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There are angels on this earth. I know. I have seen them.
There is a house of peace in Crawford, Texas – a house patched together with hope and love and determination, working to bring America back home. Just up the road is a barren patch of land, cultivated with the same ingredients, and fast producing the same results. It was my honor to spend time at both. I met the angels.
The journey begins on a hot summer night, as old friends meet new ones in a bedraggled hotel room. We have known each other forever, but until today had never met. I am handed something I had written long ago, and I am gratified that the words meant so much. Had I known then about the angels, I would not have been surprised.
The next morning, we call and ask what we can do. As if on cue, the previous caller was a woman, stranded at the airport and hoping someone could help her out. I find Anna there, and we add another member to the group. She is young and unsure of her place in the movement, but she has come thousands of miles because she knows she had to. She has no place to stay, but we know she will be safe with us as we make the journey.
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The angels never ask for money, but you give it without pause. The house sits by the railroad tracks, David in a field of Goliaths, an oasis of compassion in a field of hate. When you see it, you need to take pictures, for it is as if you have found all your kindred spirits in one place, on a tiny road in Texas. It is like a dorm room for progressives inside, and as one who dorm days are packed deep away in some far-off rear view mirror I am proud of the young people that surround me. The donation cans swell with dollars, because with each day that Satan continues to refuse to meet with the mother of the boy he killed, the angels continue to stage the mother of all recruitment drives – now in its fourth record-breaking week, with absolutely no signs of letting up.
I meet people here who are cut off from family members because they must speak out, and people here who have lost their jobs because they must speak out. They wear those crosses like badges of honor, and continue to do the work they must. In the searing heat, I meet an elderly woman who was advised by her doctor not to come, but came anyway. In the middle of the chaos, the angels watch over her, and make sure her needs are met. When we are assigned a task, we jump at the chance, and we find ourselves an hour later in the Waco dump, offloading trash bags in the stench. We are smiling.
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The crosses. You see the crosses first, but you see them alone, because you need to cry alone. They line the road to the camp, and each of the ones that were ripped out of the ground last week sport a red rose, courtesy of an unknown (to me) florist who could and would not abide hatred. As you walk, you see those folks who are here for all of us, trying to stop the killing. Gold Star Mothers. Code Pink. Iraq Veterans Against The War. Military Families Speak Out. Angels - each and every one. It is hot, unbearably hot, and as the press contingent complains about the heat you want to ask them things, but you do not. It is a rule that those of us working on behalf of peace do not engage. We are here, they say, to be a presence – nothing more.
After Cindy finishes yet another press conference, you meet her. She sits in a small chair under a tent, out of the sun, and she is exhausted. With her bare feet propped on the lap of a sympathetic friend, she speaks with you. I thank her for bringing the movement alive, and for bringing me here. I am grateful that I did not cry.
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The vigil started Wednesday at 8 p.m. On the ground was a small wood coffin, covered by an American flag. On each side stood a veteran of the conflict in Iraq.
Everyone held a plastic cup and a small white candle, and the women held flowers, which they placed one by one on the casket. We walked silently, under a full moon. When Cindy spoke, the tears came, and the circle shook with sobs as a reminder of the cause. As their heavy cameras shook on their shoulders, the press cried, too. I held the lady from Kansas close to me as the song began:
“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…”
The words drifted skyward until they suddenly crumbled and fell, like bittersweet stardust, on the fallen.
Anna told me later that when she put her flower on the coffin, it was if she was holding a real person in her hands.
She was finding her voice.
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On Thursday, my friends from Kansas had to leave. We stayed together as long as we could, but when it came time to go there were hugs and waves and promises to be back. As their truck pulled out, I took their picture, but when I looked at it I knew something was wrong. I could not see the wings, and I know they had them. I know they did.
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“Should I write a letter to Laura Bush?” Anna asked. Thursday night, there was to be a women’s march up to the gate of the Crawford ranch, where letters written to Laura Bush were to be given to her. All during the day, Code Pink had been asking for letters to Laura, and had gotten hundreds, if not thousands, of them. So, on another brutally hot day Anna sat under the tent at The Peace House and wrote one.
When it came time for volunteers to read their letters at a camp press conference, she said she would. I stayed out of the way, but I could see her hands shaking. When she finished, I had moved to another part of the camp, but when the press conference ended she found me.
“I did it! I did it!” she said, and indeed she had. She came running, like all of us there that day wet and exhausted. I met her, held her, and told her how proud I was. At that moment, to me and to everyone else fighting so hard to stop this killing, she was without question the most beautiful girl in the world. I probably should have told her that.
When I get a chance, I will send her the picture I have of her standing at the side of Medea Benjamin from Code Pink as the Letters To Laura were delivered to a White House aide at the gate to the Crawford ranch. Mission accomplished.
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I left on Friday – I spent my last two hours before my plane left helping shuttle folks from the Peace House to Camp Casey.
I wanted to hug all the angels, but I didn’t have time, and they didn’t either. There were too many things to do, too many problems to fix, too many phone calls to make, too many answers to the same old tired question “did you ever think the anti-war movement would get this big?”
I salute you all. To Barbara, to Linda, to Rose Lynn, to Andrew, to Dot, Lee, Buddy, Annie, Emily and the hundreds of folks I have forgotten and did not meet or will not meet I give thanks from every ounce of my being. You are the true American heroes, and it was an honor to be able to help out in whatever small way I could.
It truly is a place of angels, this outpost in Texas. Come see for yourself. Bring your hope, your strength, your belief in what this country truly stands for. You will find what you need here, and you will give back a hundred fold. That is, after all, the way it was intended.
I’ll bet you’ll even learn how to fly.
When you do, be sure and pass it on.
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