War and Remembrance

Last night, the Unitarian Universalist Church in Kent held a lovely concert of readings and music to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War. I read three selections from Henry David Thoreau's "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience", which I felt was apropos because of the fact that he inspired the peaceful and non violent protests of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I also felt it appropriate because of the fact that it was written as a result of a night spent in jail by Mr. Thoreau for not paying his taxes in protest of both slavery and the outbreak of the Mexican War, which he felt was an illegal invasion of a sovereign nation, which in fact, it was, as part of the United States' Manifest Destiny land grab. It ended up giving us Texas, which some of us joked last night still belonged to Mexico, because of how many Mexican Americans now live there and populate the state, prompting us to think that perhaps we ought to cede Texas back to Mexico with an apology for stealing it in the first place. That way, we'd be rid of Dubya when he retires to his ranchette in Crawford next year. We could keep Austin, land of progressives galore, like the late Molly Ivins and populist writer Jim Hightower, but other than that, the rest of the state can go back to Mexico with our blessings. It's a pretty useless place as it is, so Mexico, we're sorry we made such a dumb mistake, we're sorry that we stole your land, see, it was all a part of our vision of Manifest Destiny and, well, we kinda got a bit greedy as a result, grabbing up land that belonged rightfully to others, so, it's like this: you can have your land back, just let us keep Austin. Or, we can find another place for all those Texas progressives to live. Hell, let's bring them up north and transplant them to Cincinnati, Ohio, badly in need of a good progressive infusion. So, Mexico, it's all yours. Take it back. And take Bush with you, while you're at it. He's all yours, with our blessings.

Anyway, there were also some other good readings and pieces of music last night. Readings, aside from my Thoreau pieces, included a War Prayer by Mark Twain, read by retired neurobiology professor Ted Voneida and a poem called Dedications to Bashert by Irena Klepfisz, read by the Rev. Melissa Carvill-Ziemer. Saunis Parsons sang a haunting song by Ewan MacColl called "The Dove" (which I now find I must learn!) .There was a lovely variations on the song "We Shall Overcome" for piano, there was a snippet of a Chopin piece, that the piano player later confessed to me that he blew (maybe he was either nervous, or just blanked out, sounding very much like something I'd do), and the pièce de résistance for the evening, music-wise, was a Pasacaglia and Fugue for the victims of Bush and bin Laden, written by a Cincinnati composer named Rick Sowash, who, apparently, has his works played on WKSU a great deal and are rather popular as well. The program was well attended and also well received, and it turns out that ours is the only church that did anything of this kind, having a war memorial like this. We did this a few years ago, I think on the first anniversary of the war, and I also read a snipped from Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" for that as well, and it was one of the three selections from that essay that I also read last evening. I'm immensely proud that I go to a church that does this kind of thing, holding memorial concerts, vigils and other commemorative events regarding this war. I just hope that there will come a day when it will all be over and peace will reign again in the Middle East, but I highly doubt that will ever happen. There are too many centuries of old hatreds and blood and tribal feuds for that to ever occur. But maybe, just maybe, in my lifetime, a Department of Peace will form in the United States and it will find a way to put and end to all the bloodshed, violence and hatred around the world. Well, I can always dream, can't I?