Stones of War Installed

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by Melinda Tuhus | Dec 4, 2007 8:11 am

(3) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Arts

rock%20close%20up.jpg This stone is one of more than 50 that were piled up by the war memorial at Broadway and Park Monday — as a peace memorial.

whole%20pile.jpg Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice, an ecumenical, statewide antiwar group, set up the stones Monday night. The group got permission from the New Haven Board of Park Commissioners to set up the memorial at Broadway, Park and Elm streets, where it will stay until the Iraq war ends or the commission decides it no longer wants it there. The cairn (pictured) consists of stones representing each month of the war, inscribed with the number of American and Iraqi dead for that month. About 50 members of the area’s Catholic, Protestant, Unitarian and Jewish communities gathered on the cold, blustery night to mark its formal installation.

Click here for a previous story on the memorial and deliberations over whether to approve it.

woman%20reading%20and%20group%20.jpg The Rev. Kathleen McTigue (pictured in the middle of photo) of the Unitarian Society and a co-founder of Reclaiming, began the commemoration with a prayer: “Make us brave as we stand in the face of sorrow. Keep us outraged as we confront lies and deceit…” Click here for the whole prayer.

Long-time peace activist Stephen Kobasa addressed the crowd with a reference to an ancient Greek war, adding, “The consequences of the war in Iraq have been largely invisible in our communities… and there are many among us who are desperate to be blind, so to avoid the responsibility and the actions that would bring.” Click here for more.

barbara%20cheney.jpg Various religious leaders (like the Rev. Barbara Cheney, of the Episcopal Church of St. Paul and St. James in Wooster Square, pictured) added stones they had used at their Sunday services to the ever-growing cairn.

A member of Congregation Mishkan Israel read the kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead. He added that the prayer also “extols the virtue of God and of peace.”
After he read it in Hebrew, Quaker John Humphries read a poetic interpretation of the kaddish, called “Each of us has a name.” Click here for the poem

The Rev. Allie Perry, another co-founder of Reclaiming, ended the short ceremony with a commissioning of those present to go out and work for peace. “Let us raise our voices, crying out in public spaces and to our public officials, saying no to the terror and violence of war.” Click here for more.

Comments

posted by: cedarhillresident on December 4, 2007 4:13pm

Thank you to those who did this!

posted by: charlie on December 4, 2007 6:19pm

How about a cairn to memorialize the 130 people dying every day in traffic accidents throughout the United States?

Our addiction to driving in this country are far more deadly than any wars, guns, diseases, crime or drugs. And if you think about it, the driving (and destruction of the land entailed by it) is the root cause of this war.

posted by: Chris Gray on December 5, 2007 4:19am

Also, one of the major causes of global climate change, as the current euphemism for “let’s not discuss anything more basic than cafe standards” in discussions of the systemic changes necessary to meet this catastrophic challenge goes.

Real, effective mass transit which will require massive investment in new infrastructure and creative thought in the engineering is beyond a nation which thinks fiction is truth and enthusiastically goes to war over it.

Luckily, the results of that delusion are beginning to sober the public, so perhaps some progress can be made by them to lead the politicians. They didn’t listen when we said we did not want the Bush tax cuts, from the beginning.

Democrats may blame the Republican majority for that, but I don’t hear them talking about them now, either.

Also, what they will do about Iraq, aside from pull out various numbers of troops on various timetables? That does not eliminate the problems. What about all of them?

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