CPTnet
12 June 2007
FORT FRANCES, ON REFLECTION: On the resignation of Cindy Sheehan
[Note: The following reflection appeared on the blog of CPT Director
Emeritus Gene Stoltzfus. It has been edited for length and clarity. People
wishing to see the original will find it at
http://gstoltzfus.blogspot.com/2007/06/cindy-sheehan-darkness-before-dawn.ht
ml.]
Recently Cindy Sheehan shocked some of her coworkers and supporters by
resigning from the peace movement. Her letter reminded us of the pain of
loss of her son in the war, the very real problem of money for personal
survival and egotism and divisions in the peace movement. I read the
responses to her letter. Some praised her work and others were tart and
dismissive; "Goodbye, glad to see you go."
In 1967, I resigned my work in Viet Nam and threw myself, with little
concern for my own needs, into an effort to end the war. I was on the road
for months at a time speaking and doing interviews, sometimes four and five
times a day. Occasionally the media chastised and belittled me as well
meaning but naive. At other times, the fractured peace movement expected me
and my colleagues from Viet Nam to deliver leadership, harsh words, or
distorted reports to support the anti-Viet Nam war ideology. Everywhere I
went, the culture of revolution and someone else's agenda pressed at me.
At night, I found myself sleeping less and less. Often my sleep was
interrupted by a recurring dream about trying to find Lyndon Johnson and Ho
Chi Minh in a Vietnamese jungle in hopes of getting them to end the war. The
jungle seemed to go on in a tangled, limitless space. I was so tired I lost
hope that I would ever get out of the jungle. Eventually I slept less and
less so that I would not have to deal with the nightmare.
Finally, after two years of this, I could not face another audience. The
nightmare and sleeplessness stopped when I stopped speaking.
These are the eyes through which I read about Cindy Sheehan's resignation.
Our lives were changed forever by war. We poured everything we had into
stopping it, and after years of work, the only result we saw was more troops
and more killing. I decided that the country's war policies wouldn't
change, that maybe this wickedness would go on forever. All my work seemed
to make little difference. It's the feeling of hopelessness that is so hard
to deal with.
Failure, hopelessness and even guilt over not doing enough intermingled for
Sheehan and me to create a darkness, an absence of light that sometimes
appears just before the dawn. And when you have known the darkness, the
light of hope is very precious. If I knew a replicable formula that would
make that light appear, I would get it to the Cindy Sheehans of the world.
I don't know a formula. But, I do know that for me, hope had to rise from
the ashes of disappointment in my country and disappointment about movements
created by human beings. Hope for me came to rest on the confidence that
Spirit works in its time. And thankfully, the Spirit doesn't put all the
weight on my shoulders alone.
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Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) seeks to enlist the whole church in
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