Those Gallant Ghosts of Gettysburg

This Thursday past marked the date [in 1863] of Lincoln’s most poignant address in memory of all those soldiers who gave the last full measure of their devotion on that particular and decisive field of battle. More than just another fall day on that sacred place, that day’s memorial service represented the hopes and fears of a nation still hurting from the ravages of death and destruction that broke the very fabric of our faith in each other.

This beleaguered yet resilient country is now a band of wandering pilgrims on our way to celebrate its annual Thanksgiving in quite an uncanny fashion. We are dismayed and distraught by the fact that, so far, over 250,000 of our fellow citizens have died from the Covid 19 pandemic since its inception in the spring. We are a people filled with suspicious fear and hatred and anger who just endured another election to save our ailing democracy but with little seeming change or affect. No one seems to want to give any part of their devotion or decency for a common good beyond ourselves. While we may not be at war, we are certainly less than civil toward each other, and it’s killing us each and everyday.

How can we find the spiritual traction and human gumption that will enable us to find a glimmer of truth with enough hope in it to meet the challenges? While a vaccine that will offer us some form of immunity from this awful pandemic looks promising, what can we do to rebuild the trust necessary for our life together when simply wearing a facemask for the safety of all concerned is considered divisive? What can heal us and restore our collective soul? Maybe we need to hear anew old John Donne’s notion that “no one is an island. Each is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. Each person’s death diminishes me for I am involved in all of humanity. Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”

Lincoln’s plea then seems so appropriate for this dark hour in America’s struggle. Instead of the strewn bodies of soldiers on Gettysburg’s killing fields, we might convert those daily numbers of Covid victims and health care workers into a monument of grace and prayer to God and hear anew these very Presidential words reframing our moment in history by telling us the truth about ourselves: It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.