The Soul of America at Camp Casey

"I'm concerned about the soul of America."? These were the words that echoed through the main tent at Camp Casey when Rev. Joseph Lowery spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of peacemakers.? He continued, "I have never seen the soul of America as imperiled as it is today.? The soul of America is being threatened and torn at by corruption and the erosion of moral principles and ethics from every perspective that you can think of."

Rev. Joseph Echols Lowery is considered the Dean of the Civil Rights movement.? He organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 after the arrest of Rosa Parks.? In 1957, he co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and served as its president from 1977 to 1997.? During the funeral of Coretta Scott King, Dr. Lowery was able to penetrate the bubble surrounding President Bush when he said, "We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there. But Coretta knew and we know that there are weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war billions more but no more for the poor!"

Several Conservatives blasted Lowery and called his words inappropriate, however, not a single member of King's family disapproved.? As Dr. Lowery told us under the tent, what else was he going to talk about, "wine and roses?"? Coretta Scott King spoke out against the war, she was a tireless crusader for the common good.

In 2004 for MLK day, Mrs. King said, "It's very sad that we're engaged in war today. Tragically, over 500 troops have been lost . . . And we don't know how many Iraqis have been lost. You see, we have to be concerned not just about us, we have to be concerned about all our brothers and sisters throughout our nation and world. How many Iraqi children have been killed? When will the war end? We all have to be concerned about terrorism, but you will never end terrorism by terrorizing others."? So of course, Rev. Lowery said the right thing to honor her memory.

Peggy Noonan, a staunch conservative and former speech writer for Ronald Reagan said this about Rev. Lowery's words at the funeral.



Listen, I watched the funeral of Coretta Scott King for six hours Tuesday, from the pre-service commentary to the very last speech, and it was wonderful?spirited and moving, rousing and respectful, pugnacious and loving. The old lions of the great American civil rights movement of the 20th century were there, and standing tall. The old lionesses, too. There was preaching and speechifying and at the end I thought: This is how democracy ought to be, ought to look every day?full of the joy of argument, and marked by the moral certainty that here you can say what you think.

There was nothing prissy, nothing sissy about it. A former president, a softly gray-haired and chronically dyspeptic gentleman who seems to have judged the world to be just barely deserving of his presence, pointedly insulted a sitting president who was, in fact, sitting right behind him. The Clintons unveiled their 2008 campaign. A rhyming preacher, one of the old lions, a man of warmth and stature, freely used the occasion to verbally bop the sitting president on the head.

So what? This was the authentic sound of a vibrant democracy doing its thing. It was the exact opposite of the frightened and prissy attitude that if you draw a picture I don?t like, I?ll have to kill you.

It was: We do free speech here.

That funeral honored us, and the world could learn a lot from watching it. The U.S. government should send all six hours of it throughout the World Wide Web and to every country on earth, because it said more about who we are than any number of decorous U.N. speeches and formal diplomatic declarations.



When Rev. Lowery spoke to us again during Easter Sunrise service, he looked out over the crosses representing the men and women who paid the ultimate price for Bush's folly and told us there is still hope for America.? It rests in those of us who are willing to speak the truth and keep the faith.? Faith that as long as we spread the word of peace there will always be hope that we can turn this nation around and take it back from those who seek to undermine the common good.

He told us a tale of faith.? While fighting for the renewal of the voting rights act, Dr. Lowery organized a march from a small town in Alabama over to Birmingham and on up to Washington.? But the county sheriff in the small town where the march was scheduled to begin had gone around to all the black families in the town and given them hams and turkeys and told them not to join with that "agitator" from out-of-town.? When the cold morning of the march arrived, Dr. Lowery looked around the town square and saw only a handful of marchers.? Disheartened by this turn of events, he kept the fait that the march would eventually be successful.

Dr. Lowery told us about the sleet that fell from the sky and how he was happy for it because it hid the tears in his eyes that so many didn't show up.? They started marching and someone suggested they spread out to make themselves look larger, but the good Reverend told them instead they should huddle and march to keep warmer.? In fact, because of the cold they marched twice as fast.? He looked up into the cold morning sky and asked God for help.? When they reached the next small town and rounded the corner to the town square, he looked out and saw hundreds of people waiting for them.? Each of them had a basket filled with ham sandwiches and turkey sandwiches and they had a feast as they marched on to Birmingham.? They eventually arrived in Washington with a stronger faith in the common good of man and the voting rights act was renewed.

As the Easter service concluded, Dr. Lowery said he was appointing each of us as Chaplains of the Common Good.

The common good.? This used to be a good description for the morals of this Nation.? We all believed in the common good, but no more.? Today there are people who want to see us become a more militaristic nation.? A nation ready to go to war and beat down anyone who doesn't see the world as we do.? When we were a nation that stood for what was right instead of what was good for the bottom line, there were more nations who wanted to follow our example, but as word got out that we were setting up despots and dictators - that we were arming evil men, our good name went south.

There are still people out there who deride peacemakers.? They say if we are against the war that we are for terrorism.? But anyone who would say something like that is simply showing their own ignorance. Dr. Lowery spoke of the leaders of this nation seeking to redefine Christianity into their own Right Wing ideology.? He said:



There are forces in this country who are trying to redefine America in this new millennium in their own image.? They're elitists, they're racists, they're militaristic, they're war mongers, these folks are a new brand of theocrats.? They claim to speak for God.? And they've made their God, the God of the Empire, the God of War,? the God of Materialism, the God of Wealth.? And they forgot about the God of Jesus.



Some people in the country are no longer satisfied with us being the most powerful country in the world, they want to see us exert our will, they want to see us as the supreme rulers of the world.? Yet, those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.? The world is scattered with the ashes of nations that decided to try for world domination?? Take a look at the titles of so many books, "The Fall of the Roman Empire", "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", "The Fall of the Soviet Union".? What will the title of our book be?? "The Country that Destroyed the World" or "The Fall of Democracy and the Destruction of the Bush Empire"??

I would rather hope that more people find themselves called to work for the common good and perhaps the title of our book will be, "The Nation that Came to Their Senses Before It Was Too Late."

photos from DeDe Miller and Jueri Svjagintsev]