Opinion

As I blew out my candle and walked away from the vigil in front of the French Hotel last night, I told the friends who were with me that this is as close as many of us in Berkeley ever get to church. Demonstrations like this are the most inclusive of our indigenous religious institutions, with all the elements which contribute to a soul-satisfying religious experience. Congregants from my generation spontaneously sang our oldest hymns--“We shall overcome…we shall not be moved….ain’t gonna study war no more”—memorabilia of our successful struggles to end segregation and stop the war in Vietnam. -more-

Cindy Sheehan has finally managed to capture the imagination of the nation and of the world. Those of us in northern California have been aware of her campaign against the war in Iraq for more than a year. Members of Military Families Speak Out, including Cindy Sheehan, spoke at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Berkeley in July of 2004, but it’s taken a while for the national media to process their message. This has historically been the case for ideas and movements originating outside of the New York-Washington corridor. -more-