North Star Writers Group

In the summer of 2005, the grieving mother of a U.S. soldier who died in Iraq the previous year put a face to – and momentum behind – anti-war protests with a simple act. She camped out by the road that led to President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas and demanded to see Mr. Bush because she had a question: “What exactly did my son, Casey, die for?”

Since then she devoted her time, efforts and financial resources to protesting the war in Iraq.

That’s now behind her. In her diary on the liberal blog Daily Kos, Ms. Sheehan says she is disillusioned with both Republicans and Democrats. “I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of ‘right or left,’ but ‘right and wrong’.”

She is also fed up with the anti-war movement itself. “I . . . tried to work within a peace movement that often puts personal egos above peace and human life . . . It is hard to work for peace when the very movement that is named after it has so many divisions.” (Full entry: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/28/12530/1525)

Far from being an “attention whore,” as she says some have labeled her, Ms. Sheehan is a lot like many who suffer a devastating private loss. They go public because they desperately want to assuage their pain by doing something to make the world better – to right the wrong. They also want to believe that others who espouse similar goals and views are equally sincere.

At some point, however, Ms. Sheehan (and her cohorts) collided with the reality of the human condition. People have free will and they are ruled even more by fear than by ego.

“Good-bye America,” she concludes. “…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.

“It’s up to you now.”

It most certainly is. If we want to change things in this country, it is up to each and every citizen of this republic. However well meaning, no one person has the power – or the right – to transform anything or anyone else outside of self.

That kind of power rests solely with God, yet even God will not use it because our Creator gave up the right to do so by bestowing free will on all of us, with good reason. If God, like some helicopter parent, constantly were to step in whenever we make mistakes, we would learn nothing and never grow. We would then be mere puppets whose existence has no meaning.

Our lives, and even our deaths, do have meaning, however, precisely because we have the right to make choices, however disastrously they turn out. Since God grants each of us the dignity of learning from and rectifying our own mistakes, then we can do no less for others – including and especially for those we hold most dear.

Such “tough love” – holding back when we know someone is headed straight for trouble – is perhaps the hardest lesson of all, especially since, like Ms. Sheehan, we feel that we have failed our loved ones. We could not keep them from harm and we cannot seem to effect much if any change. That’s not so. We do all we can for them, but, in the end, they are free, just like us.

A wise friend once told me about the parable of the lighthouse, which seems appropriate here. The lighthouse stands at the promontory's edge, its shining beacon circling constantly, warning of the rocky shoals and pointing a path to safety. Day and night, in any kind of weather, the light broadcasts for all to see. Light from the lighthouse is unconditional. It shines equally for every type of vessel.

Notice also what the lighthouse does not do. It does not uproot itself, wade into the sea, grab the prow of a ship and drag it toward the harbor. Instead, that lighthouse grants all who see its light the dignity of complete freedom to heed or reject its message. It honors free will, in other words. It also respects the human fears that may make many suspicious of its illumination.

Ms. Sheehan has done more than most to honor her desire for peace. It’s up to us to take up the slack – or be prepared for perpetual war.

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