Because I went there recently, I can tell you that a trip through The Holocaust Memorial Museum smells like cold metal and feels like grief. In a few hours time, the exhibits show guests how Germany went from being a democracy full of disheartened, economically-challenged Germans to a full dictatorship in just a little over two years. It shows visitors how public propaganda works on the human mind and how ever-increasing horrors start to be acceptable to people who are given official permission to believe that one or more ethnic or religious groups are to blame for their troubles. One sees the effects of de-humanization and nationalism at any cost. It’s sickening and heavy, like night terror come to life. When a person comes to the end of this tour, their mind reflexively starts digging its way through the evidence that man’s capacity for evil is staggeringly large. It makes one’s throat tight. Then, the museum shows visitors this sign.
However, they do not tell anyone what the question is. I personally think the question posed when one ruminates on the Holocaust is something like the quote on the wall in the Hall of Remembrance, “Next time you find yourself tempted towards darkness, which will you choose? Life or death?”
I’d like to say I’d choose life if put in the same circumstance. I’d like to think my friends and family would too. Are we not rational, well-meaning adults? Do we not love our country and value the lives of the nation’s children? Of course we do. But in Germany, there were plenty of good, rational people around while Hitler rose to power and started killing German children. One has to wonder — what were all these rational people doing while Hitler was shooting, gassing, starving and burning Jews? The answer has got to be that they were just living. They had everyday lives like we do. They were taking their kids to music lessons and sports practices. They were making dinner. They were (gulp) going to church. They were working normal jobs and balancing their checkbooks. They were helping with homework. And while they were doing these things, in the background, God was asking, “Life or death? Blessing or curse?” and they simply wouldn’t or couldn’t hear Him.
The question I kept asking myself as I completed our tour of D.C. this summer was, “If God was asking me this question right now, would I hear Him?” The truth revealed by a visit to the museum is that the question of “life or death” is always being posed. Life or death looks for all the world like an unremarkable moment as it is happening. History is just moments piled up on one another, many of which seemed rather normal at the time. Only after we have the benefit of hindsight can we see what questions were truly before us.
I was pondering this dilemma when we visited George Washington’s grave during our trip. At the gravesite, I was given the opportunity to be part of a daily wreath laying ceremony wherein a member of the public reads George Washington’s “Prayer for His Country” outside his tomb. This is what Washington prayed, “that [God] would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristicks [1783 spelling] of the Devine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.” Washington wanted us to be charitable and humble with one another and, in so doing, to imitate God’s character in our civic life. I found his vision utterly profound and holy. Washington wanted us to choose life at every turn.
We subsequently came home from vacation and settled back into normalcy. Last week, I watched the congressional hearings regarding FBI agent Peter Strozck and I couldn’t get George Washington’s prayer out of my mind. I watched one Republican Congressman publicly shame the agent about his affair with a co-agent while that same Congressman publicly supported a President who has had at least one, if not more, marriage-ending affairs. He said, “When I see you looking with a little smirk, I wonder how many times did you look so innocently into your wife’s eyes and lie to her about Lisa Page (his mistress).” Democrats erupted with equal hostility shouting “insane asylum”, “you need your medication,” and “this is intolerable harassment of a witness!” It was all terribly undignified, partisan and embarrassing. It was a moment to choose life or death, to work to together, and treat the other side with dignity. Most everyone declined. Our leaders were choosing death right before my eyes.
When our leaders are acting this way, how can we choose life with one another everyday? How can we answer the questions posed by the Holocaust and by history itself with resounding, steady decency? The only answer I can offer is this: Be specific with your thinking. It is much easier to condemn a whole group of opponents as profoundly stupid when they are not the people you love, or your neighbor or your friend. Quit thinking about the masses. Think about your neighbors. I virulently disagree with members of my own family and many of my neighbors on politics. But I also know each of them in all their glorious particularity. They are good and decent. They are doing their best. I would team up with them any day to solve our country’s problems. I would let my children sign up for military service and die defending them. They are not to be crushed under my heel because I know their humanity intimately. I see the image of God in their faces.
I think this is the way we get through this moment with dignity and I believe our country will do so. On the the Fourth of July, we went to the United States Capitol grounds and enjoyed fireworks and a patriotic concert on the lawn. Thousands of people attended and the day was swelteringly hot. Our eyeballs were sweating. To our left were a group of college students all wearing MAGA hats. To our right was a grandma and her granddaughter. Grandma was talking loudly about how terrible Trump is to many of the people around her. Just behind us was a retired school principal who didn’t care much for Trump either and was having to enjoy the fireworks alone. Chinese tourists crowded us from another side of our small blanket. Here is what happened when our tiny, human, capitol-lawn ecosystem interacted: We smiled and shared water and sunscreen. We lent each other umbrellas for shade. Sassy grandma passed around ice packs to everyone to place on their necks and offered free snacks. Mr. Principal kept us all laughing with funny stories about his high school. The Chinese tourists politely moved when we told them we felt crowded out and smiled while doing so. When the time came, we all sang God Bless America and waved our flags. There was no shouting or grumping because we were specific to one another. The grandma who had popcorn and ice to share. The funny principal with an awesome umbrella chair. The MAGA kids who were cracking each other up with college kid antics. Together, we were unwittingly listening to George Washington and to God and to the quiet, momentary choice between life and death. We all chose life, which is really just charity and grace towards the image of God in every single person we meet. I’m hoping we all do it more. Let’s fulfill Washington’s prayer for our land, and in so doing, ensure its future prosperity.
Charles Barnes says
Wonderful truths, perfectly stated. Deeply moving.Trenchant and cogent.
Consider this quote. Thomas Jefferson, 1817, in a letter to his arch-political rival, John Adams. ” A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to always be valuable.” Your morsel of genuine history is an incredible gift.
Becky Ririe says
I love this! I feel like the propaganda spewing from media and politicians is skewing our inner sense of life and death and right and wrong….how refreshing to read at the end of the day, people truly can live harmoniously and respectfully, recognizing the Devine in each of us! Thanks for sharing Charlotte!