a volunteer traffic guard for our Memorial Day Parade and then proceeded to introduce out town’s guest speaker at our memorial ceremony in the park. All the while, I struggled along with the rest of the nation to understand and address the slaughter of innocents at a grade school in Texas.
When I first began writing this, I knew where my words were headed. Now that I have begun, I am not so sure. My thoughts are warring between pain, heartache, disgust, admiration, and optimism. I think you understand whence come my pain and my heartache. I’ll attempt to parse out the rest.
I am disgusted at the direction my beloved country is taking. At a time when we desperately need understanding and inclusion, divisiveness is what we seem to be teaching our children. Americans are not perfect. We never have been. At the same time, I had to believe that we aspired to be better. We grew up with heroes whose attributes we longed to emulate. When disaster struck It seemed we always reached out and pulled together. In the darkness, didn’t we strive for the light. I still want to believe this, but I look at my stiff-necked government unable to accomplish that one guiding principal that I taught my high school students to be so essential to successful governance -compromise. I despair.
Yet in the midst of despair, I watch the ongoing War in the Ukraine with an overwhelming sense of admiration. There, a proud people rejected the gray soviet-style inevitability of their future and replaced it with a future built on dreams of personal self-fulfillment. A Hitler-like madman is recklessly trying to steal their dreams by smashing them to rubble who then claims the rubble for his own. He is trying … but he is failing. God bless them, the Ukrainians are the Mouse that Roared. Their fierce, determined defense of their land and their people renew our own flagging pride. We see in them what we used to see in ourselves.
In a world that was beginning to resemble the 1930s rise of totalitarianism. I suddenly see a glimmer of hope. I am optimistic. Not only do I see cooperation on a grand scale. I sense cooperation on a smaller scale here, in this country. It may be small but it is, at least, a much needed jump-start. Please, by whatever is holy, let us lean toward alliance and away from acrimony. This past Sunday our church pastor read us a prayer attributed to Sir Francis Drake. I include it below, fully understanding the man was a rake, a pirate and a slave trader, still, his simple message bears repeating. – “combat complacency.”
“Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little, when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to shore. Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life; when having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity; and in our efforts to build the new earth, we have allowed our vision of a new heaven to dim. Stir us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas, where storms will show your mastery; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. We ask you to push back the horizons of our hopes,, and to push us into the future in strength, courage, hope and love.”
Amen … amen.