On May 29, 2007, the Rt. Rev. Marc Handley Andrus, Bishop of California, spoke as 355 pairs of black combat boots lined both sides of the sidewalk in front of San Francisco's Federal Building at 450 Golden Gate Ave. The visual display Eyes Wide Open: The Human Cost of War, has become a poignant reminder of those who have given the ultimate sacrifice in service to the United States of America.

When the first Eyes Wide Open exhibit was displayed in Chicago by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in January 2004, there were 504 pairs of boots representing all American service men and women who had died in the war to that date. A full representation of all American casualties now would take almost 3,500 pairs of boots. Simply representing all Californian lives lost provided ample evidence that the human cost is staggering.

A press conference opened the San Francisco display of Eyes Wide Open, and Andrus joined other faith leaders, an Iraq war veteran, and members of Military Families Speak Out, in a press conference calling attention to the continuing deaths and continued funding of the war.
"There are almost 300 million Americans," Andrus told the gathering, "and it's up to you who hear my words to stand up. No longer be paralyzed, no longer be removed from the pain of others."

Andrus and others pointed out that many who oppose the war are growing disillusioned with the antiwar movement and disheartened by the continued war funding and the incessant reports of Iraqi and American deaths. One day after Cindy Sheehan announced that she was leaving the antiwar movement, the line of boots seemed somehow more in need of a voice.

Andrus asked why it is so difficult for us to share the pain of others without literally feeling pain ourselves. "You have been given that capacity," Andrus told the crowd. "You have been given that capacity I believe by God; let it wake up. It is up to the many to demand the few who are leading this country to do what is just and what is right to end this war."

Andrus then addressed the point that is made frequently by the President and pundits, that if the United States pulls out of Iraq, significantly more violence will erupt. "What will happen when we withdraw is a chimera that is being held in front of the American people to keep us enthralled to fear as to what might happen next.

"We must believe that while there will be violence and death that will ensue after we withdraw," Andrus continued, "that peace will be the final product and that we can trust that a regional solution will lead to the right peace for the Iraqi people and that region. We must not be frightened by fear mongering about the results of a peace process. It is ludicrous to think that waging war can bring peace."

Along with Andrus, others who spoke at the press conference included the Rev. James DeLange, Chair of the San Francisco Interfaith Council; the Rev. Robert Cromey, retired Episcopal priest and a regular at a weekly vigil staged in front of the Federal building every Thursday at noon; Dr. Anne Roesler and Marilyn Saner of Military Families Speak Out; Sean O'Neil of Iraq Veterans Against the War; and the Rev. Beverly Brewster of Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco.

The words of Andrus' prepared statement follow:

Eyes Wide Open

The issue before us is not so much having eyes wide open, for eyes allow us to see conventionally. The First Book of Samuel teaches us that humans judge by outward appearance, but God sees the human heart. We need the eyes of the heart, the hearing of the heart. That is, we need to awaken the faculties of imagination and compassion, which allow us to touch the pain, aches and desperation of another, of a people, of the earth.

This capacity, to both imagine without having to necessarily experience, and, based on the probing imagination, to be compassionate, is not in wide evidence now. We are like a people who have come under a spell, a paralysis. The great stories of the Earth teach us that such paralysis is the result of a refusal of a call. The greatest calls are those from God.

Has God been calling us, this great, generous, urgent, funny, beautiful people of the United States, to a common ministry, a common way of being, and have we collectively refused that call?

Is it to be a people of peace, of shalom, that active, positive principle of peace so interwoven in the messages of the Prophets? Two days after the Feast of the Pentecost, I would ask that we remember the gift of the Holy Spirit, that Go-Between-God, who helps us be One in the freedom of love. God is present to help us to the place of peace of shalom, with the eyes and hearing of the heart wide opened and attuned to the cries of the earth and its peoples.

Impelled by the Holy Spirit, as we move towards the obstacles to peace, they will dissolve.

+MHA