Bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover
A month ago, all over the world, men and women paused to commemorate the
fiftieth
anniversary of the end of the Second World War. The observances gave rise to
a variety
of phenomena. The Prime Minister of Japan issued a public apology for the
role his
nation had played in that incalculable catastrophe. The government of the
United States,
on the other hand, did not apologize for using nuclear weapons on two
Japanese cities
as the war was drawing to a close, and indeed, the Smithsonian Institution in
Washington altered its display concerning that epoch making event in response
to pressure
from a Congress which felt that it was unAmerican to encourage questions
concerning
the decision to use those weapons. Less dramatic and less public were the
private
reflections concerning the men and women who fought that war, the husbands,
brothers,
fathers who died in that war, the terrible suffering and death distributed
around
the globe in the course of that war. And underlying much of it was a quiet
nostalgia
for a time when the nation was united in a common cause, when we were
mortally certain
of the rightness of our course, an often unspoken longing for the days of
"the last
good war."
It is appropriate that the world should devote some time and thought to the
end of
the Second World War, because, in many ways, this has been the major shaping
event
of our century. Just as the First World War was the catastrophe which
signaled the
abrupt end of an era, the approach to the Second World War, the execution of
that global
struggle, and the consequences which continue to flow from that war have
defined
all our subsequent hopes and expectations and dreams whether we lived through
those
awful and dramatic years, or have inherited them and their consequences.
For me the commemoration of the end of the war involved a great deal of
personal reflection.
I am of that generation which remembers those years. Indeed, my earliest
datable
memory is of December 7, 1941, the day of the attack on the military
installations at Pearl Harbor. My early years were shadowed by the struggle
which consumed the
energies and resources of virtually the entire planet. I still think of
those years
as black and white, rather than Technicolor, because of the persistent images
of
the news reels shown as part of the Saturday afternoon program at the local
motion picture
theater--films of ships and planes and tanks and guns and interviews with the
men
who manned those implements of war and the women who helped build them. I
taught
myself to read using the daily newspaper; so, my first primer was
characterized by fuzzy
pictures of the war and maps showing the various front lines. Among my
earliest
memories are those of our family sitting around the table, a single candle
providing
the only light, the window blinds and drapes drawn tightly, waiting for the
signal ending
the air-raid drill.
By a quirk of fate, my Father was not eligible for military service; I had no
brothers
who served in the war; but everyone, me included, knew someone who was
serving in
the military, and there were few who did not know someone who had lost a son
or father
or brother to the vast killing machine which was that war. It was this which
made
it acceptable to us that our food was rationed, that gasoline and tires and
even
shoes were difficult to come by, that appliances and consumer goods and
automobiles
all but disappeared from the market. It was this which motivated us to
collect scrap metal,
and tin foil and kitchen grease and milk-weed pods. Someone we loved and
cared for
was engaged in this dangerous struggle, and we were determined to do our
part. But
it was more than this. There was also a sense, a palpable sense, that when
the struggle
was over, when finally the forces of evil had been vanquished, we would find
ourselves
in a new world, a world of promise and hope, of peace and security, of equity
and
justice. That was what the struggle was really all about, the fighting and
the suffering,
the bleeding and the dying--an opportunity--perhaps humanity's last
opportunity--to
build a new world.
As the commemoration of the end of the Second World War gathered force--as
newspapers
printed "then and now" pictures of the men who fought the titanic
struggle--pictures
of young men certain and self assured and old men who eyes have seen more
horror
and disappointment than they can relate, as the magazines printed stories of
lost ships
and downed aircraft and battles lost and won and nearly lost, as cable
television
broadcast bits and pieces from the film archives of the era, I found myself,
over
and over again, reflecting upon what we as a culture have done with the
opportunity presented
us by the end of that war. What has happened, over the past fifty years, to
the
dream of a world of promise and hope, of peace and security?
Looking back over these past fifty years, I must conclude that much of that
promise
was abandoned almost at the outset. Before the war had even ended, the
struggle
for post-war power had doomed the hope for peace and security. In a very
real sense,
the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not only among the last
casualties of the Second
World War, they were among the first casualties of the Cold War which
succeeded it.
In any case, as you well know, a half century of hostility and insecurity
has followed in the wake of the great conflict, a period of near war,
erupting from time to
time into armed struggle--the Berlin Blockade, the Korean War, the Cuban
Missile
Crisis, military adventures in Lebanon and the Dominican Republic, and
Grenada and
Panama, a war in Vietnam and in the Persian Gulf, covert or proxy wars in
China and Afghanistan,the
Belgian Congo, Angola and Palestine--the list goes on and on. Perhaps the
one gift
of the Second World War has been that so long as the memory of the terrible
suffering and destruction wrought by that great global conflagration has
remained strong
among us, we have held back from plunging the world into another
all-consuming conflict.
Thus far, the Balkan war of the 1990's is remarkable for the fact that the
major
powers, though they jockey for advantage, seem determined not to allow that
struggle
to draw them into conflict with each other.
This, then, is how we have used the future we dreamed of in the midst of the
Second
World War, the opportunity that seemed at hand in September of 1945. For
half a
century we have lived in a twilight land of not quite peace, a world shadowed
by
the threat of global war, and yet a world which has managed to sidestep that
great threat.
The promise of peace has not been realized; the threat of global destruction
has
been narrowly avoided. It is not what we hoped; neither has it been what we
feared.
Perhaps that is the best human beings can expect.
And what about that other part of the dream--of a world of hope and
prosperity, a
world of equity and justice? For a while it looked to me as though, in this
nation,
at least, we might accomplish that dream. The energies which had been
devoted to
producing weapons, making the United States the world's great arsenal, were
converted to
meeting the pent-up needs and expectations of a people at peace. Consumer
goods
flowed from our factories. Jobs with good salaries were available as we
undertook
to rebuild a shattered world. Houses were constructed to meet the demands of
the families of
men returning from war. Roads were built, automobiles produced and even
though much
of our material wealth soon was diverted again to building weapons for
ourselves
and others, weapons we could not ever use without destroying ourselves, still
it seemed
that the dream of a world of plenty might be realized.
To be sure there was still injustice and inequity, but soon after the war
ended, the
social consequences of that struggle were to make themselves felt on the home
front.
People of color who had fought and suffered and watched their friends and
loved
ones die in the war to end racist oppression abroad were not content to
settle quietly
back into the racist conventions of their homeland. Before long it was clear
that
one consequence of that war would be a transformed America, one in which the
demand
for justice and equity would result in an end at least to legal segregation.
By the same
token, many of the women who had filled responsible positions in factories
and offices
during the war were not content to return to the kitchen. It would take time
for
the movement to gather strength, but one consequence of the Second World War
was a movement
for equality and justice for women. The nation which emerged from the global
struggle
found itself confronting the contradictions of its own history, found itself
prodded into embodying the ideals for which it said it had fought that great
war. Civil
rights, women's rights, gay and lesbian rights, economic justice--including
affirmative
action programs and entitlements for the poor--all are a result of the demand
that
the nation live up to the promises it made in the midst of the global
struggle which
ended in 1945.
A more subtle legacy of that great war was an enduring sense of being part of
a global
community. Young men who had never been far from their homes suddenly were
fighting
and dying in strange places in Africa and Europe and Asia. They were
companioned
on their perilous passage by people with strange names and customs and
features. They
came home knowing in their bones that at some level we are all responsible
for each
other and for the planet which is our home. Though the image was slow to
emerge,
they had experienced first-hand the interdependent web of existence. This,
as much as
anything else, provided the foundation for the ecological concern which has
demanded
that the welfare of the planet be factored into our planning and our
dreaming. For
the first time in the history of our nation, serious concern for the welfare
of the natural
world became part of public policy, because equity and justice, hope and
promise
depended upon a respect and concern for the context in which human life is
lived.
After fifty years, it is clear that some progress has been made. It also is
clear
that the forces of reaction have began to gather strength. Pharaohs who do
not remember
Joseph have risen to power. People who do not honor the promises made and
the great distance which remains if those promises are to be kept have gained
control of the
land and much of the progress so painfully made and at such great cost seems
about
to be lost.
As a child of the Second World War, I grew up in a world which believed that
sacrifice
in the present was acceptable, even moral if it would mean that the future
would
be brighter. In that culture what was important was that each generation be
able
to trust that the world would better for its children. And for a very long
time, that was
the dream which defined our national ethos. Life for this generation is
better than
it was for our parents and even though we do not achieve everything we would
like,
if we live responsibly, it will be better for our children. The world in
which I grew
up was a world of incredible pain and suffering and sorrow, a world defined
by incomprehensible
global death and destruction, but it was a world of stubborn faith in the
future. And, even in the midst of a world war, it was justified in its
faith. Parents
who had not completed high school would see their children graduating from
college.
Parents who had worked all their lives at menial and marginal jobs would see
their
children in secure, well-paying positions. People who had expected to work
until they
died were able to retire and live modestly but well. The future, we
believed, would
be better than the past because the resources of the planet would be more
wisely
used and more equitably and more justly distributed.
But now, fifty years after that war ended, the nation seems in headlong
retreat from
its dream and its promise. For the first time in my memory, parents can no
longer
reasonably expect the world to be better for their children. Indeed, the
income
of the middle-class has slipped steadily for the past two decades. It now
requires two full-time
incomes to sustain most families. The children coming of age in this world
of down-sizing
and cut backs and corporate irresponsibility find that the welcome mat has
been withdrawn. Jobs are difficult to come by, offer little security, and
little
promise. And at the same time, a nation which once proudly used
entitlements--like
the GI Bill of Rights--to empower an entire generation, is now withdrawing
its support
of its own people, refusing to invest in its people, reserving its resources
for welfare
programs for the wealthy and for business. And in a display of cynicism
which is
staggering, political leaders pit the poor against the middle class in a
struggle
for fewer and fewer resources, and accuse anyone who questions such practices
of engaging
in class warfare. In the name of balancing the budget, wealth and resources
are
being transferred in massive amounts from the poorest of the poor and from
the middle
class to the rich. And, of course, in the name of their clients the same
political leaders
are seeking to destroy the structures which have been erected to protect and
defend
the environment. The promise which is our legacy from those who struggled
and died
for a better world half a century ago is being abandoned before our very
eyes.
Sometime this past summer, I happened to be driving somewhere, on one of my
many unnamed
errands, when I tuned into a radio station which was playing songs from the
era of
the Second World War. Almost all of them were so familiar that I only half
listened. At some point, however, the station began playing the song which
provides the title
of this sermon and for the first time I really listened to what that song
said:
There'll be blue birds over the white cliffs of Dover,
Someday, just you wait and see
There'll be blue birds over the white cliffs of Dover,
Someday, when the world is free.
The song went on to promise,
The shepherd will tend his sheep
And the meadow will bloom again,
And Jimmy will go to sleep
In his own little room again.
There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover,
Someday, when the world is free.
There, in that song, that unremarkable bit of doggerel, was captured much of
the ethos
of the times in which I grew up, the faith which led women and men to attempt
the
impossible, to risk their very lives. They believed that the world could be
better,
that their children would inherit from their hands a brighter, more promising
future,
that justice and truth and right were strong beyond all the forces arrayed
against
them. And in the midst of terrible inhumanity and suffering and loss, that
was the
faith which sustained them. And it is that lost faith which is at the root
of our national
nostalgia, that for which we in this age yearn so insistently.
I listened to the radio, really hearing the words of the old song for the
first time,
and found myself overwhelmed by a sense of profound betrayal. The truth is
that
Jimmy does not sleep in his own little room again. At least, not the
countless Jimmy's
who are homeless, who are the chief victims of the political schemes being
pursued
in this nation, fifty years after the end of the war. Indeed the legislative
and
legal supports, the national investment in Jimmy and his future are being
transferred
to corporations and to the wealthy and it is justified by the promise that
this kind of
tough love will help little Jimmy stand on his own two feet and be
independent.
And the meadow, so carefully protected may not bloom again, if the
legislative protections
are withdrawn and the natural world opened to ruthless exploitation. What is
more,
the bluebird may disappear as its habitat is destroyed.
The song promised, "There will be joy and laughter and love ever after,
someday, just
you wait and see." It becomes difficult to believe that promise as the
government
engages in anti-family economic policies which result in parents working
harder and
longer hours, having less and less time to spend with each other or with
their children,
less and less time to give to building and sustaining the structures of
community.
It becomes difficult to believe that promise, when succeeding generations
find that
life for them has become not better but increasingly difficult and the hope
of a brighter
future seems less and less realizable.
I listened as I drove. And I wondered, what, in these days, can be done, by
me, an
aging liberal, so very out of touch with the ethos of the times. And then it
occurred
to me that I am what I am, because, in many ways I am the child of a great
and terrible war. My religious, political, social liberalism was forged in
that cauldron of
destruction and despair. In the midst of those awful times, I was taught to
believe
in the fundamental goodness of people, in the ability of people to care
profoundly
for each other, in the ability of people in the depths of despair to dream a
better world
and work to make it reality. It was in that time of death and destruction
that I
was taught that we have responsibility for each other and a special
responsibility
to the weak and the helpless and most vulnerable.
While London was being bombed, and the forces of tyranny and repression
seemed everywhere
triumphant, they sang the promise of a world better than this, and amid all
the destruction
and dying, people believed and acted on their faith. Can we do less in this
time? I refuse to believe that the future belongs to the mean spirited, to
the
narrow and self-serving interests. I believe that we are called to witness
to the
ability of human beings to realize the ancient dream of a world in which
people are
at peace with each other and with the earth, a world in which co-operation
and mutual concern
define human interactions, in which the strong understand and accept their
responsibility
for the weak. It is not the world taking shape around us at this moment, but
it is the world that must be, and will be, someday, just you wait and see.