Yesterday morning, I read it in the local paper. Cindy Sheehan would speak at Arlington West, the memorial cemetery recreated every Sunday on a Santa Barbara beach. A. asked why I wanted to go, a question that surprised me. “The fame factor?” he asked.
Fame? No. No. It’s something extraordinary, when people stand publicly for something. Whether or not you agree with their purpose or message, whether they embarrass or move you, it’s such a simple instance of bravery … it’s foolish to not experience it, to measure it for yourself. Do not think I don’t know this extends to a few historical figures who, even in contemporary analysis, inflamed the worst of passions. That’s life. That’s history.
At any rate, A. agreed to join me. He suggested I give her a Booda Baby t-shirt: peace, baby. I was so happy he thought of it. He just shook his head, pitying me my skills of self-promotion.
It is a problem, you see: choosing between something you believe in very very much and not really wanting to press it on people too hard. Imagine waiting for people to decide not that an idea’s valuable but your presentation is. Does it match the décor? Will my friends love it?
When we were en route to the beach, A. told me it was the anniversary of her son’s death. I was nervous, nervous for her. Nervous for the possibility of some disappointment. I haven’t followed Cindy Sheehan’s story religiously or politically so I applied my own expectations.
Several hundred people were gathered around the sand platform. Most had taken positions along the wharf and she faced them. We stood behind, to the side. Some people stood even further, near the wooden crosses. Tourists passed between us the whole time; fairly, of course, more interested in getting every last minute of their Santa Barbara experience in.
Cindy’s political reasoning may or may not appeal to you. It’s simple: we were lied to. This war is being conducted on the basis of a lie. Thousands upon thousands of people are dying for a lie. I happen to agree with parts of her position; others, I don’t agree with.
The reasoning of her heart, though, transcends all. The message of her heart is so pure, so profoundly true, it can not be touched by political contempt. It can not.
That message is this (and I definitely paraphrase): Do you want peace? Do you choose peace. Do you give up your young, your children for anything other than peace?
Cindy tells us that the family name, Sheehan, means ‘peace’ in Gaelic. She reads the poem her daughter wrote, the poem that challenged her to step up and out of her grief and demonstrate what it takes to achieve peace. You give up your anonymity, you subject yourself to nation-wide criticism on the one hand and suffer what it needs to be an emblem on the other.
She tells us she’s heard a Buddhist proverb, that you die twice – once, when you expire, and twice, when the last person who remembers you dies. She’s set herself the simple goal of ensuring that her son will not die his second death for a long long time.
She’s made herself a shield from all of the above bits and pieces and she marches into our national consciousness with that shield as her only protection.
It’s not hard to imagine what her detractors have to say. They say it to everyone: naïve. Political pawns. They’ve actually implied that her public presence gives some kind of comfort to the enemy. They’ve certainly said that it’s idiotic to miss that we’re under some kind of attack.
Well, that does make a horse race doesn’t it?
Once more, because I have asked it before, how do you figure? You make big, sweeping pronouncements about what will happen, I want to know how you know. I want to know when the last time you were involved in delicate negotiations. I want to know about your track record of empathy. I want to know whether you’ve come to believe that economic power makes right, I want to know what you know about history. I want to know what you know about any culture.
I want to know if you have ever created something and if, in creating it, you went deep. No … deep.
The speeches were over. It was time to deliver our t-shirt gift. The swarm to be near Cindy Sheehan was instant. I had to laugh at how absolutely unprepared for it I was.
She was spun this way, she was spun that way. She spoke to this reporter, and that reporter, and then another. And, in between, the people approached her.
Of course, they were grateful. But wait. What does that mean, the ‘of course’? Grateful for what? A voice. A spokesman, a woman very calmly howling to the world every week: LISTEN to heartache. It’s as reliable as your unreliable intelligence. Listen to the heartache that never needed to be!!
I stood, waiting for my turn in minor embarrassment, knowing I only wanted to dump a t-shirt and run away. I found myself next to her sister. Let me tell you something and you imagine: a woman who wasn’t lecturing, who wasn’t telling stories, entertaining us. She looked me in the eyes and was ready to talk. To talk with. Not to. Paying attention. The same thing Cindy was doing. Not just fielding story after story. Listening. Hearing. Replying to a sob, replying to a blessing.
This is demonstration.
People around me, seeing the t-shirt in my hand, seeing the t-shirt I wore, were so kind. Delighted. And then it was my turn, to step up, to tell Cindy we made these, these were ours. We thought she might enjoy having one. And then I spun her, for a photo op, thanked her and hurried away.
And she stayed on, to embrace every single person who needed embracing.
Peace, baby. You can't be shy about promoting it.
