Got Vision?

A mini sermon by Emily Joye McGaughy

M-Div Candidate, Pacific School of Religion

You can learn a lot about a place by its bumper stickers. I remember the first time I saw the bumper sticker “Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam.” Startled by the sharpness of that statement, I thought surely it was an over generalization. After all, wars have different contexts—different times and places and most importantly, different faces. Vietnam was about the spread of communism; Iraq is about terrorism. During the Vietnam era there was a draft; today ours is a volunteer army. Democrats Kennedy and Johnson waged war on Vietnam; whereas the Iraq invasion has been a neo-conservative, republican project.

I went to South East Asia with a curiosity about war. Born in 1981, I was the child of two Vietnam era activists. Anything I knew about the war America waged in the 60’s, I heard through the voices of privileged, white, middle class protestant parents. I heard another voice about war, perhaps from the whispers & screams of history, on the 17^th of January when my PSR colleagues and I took a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels of Vietnam.

The Cu Chi Tunnels were built by the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam. They are located 30 kilometers from Saigon and exist today as a tourist site. They are an elaborate tunnel system stretching 75 miles. The NFL used these tunnels as a place to retreat from and organize against US troops who were occupying Vietnamese territory just a few feet above.

I was apprehensive about descending into those tunnels when given the opportunity because they were small and once you passed a certain point, you could not see a thing. Wanting to get out of my comfort zone on this trip, I chose to go down anyway. Besides, I was following Jeffrey Kuan and I knew he’d help me if I needed it. 30 seconds into my descent I froze with sheer terror. My eye-sight and hearing afforded me nothing. Professor Kuan was far enough ahead of me that he might as well not have existed and I was completely void of sight. I panicked—couldn’t move or say anything. The prayerful place in me cried out for help. The voice of wisdom came in response and I knew it was safe for me to retrace my steps. I had the choice to back out of this situation.

When I finally got above ground I began to cry and couldn’t stop when I thought about all the women and men, boys and girls that spent days in those tunnels without the option to surface, who could not see their homes or dads or friends—who could not ‘back out of this situation.’ And then I began to think about all the Iraqi civilians who turn their lights off—and without sight—wait for American soldiers to raid their homes and bodies.

There is a similarity in every war: a lack of vision—literally and figuratively—takes away our power.

Today, we are not allowed to see the bodies of our dead soldiers coming home—a visual right stripped by the government in cahoots with corporate media. Those of us with white skin and money are not seeing our Ivory Tower brothers and sisters shipped off to war anymore because military recruitment targets (literally and figuratively) poor people and people of color. Our veterans are behind decrepit walls, where the injuries and lasting effects of PTSD go unseen by the majority population. As such an apathetic culture, I wonder if our levels of spiritual empathy are determined by whether or not a potential victim looks and talks like us? Or worse, are we only motivated by the things we can literally see?

PSR historian Harland Hogue writes that PSR was founded by a group of people who acted out of “courage bordering on rashness” as they “worked for a world they could not see.” Here on Holy Hill, one hundred plus years later, we too work for a world we cannot see. AND yet, after having visited Vietnam I know one of the imperatives of justice ministry in the 21st century is bringing reality into full view. Be it through bumper stickers, blogs, sermons, demonstrations, classroom education, and/or relationships, may we always denounce the visionless monstrosities of violence.

My prayer is that in this future we cannot see our bumper stickers won’t say “Iran is Farsi for Iraq,” but “I helped close Livermore Labs.” May it be so.