Recent

by Earl Martin

         I sit by the ditch.

         The slight breeze murmurs through the tropical pines at the ditch’s edge. Sugar cane sparrows and swallows fill the air with their own chirps and warbles. Roosters crow at distant farmsteads, and conical-hatted farmers scratch the sandy ground with broad-bladed hoes. A sleek iridescent lizard makes her way down the ditch’s side toward a few inches of water at the bottom. She looks casually for some insects to make her a mid-morning snack.

         Despite the rustles, all is quiet at My Lai this morning.

         Still, the ditch must remember. On March 16, 1968, this ditch became the scene of pleas and cries, rifle shots and grenade explosions. This ditch became the killing field for 170 women, men, elders and children of this village. Here, the logic of war went totally berserk.

         The angry, frightened American unit sent into My Lai under the command of Lt. William Calley on that morning of March 16, 1968, suspected wrongly—based on confusion of a village name on the military maps—that the village was heavily defended by Viet Cong. Their fear apparently led to the senseless slaughter, as they herded the farmers into the ditch and shot them down.

         Today, a young boy with eager eyes under a purple baseball cap suddenly appears and slides down the ditch opposite me. His smaller sidekick in goldenrod shirt climbs in bare feet up one of the pines. When the smaller tyke shakes a branch, a huge, black beetle drops loose and buzzes down into the ditch. An older lanky girl nearby—is she a sister?—in conical hat swoops down and with one swat captures the big bug in her hand. A new pet for the day.

         The innocent play of children surrounds My Lai today.

         I walk past the memorial wall tiles reminiscent of Picasso’s “Guernica” with all creation crying to the heavens for life and justice. I move among the low graves stones marking the memories of some of the reported 504 persons who were slain in different sites around the village that morning. I encounter a woman sitting quietly under a coconut tree with her two children. When I greet her in Vietnamese, her reticence softens. I introduce myself, and she tells me her name is Nguyen thi Nhung, a native of My Lai.

         I ask Mrs. Nhung where she, as a young girl, had been on that fated morning. “Our house used to be over there,” she points. They rounded us all up, drove us into the ditch.”

         The shy mother stops for a moment, swallows, and continues. “The rest were killed, but I was underneath the others in the ditch. They didn’t see me. If they had seen me, I’d be dead, too.”

         Nhung says she lost her mother, her father, and three younger siblings that morning. Her tone of voice surprises me. Clearly this woman carries deep sadness from the memories. But I can discern not a trace of bitterness toward me or toward any Americans.

         As I sit there with Mrs. Nhung, I think of Lt. Calley himself and wonder whether even he could ever return to visit My Lai. Here, as on other occasions in Vietnam, I marvel at the apparent lack of bitterness. Do Asians love life less that we in the West, as stereotypes sometimes suggest? I sense not.

         Rather, it seems there is an acceptance of destiny. Số mệnh. Fate. I want to live. I want my children to live. But if I die, if my child dies, I must come to terms with reality. To deny that reality, to hold prolonged bitterness about that reality, would only mean your spirit would begin to devour your body. Better to accept the past as past.

         Later, March 16, 1993, I return to My Lai. Perhaps a thousand local farmers and students have gathered for the 25-year commemoration of that tragic morning. When I arrive, the organizers of the memorial service ask if I, apparently the only American present, would like to speak as part of the ceremony. I hesitate. I certainly have prepared nothing. But as I ponder the invitation, I recall the healing I had witnessed in previous years when Japanese church persons, during visits to the Philippines and Indonesia, expressed sorrow for the actions of their countrymen during World War II. So when I am asked a second time, I agree to speak.

         In the ceremony, community representatives present large floral wreaths in front of a great My Lai memorial statue. Then a local official gives a speech recounting the brutal events of that morning 25 years ago. While he is vivid in his description of the massacre, his is not a vengeful or angry speech. He does not pronounce blanket condemnations on Americans. Nor, I note without surprise, does he speak about any of the Viet Cong terrors that had also been part of the war’s reality. Instead, as most officials in this era, he goes to great pains to say that the war was a thing of the past . . . that Vietnam now seeks friendly ties with all countries, including the United States. A second official then rises to give a boilerplate speech about the economic development plans of the district.

         Then I am beckoned to the rostrum. Placed last in the short ceremony, I speak in simple Vietnamese. The crowd hushes. Probably because they have never heard their language spoken in a such a strange, foreign accent! But they remain attentive, sometimes craning necks to get a better view. Occasionally they look at each other and nod in assent. As the end, they applaud their appreciation for the simple expressions of sadness, of longing for forgiveness and peace.

         After the talks, young students distribute joss sticks. We walk silently from grave to grave, passing in reverence for the villagers who lost their lives. I pray in silence by the irrigation ditch where Mrs. Nhung’s parents and siblings had been shot exactly 25 years earlier. Curious children gather around and press close on every side. Their presence reassures me deeply. Through blurred eyes I see in their gentle, smiling faces hope for the future of My Lai and the future of this scarred land.

         As I leave the hamlet, Mrs. Nhung appears again from the coconut trees. She is wearing for the occasion what may be her only silky, embroidered dress, or ao dai, holding her conical hat. As we pass, we pause and bow slightly toward each other in simple respect.

#  #  #

Earl Martin was among a handful of U.S. citizens in Vietnam that stayed on after the North Vietnamese rout of the South Vietnamese army and the departure of U.S. troops. He and his wife, Pat Hostetter Martin, who were married the day before the My Lai massacre, spent five years in war-torn Vietnam as Mennonite Central Committee workers. As of this writing, they are back in Vietnam with their children, celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. Earl is the author of Reaching the Other Side, published in 1978.

by Ken Sehested

Remember that time when Jeremiah failed to accentuate the positive?

“The word from On High came to crotchety Jeremiah: Stand in the gate of the YHWH’s house and announce: Thus says the Lord. Assess your days and amend your ways. Do not rely on deceptive marketing campaigns, or say ‘God bless America,’ ‘God bless America,’ ‘God bless America.’

“For if you do well, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan and the widow, or shed innocent blood, then I will dwell with you. But see how my sanctuary has become an altar for violent design—Torah’s and Psalmist’s, Prophet’s and Gospel’s place usurped by gunmetal steel.

“My house has become a den of pistol packing pietists, certain that their firepower serves to protect the integrity of the Most High who, GREAT as he is and all, is just a little naïve about the possibility of active shooters and thus the need for safety training, practicing lock-down procedures, video surveillance, car tag monitoring services in the parking lot, and off-duty deputies guarding the till.”

Maybe, we say, we could dual-purpose the choir rehearsal room to serve as a shooting practice range for church staff and deacons, and hand-to-hand combat techniques using ink pens as knives, with training in how to aim at intruders’ carotid arteries at the first shout of “Allahu Akbar!”

(Ooops. Those church house shooters tend to be the white-male-Christian variety.)

What’s that, pastor, about aliens? Don’t worry, we’ll get ICE down here pronto to get them into one of the private prison deportee camps where no writ of habeas corpus can reach them. We’ll get the lighter skinned orphans and widows to the social service office and get the rest bused back to their neighborhoods beyond the tracks. The Salvation Army and rescue shelters have experience handling this kind. We always take our Wednesday night church supper leftovers there. (I’ve heard some say those shelters spoil their guests, particularly whoever gets Mrs. McKlesson’s chicken and dumplings.) I don’t mean we take it, you know. That would violate our church security protocol. Willie, our custodian drops it off on his way home. He knows the neighborhood.

“The Lord God of Heaven speaks to the shut-out, warning against the rationers of Heaven’s manna, saying, ‘As for you, do not pray for this people, do not raise a cry or prayer on their behalf, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. Their confidence is vested in what they strap on their hip, in their legislative graft, in the market’s bullish tilt and their brokerage firm’s guilt.’

“This people have done evil in my sight, says the Lord. They commit abominations in their liturgy. Their invocations call upon the reign of ruin. Their incantations foster mayhem in the courts of justice. Their eucharistic practice devours the poor. Their anthems celebrate infamy; their praise songs, villainy. Their prophets accentuate the positive; their priests treat harm lightly.

“Their benedictions are boisterous claims to more of the same.

“At the appointed time, says the Sovereign, all the bones of their presidents and congressional leaders, chief justices and CEOs, shall be disinterred and spread before the sun, and what they previously worshiped will be turned against them. And they shall be scattered to sh*thole regions, to be heard from no more.”

#  #  #

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org

Prelude – “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” (Henryk Gorecki, Symphony No. 3, first movement, part two; Zofia Kilanowicz, soprano, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, directed by Antoni Wit)

{10 minutes. Begin playing 5 minutes before the service’s starting time.}    

*Opening Song – “Come, Ye Disconsolate”

Cantor: Come, ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish,
              Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel.
              Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;

All: Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.

Cantor: Joy of the desolate, light of the straying,
             Hope of the penitent, fadeless and pure!
             Here speaks the Comforter, tenderly saying,

All: “Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot cure.”
{Lyrics: Thomas Moore; music: “Consoator,” Samuel Webbe, Sr., arranged by Thomas Hastings} 

The Occasion
[introduction to the service, read aloud by one person]

        On March 16th, 1968, US Army Lt. William Calley, platoon leader in Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Brigade, 23rd Division, led his men into the hamlet of My Lai in the Quang Ngai Province of the coastal lowlands of Vietnam. Expecting a military encounter, they found only women, children, and old men.

        Frustrated by earlier casualties in their ranks due to snipers and land mines, the soldiers took out their anger on the villagers, indiscriminately shooting people as they ran from their huts, rounding up the survivors and leading them to a nearby ditch where they were executed. Some women and girls were raped before they were killed. The killing went on for several hours. Thus was carried out a systematic massacre of more than 500 Vietnamese civilians. No U.S. soldiers were threatened, fired upon, injured, or killed.

        In the end, only Lt. Calley was found guilty of any crime. Convicted of premeditated murder, he was sentenced to life in prison at hard labor. That sentence was eventually reduced to 10 years, though President Richard Nixon pardoned Calley after he served only three-and-a-half years under house arrest.

        Although this episode is unparalleled in scope, it was not unique. A whistle-blower in the division wrote to U.S. Army Chief of Staff General William Westmoreland, pleading for an investigation of murders of Vietnamese civilians. He reported that there was the equivalent of “a My Lai each month.”

        The purpose of this service is not to renew judgment on any of the soldiers at My Lai, or their commanding officers, or even the US presidents (from both parties) who engaged in a decades-long pattern of withholding truth or outright lying. Our purpose in this service is to acknowledge and face these crimes done in our name, to grieve and make penitential commitments, and to ask how this pattern of behavior continues to afflict our longing for what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the Beloved Community.

Call to Worship

One: We gather to remember a story of war that haunts us to this day, to remember a wrong that must be made right.
All: We gather to reckon with the sorrow that still pains the souls of many—to reckon with the brokenness that remains within the living who cannot forget the dead.
One: We gather to reflect upon the prospects for meaningful justice and the compelling call for healing and reconciliation.
All: We gather to resolve not to leave this place unchanged or unwilling to transform this haunting memory into something good. In the words of Rabbi Abraham Yitzak Kook, “We don’t speak because we have the power to speak; we speak because we don’t have the power to remain silent.”
{Paul C. Hayes}

Observing Silence
“To speak about God and remain silent on Vietnam is blasphemous.” —Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

Opening Prayer
        Holy Light, we stand somewhere in the shadows, in between the battlefield of our struggles and the sanctuary of our souls. Shed a little light on our way. Keep your lighted sanctuary within us portable, able to see clearly, to walk courageously, to withstand the forces that corrupt the truth of our belonging to your one worldwide family.
        Keep our madmen world leaders away from buttons of annihilation. Keep them clearly out of range from pushing our buttons toward hopelessness and helplessness. Don’t give them security clearness to our spirits. Keep us ever secure in You. Shed a little light on our way.
        Shed your light of healing on all who struggle with illness of body, mind and spirit. Shed your light of grace on all who stumble with regrets and shame too tender to touch. Shed your light of mercy on all who fear for their lives, who are caught in the crucible of suffering. Here, now, once again…shed a little light on us all. Amen.
{Nancy Hastings Sehested}

*Singing – “Come, Ye Disconsolate”
Cantor: Here see the Bread of Life, see waters flowing
              Forth from the throne of God, pure from above.
              Come to the feast of love; come, ever knowing

All: Earth has no sorrow but heaven can remove.

Cantor: Shame’s power remanding, war’s brutal rending,
             Who can unbind us from memory’s remorse?
             Come now, O Gentle One, with fierce love contending

All: For earth’s days of splendor, in mercy endorse.
{Lyrics: Thomas Moore v. 1; Ken Sehested  v. 2}

Observing Silence
“There are things that can be seen only with eyes that have cried.”
—Roman Catholic Archbishop Christophe Munzihirwa, martyred in 2001 in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Words of Praise and Adoration
One: Jump for joy, oh people! For amid the screaming commercials and blithering campaign ads, the Redeemer has heard our aching voice.
All: God hears! God knows! Therefore we will praise that Unspeakable Name forever.
One: When misery and madness encompassed me, when anguish threatened to undo me, when heartache split my soul, I uttered my cry to any who would hear.
All: God hears! God knows! Therefore we will praise that Unspeakable Name forever.

*Singing – “Abide With Me”
      Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
      The darkness deepens; God, with me abide.
      When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
      Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

      I need Thy presence every passing hour.
      What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
      Who, like Thyself, my guide and stay can be?
      Through cloud and sunshine, God, abide with me.
      {Lyrics: Henry Francis Lyte; “Eventide” tune by William Henry Monk}

Observing Silence
Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made nd forgive the sins of all who are penitent.
—Book of Common Prayer, prayer for Ash Wednesday

Confession and Absolution
One: The One who extends Presence into the most desolate region—even to the place of utter abandonment—is mighty in mercy, strong in tenderness, powerful in pardoning.
All: God hears! God knows! Therefore we will praise that Unspeakable Name forever.
One: Relax, oh my soul, in the arms of the One who dries tears, who swaddles our fretful limbs, whose light in the night scatters dragons, and whose promise is bounty and abundance.
All: God hears! God knows! This is our assurance against the ravages of fear. Therefore we will praise that Unspeakable Name forever.

*Singing – “Abide With Me”
      Open thy hand to every living thing
      Hill, meadow, forest, raise your voice and sing!
      And in due season grant thy Jubilee
      ’Til then stir confidence, abide with me. 

      As empires rage, unbounded truth disdained
      My soul grows weary, hope’s approach restrained
      When fears encroach and eyes no longer see
      Blessed and Gracious One, abide with me.
      {Lyrics by Ken Sehested}

Observing Silence
“If all we feel is shame after reviewing of the carnage of racism, materialism and militarism, we miss the point—
and, in fact, yet again we’ve made the conversation about ourselves. The awareness is indeed painful, but the pain’s purpose is not punishment but a penitence that generates the resolve to engage the difficult work of reconciliation.”
—Ken Sehested

Words of Assurance

One: Be assured that the God who shakes heaven and earth, whom death could not contain, who lives to disturb us and heal us, blesses us with the power of the Spirit to redeem and to restore with justice and in love.
{Adapted from Janet Morley’s All Desires Known}

Professing Our Faith
One: For what do we hope?
i We hope for the Beloved’s promise to overtake the world’s broken-hearted threat.
One: For what do we long?
All: We long for the moist goodness of God to outlast the parched climate of despair.
One: For what do we lack?
All: We lack for nothing—save the need for hearts enlarged by the assurance that every hostage will be freed.
One: For what do we strive?
All: We strive for lives marked by goodness, purified of deceit and malice, and hands made gentle by the tender caress of Wisdom’s approach.
One: For what do we struggle?
All: We struggle for the fate of every child whose sighs and cries are muffled by the market’s disdain.
One: In what do we rejoice?
All: We rejoice in rebellious acts of abundance in the face of every stingy arrangement.
One: For what prize do our eyes arise?
All: Our eyes arise for the Beloved Community’s embrace of earth’s abode and Heaven’s favor.
One: Peace be with you!
All: And also with you!

*Singing – “Come, Ye Disconsolate”
Cantor: Hark, to the mending work, penitence demands it,
              Kneel in confessional, sprint to repair
              All sorely wounded, each debt acquitted

All: Heaven’s sure deliv’rance and earth’s pain forbear.

Cantor: Though death e’re be prowling, sorrow confounding
              Enter the halls of praise—weep, shout and sing.
              Here lay your fears aside, here hope’s amending

All: Rejoice! all you creatures, O Death, where art thy sting?
{Lyrics by Ken Sehested}

Observing Silence
“Repentance for silence is better than repentance for speaking.”
—Moorish proverb

[Options for special music]

• Have a choral group learn and perform “For All the Sufferings of the World,” by Rodolfo Gaede Neto. {Here is the sheet music.}
•Play a recording of “Study War,” by Moby.
•Play a recording of “Why do we build the wall,” written by Anaïs Mitchell, sung by Greg Brown.
• Congregation singing “This Is My Song, O God of All the Nations”
[More musical options are in the “Additional Worship Resources” section of this resource.]

*Benediction
One: Among the memory prods in every tragedy’s aftermath is this reminder of the Spirit’s directives—
All: About whose presence we must foster,
One: About which whereabouts we must locate,
All: Whether the season calls for laughter or lament,
One: Whether patience or militance is called for, caressing hand or shaking fist.
All: Only after this interrogation can our speaking and silence, our moving and stillness, put us in the position to see and know what is to be done,
One: With whom it is to be done, in what place and time it is to be done,
All: And by what authority we proceed.
One: In and through our penitence, grant the bounty of grace and the risk of resolve.
All: Resolve to break the silence; to remember afresh; to hope that is stronger than fear; to persevere beyond fatigue.
One: You shall know the truth, beloveds, and the truth will make you odd!
All: So may it be, from henceforth and evermore.

*Recessional
[Congregation recesses, starting with the front row, then row after row until all are exited. Cantor leads in continued singing of this refrain throughout, exiting with the final row.]

Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around,
turn me around, turn me around,
Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around,
Keep on a-walkin’, keep on a-talkin’
Headed up to freedom land.
{African-American Civil Rights song}

*Please rise in body or spirit.

©ken sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. This liturgy was created by Ken Sehested, a founding co-pastor of Circle of Mercy in Asheville, North Carolina, and the creator of prayer&politiks. Unless otherwise noted, the writing is his.

by Paul C. Hayes

Moral shame and injustice bear long legacies. Fifty years after the horrific massacre of Vietnamese villagers by U.S. soldiers this egregious crime of war has not faded from the memories of the living or the dead. The blood of the innocent still cries out from their graves, and the surviving generations of victims and offenders alike carry the burden of this loss. In the words of Kim Phuc, whose anguished escape as a child from a napalm attack was captured in a photograph and seen around the world, “I will always remember that day when we ran from life to death.”

Thus says YHWH: “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and bitter weeping.  Rachel, weeping for her children, refuses to be comforted, for her children are no more.” (Jeremiah 31:15)

To name the pain is the beginning of accountability, and to sense remorse for the harm done is the genesis of forgiveness. Remembering the sorrow awakens the heart to re-engage in the search for justice.

You who believe, uphold justice and bear witness to Allah, even if it is against yourselves, your parents, or your close relatives…Refrain from following your own desire, so that you can act justly—if you distort or neglect justice, Allah is fully aware of what you do. (Qur’an 4:135)

The distance of time and circumstance mitigate the call for retribution.  But the hope of justice can yet be fulfilled restoratively through forgiveness and peacebuilding. “Forgiving is not forgetting,” as Desmond Tutu has said. “It’s actually remembering—remembering and not using your right to hit back. It’s a second chance for a new beginning. And the remembering part is particularly important, especially if you don’t want to repeat what happened.”

God has sent me to bring good news to those who are poor; to heal broken hearts…to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who grieve…to give them a wreath of flowers instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of tears, a cloak of praise instead of despair. (Isaiah 61:1-3)

As Howard Zehr has written, “Justice will not be served if we maintain our exclusive focus on the questions that drive our current justice systems: What laws have been broken?  Who did it?  What do they deserve? True justice requires, instead, that we ask questions such as these: Who has been hurt? What do they need? Whose obligations and responsibilities are these? Who has a stake in this situation? What is the process that can involve the stakeholders in finding a solution?”

Don’t refuse a kindness to those who deserve it when it is in your power to do it.  Don’t say to your neighbor, “Go away, I will give to you tomorrow,” if you can give today. (Proverbs 3:27-28)

 “Retributive theory believes that pain will vindicate,” as Zehr explains, “but in practice that is often counterproductive for both victim and offender.  Restorative justice theory, on the other hand, argues that what truly vindicates is acknowledgement of victims’ harms and needs, combined with an active effort to encourage offenders to take responsibility, make right the wrongs, and address the causes of their behavior.  By addressing this need for vindication in a positive way, restorative justice has the potential to affirm both victim and offender and to help them transform their own lives.”  (Howard Zehr, The Little Book of Restorative Justice)

It is in the nature of things that joy arises in a person free from remorse. (The Buddha)

The time has come to examine ways to heal the wounds of this terrible act of evil. It is time to hear the accounts of the living and the stories of the dead. It is time to speak truth to the generations who rise up from these shallow graves to address the harm that has been done and prevent it from being forgotten. It is time to embrace the call for justice to allow the hope for reconciliation to be realized.

Blessed are those who are poor in spirit: the kindom of heaven is theirs.
Blessed are those who are mourning: they will be consoled.
Blessed are those who are gentle: they will inherit the land.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice: they will have their fill.
Blessed are those who show mercy to others: they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are those whose hearts are clean: they will see God.
Blessed are those who work for peace: they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of their struggle for justice:
The kindom of heaven is theirs. (Matthew 5:3-10)

#  #  #

Rev. Dr. Paul Hayes is pastor, Noank Baptist Church, Noank, Connecticut