Human Again!

When I was 14, I stopped going to the Episcopal Church, a place I had been attending regularly since birth.  I believe that I stopped going because of what I saw as hypocrisy, with all the violence and war and anger of 1966, covered up with nice Sunday clothes, ancient ceremony and prayer.  I think now that part of the hypocrisy that I saw was visible when I looked in the mirror, because I too had begun to accept the violence of war as a solution to our problems.  I didn’t like what I saw, so I walked away from the church and began to detach myself from my ability to feel the pain of others.

Not long thereafter I stood in front of the church in town, the place full of mourners at the funeral of one of my sister’s friends, killed in Vietnam.  I stood outside listening for a long time and then walked away because I didn’t have the courage to deal with such terrible misery.  Part of that fear I now realize was driven by worry that my older brother would also come home in a box from the war, misery that I knew I could not face.

By the time I was 18, I had fully embraced war as a solution to something that I did not understand, and chose to enlist in the military.  For many years afterward I walked away from my emotions regarding people’s suffering and embraced the war machine and our atrocities against innocent people as something necessary and productive. 

It wasn’t until our government began to beat the drums of war in Iraq, 35 years later, that I decided that I had seen enough pointless killing and joined Veterans For Peace.  There we made crosses by the thousands and displayed them with candles, while reading the name, age, rank and date of death of every US military person killed in Iraq, at displays we called Arlington West.  Our goal was to show the public that war is not cheap nor acceptable entertainment, like shock and awe.  It was there that I began to remake that emotional connection with those that suffer and die in war.  Only this time I didn’t run away.

At first I steeled myself, only observing the misery of war on the faces of family members of the dead and comrades at arms.  We did this over and over for several years, and for a while every month with 2,000 crosses and candles and flags with pages and pages of names, where I learned to embrace more and more misery until I began to think that it was taking a toll on my health.   When faced with suffering or misery I would cry easily, and somehow in the back of my mind I saw this as a weakness or failing, because I still didn’t get it.

Now however, I realize that the empathy that I had fostered in church so many years ago, I have now regained.  The emotional connection with those that suffer is now with me full bore.  I embrace it fully, and I will no longer run away.  I now declare myself human again.