Last week in this column I asked if anyone had a match to light the revolutionary fire that might start a movement away from corruption and toward justice.
I raised the question because, as far as I can see and hear, there is no voice calling us into a deeper imagination, and greater commitment. That is, there is no voice that we as a collective society recognize. There is no Martin Luther King or Cesar Chavez that runs point in a direction we collectively are willing to run behind. Instead we have lots of words, lots of mouth noise, that never quite form coherently into a vision that the collective body, our society, recognizes as moral marching orders, as moral imperatives that if not acted upon would cause our very bones to melt within.
In other words, we live, as the Bible would say, when the word of God cannot be heard, and everyone does what is right in their own eyes. Such individuality, when words become like smoke that drifts away from a dying campfire, inevitably result in a vicious dog-eat-dog world of continual, competitive violence. We live in a time where the branch we are sitting upon is being sawed off but we can't seem to find the courage to scream "Stop!" We can't seem to find the focus to leap off the branch and climb down the tree. We're just stuck waiting to fall.
A few years ago there was a voice that momentarily caught our imagination. There was a voice that screamed so loud that many folks actually did leap off the branch and climb down the tree and took responsibility for the crimes being done in our name. That voice belonged to Cindy Sheehan. During a time when the entire nation fell into a trance and walked obediently in lockstep to the cadences of Bush's drivel, Sheehan alone stood up and helped unmask the deception perpetrated upon our country.
Sheehan was driven by a pain that refused the comfort of soothing, lying words. Her son was sent to his death in an unjust war by a corrupted administration on behalf of a nation too frightened and apathetic to think for itself. Sheehan stood up and screamed through her words and the simple prophetic action of camping outside of the emperor's sanctuary with the determined insistence that she wanted to see the King. With such simplicity Cindy Sheehan became the Word of God and unmasked the Powers revealing them in all their hideous shame.
Cindy Sheehan has not shut up nor stood down ever since. She continues her quest to awaken this nation to its greatest values and grandest vision. She continues to unmask the powers and lift up ideals worth living toward. She'll be in town Sat., July 25, speaking at Trinity United Methodist Church (6512 23rd Ave. NW, Seattle) at 7 p.m.
Bring matches.