Ponderings

Cindy Sheehan made front-page news once again this week when she called it quits. With her typically fiery tone, she announced that she was leaving the public arena and throwing in the towel on war resistance. The toll exacted was simply too high, the progress nonexistent.

Sheehan has been the human face of the despair in the anti-war movement in our country since her infamous camp out in Crawford, Texas after her soldier-son was killed in Iraq. Her son a casualty of this war, her initial protests spurned by the White House, her grief transformed into powerful rage that energized the war resistance movement in this country. War in any form is a moral crisis and this interminable war is certainly no exception. In times of moral crisis prophets emerge and Sheehan is a prophet.

Although I am intrigued by Cindy Sheehan, I am also offended by some of her actions. If I were choosing a lunch date, Cindy Sheehan would not be on the top of my list. Her palpable anger unnerves me and I confess that I find her rude. Let’s just concede that she did not get the appellation “attention whore” without some effort.

In fairness though, I should point out that prophets generally are strange characters. Prophets are not the kind of folk we invite for Sunday dinner. Sheehan is actually rather tame when seen in light of her prophetic colleagues. The behavior of prophets is often so egregious as to be easily dismissed. In our current vernacular, many of the behavior of the classic prophets would qualify as mental illness.

Jeremiah is the preeminent example of prophet, his scandalous story recorded in the texts we call sacred. He smashed clay pots in the town square, walked around town wearing an oxen yoke, and went into hiding after being charged with treason. The life of a prophet is not pretty.

The flagrancy of the prophetic ministry isn’t for naught. Prophets are charged with drawing attention to that which we would rather not see; and we do not easily turn our heads towards the abyss. The more painful the looming crisis, the more difficult the job of the prophet becomes, and the more audacious the behaviors in a bid for our attention.

That Sheehan offended my sensibilities is not indicative so much of her failure but of the importance of her mission. The abyss of this warring madness is paralleled only by the depth of rage felt by the prophets trying to draw our eyes to what we would rather not see.

Thankfully, her letter of resignation was as offensive as the rest of her ministry has been. I read the published excerpts and thought, “She’s at it again!” I admit to feeling a wee bit of relief that she would not be embarrassing the movement anymore. Surely, I reasoned, there must be a more peaceful presence to lead the peace movement. After reading her diatribe, I set it aside and went on, without another thought, except the unbidden one later that day… and another the next. In spite of her offense, or perhaps because of it, I found myself looking into the abyss of this warring madness. And facing the nightmare is the first step to waking up. Sheehan is weary and signing off. She writes, “Good-bye America …you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it.” What is it that we want? A haunting question.

I would like to think that the problem with prophet and their ilk is their offense. It isn’t. The problem with prophets is that sometimes they are right.