CLIMB TO THE LIGHT
by Galen Guengerich
October 31, 2004
Over the past few weeks, I have been trying to find a way to describe what I believe is at stake in Tuesday's election, especially as it relates to the Presidency. This has not been a campaign in which comparable candidates struggle to accentuate superficial differences. To be sure, some of the policies proposed by President Bush and Senator Kerry differ only by degree—their commitment to keeping us safe from terrorism, for example, or their approach to safeguarding Social Security. On other issues, the difference between the candidates is more deep-seated, highlighted by the kind of justices each would appoint to the Supreme Court or their basic stance toward other nations. Even so, none of these differences accounts for the unprecedented intensity of this campaign. I have never experienced anything like it. People on both sides of the political aisle believe that this election matters profoundly. I agree.
In Friday's Financial Times, Philip Stephens, the paper's associate editor, identifies what he believes is the central question facing us on Tuesday. He writes, "For the most part, modern elections are narrow arguments about politics and policies—about whether a nation will swing two or three degrees left or right from the prevailing consensus. The effects are felt at the margin: the rich get a bit richer or, perhaps, the poor feel a little less oppressed. Then, once in a while, voters have a chance to look in the mirror and make a profound choice about a nation's character and values. Such is the contest between George W. Bush and John Kerry. One way or another next Tuesday's poll will answer the most compelling question of our time: what sort of country does America want to be?" I believe Stephens is right about the question at hand. What sort of country do we want to be? What ideals do we hold up for nation? Against what standards do judge our leaders? This is a time for soul searching.
Several days ago, I came across the following lines in a poem titled "To My Country." They stopped me dead in my tracks.
There is a rumoring among the stars,
A trouble in the sun.
Freedom, most holy word, hath fallen at odds
With her own deeds; 'tis Mammon's jubilee;
Again the cross contends with scimitars;
The seraphim look down with dread to see
Earth's noblest hope undone.
O dear my Country, beautiful and dear,
Ultimate dream of Time,
By all thy millions longing to revere
A pure, august, authentic commonweal,
Climb to the light. Imperiled Pioneer
Of Brotherhood among the nations, seal
Our faith with thy sublime.Despite the divisions we grapple with at home and the dissent we face abroad, this is the sort of country I want America to be: an authentic commonweal and a pioneer of brotherhood. And yes, I'll say it again: earth's noblest hope. These high aspirations are not new to our nation, nor have they yet vanished from among us. In fact, both candidates lay claim to them, if in contrasting ways. No matter who is victorious on Tuesday, it is in the spirit of hope for our nation that I reflect on our highest aspirations, first to be a pioneer of goodwill, and then to be an authentic commonweal.
The poet notes that there is trouble in the community of nations. Earth's noblest hope is in jeopardy of coming undone. These lines may sound contemporary, but they were written a century ago by Katherine Lee Bates. She also penned the words to "America the Beautiful," which may not be our national anthem, but is surely our national hymn. It resonates with both a psalm-like call to celebration and a prophetic call to repentance and responsibility.
Katherine Lee Bates was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts in 1859. She was educated at Wellesley College and at Oxford. At the age of thirty-two, she was appointed Chair of the English Literature department at Wellesley, a post she would hold for 29 years. About the same time as her appointment, Bates met Katharine Coman, who served on the Wellesley faculty as the Chair of the Economics Department and Dean of the College. Bates and Coman lived as a couple for 25 years in what was referred to as a "Boston marriage." Together, they were energetic activists for a wide variety causes: women's right, worker's rights, the environment, and international law.
In the summer of 1893, Bates traveled to Colorado Springs to serve as a summer lecturer at Colorado College. She described one of her outings in the following note: "One day some of the other teachers and I decided to go on a trip to 14,000-foot Pikes Peak. We hired a prairie wagon. Near the top we had to leave the wagon and go the rest of the way on mules. I was very tired. But when I saw the view, I felt great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there, with the sea-like expanse."
Once down the mountain, Bates dashed off the first version of what would quickly become her most celebrated poem:
O beautiful for halcyon skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled plain!America! America!
God shed his grace on thee,
Till souls wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted seas.Bates rewrote the poem twice, nine years later in 1904 and again in 1913, yielding the version we will sing today as our closing hymn, with the further revision of changing the reference to God as male—a change Bates herself surely would applaud. Each time Bates revised her poem, she focused her celebration of America's pastoral grandeur, but she also sharpened her critique of America's national character. In the first version, for example, published in 1895, the end of the second stanza reads, "America! America! God shed his grace on thee, till paths be wrought through wilds of thought by pilgrim foot and knee!" This clarion call for Americans to be intellectual and spiritual pioneers was replaced nine years later by this stiff caution: "America! America! God mend thine every flaw! Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law."
What happened in the interim? Bates gave voice to a rising concern about American hegemony in the wake of the Spanish-American War. The war grew out of the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain, which began in 1895 and was brutally repressed by Spain. With broad popular support in America for Cuban independence, especially after the sinking of an American battleship in Havana harbor, the U.S. declared war on Spain in April of 1898. By December of that same year, the war was over. Spain renounced its claim to Cuba, ceded Guam and Puerto Rico to the U.S., and gave control of the Philippines to the U.S. for $20 million. The annexation of the Philippines was a sticking point. It was opposed by Filipino authorities, who also wanted independence for their country. It was also opposed by an organization called the Anti-Imperialist League, which was formed by a number of prominent Americans—Andrew Carnegie, William James, and Mark Twain among them—in a doomed effort to fight the annexation.
Against this backdrop of unease about American intentions abroad, Katherine Lee Bates pleads, "America! America! God mend thine every flaw! Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law." Her concern about the wise use of American hegemony still resonates today. Somehow, sometime, I want America once again to be a pioneer of goodwill among the nations. The challenges we face as an increasingly-intimate world community—economic interdependence, the spread of virulent diseases and massively-destructive weapons, the violations of human rights—will be more daunting in the future, not less. As a nation, we cannot build walls high enough or weapons lethal enough to go it alone.
I also want America to be an authentic commonweal—a nation united by the agreement of the people for their common good. This emphasis on the common good is not mere poetic license or political rhetoric. It is enlightened governance. Marcus Aurelius ruled the Roman Empire at its height, from 161-180 of the Common Era. He has often been regarded as one of history's greatest leaders, though some historians today suggest that he has been somewhat overrated as a legislator and military leader. Marcus is best known as the author of a collection of meditations, recently out in a new translation under the title The Emperor's Handbook.
In his meditations, Marcus writes often about the relationship between the individual and society. He says, "Whether the universe is composed of an infinite number of blind atoms or one all-seeing nature, two things are clear: first, I am a part of the universe governed by nature; and second, I am related in some way to the other parts like myselfÉ Because I am related to the other parts like myself, I will not seek my own advantage at their expense, but I will study to know what is in our common good and bend every effort to advance that good and dissuade others from acting against it. If I am successful in this, my life is bound to flow smoothly, as one would expect for the dutiful citizen who is always looking out for others."
One of the things that has most concerned me during this election cycle is the disproportionate attention that both campaigns have paid to the wealthy and the middle class. One would almost think there are no longer poor people in America. But there are even more than before, and they are not doing well. Over the course of the last two decades, the income gap between the wealthiest and the poorest households has nearly doubled. A net worth comparison is even more troubling. From 1983 to 1998, as the stock market swelled in value more than 14-fold, the net worth of the top one percent of households increased by 17 percent, while the bottom forty percent of households lost an astounding 80 percent of their net worth.
What sort of country does America want to be? For my part, I want our nation to become what Katherine Lee Bates longed for it to be 1895, what Thomas Jefferson believed it could become in 1776, what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. prayed it would become in 1968, what Elizabeth Cady Stanton proclaimed it would become in 1848: an authentic commonweal, a pioneer of goodwill, and earth's noblest hope.
This ideal vision of America as a beacon to the rest of the world has a long history. When John Winthrop sailed from England and landed at Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, he invoked the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus said to his followers, "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid." In Winthrop's words to his fellow colonists, "We must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us." Katherine Lee Bates invoked this vision of a city on a hill by saying simply, "Climb to the light." Everyone knew what she meant.
In October of 1988, during another presidential campaign season, I wrote an op-ed piece for the Chicago Tribune about why I had just registered to vote for the first time, at the age of thirty. The only civic engagement sanctioned by my pacifist Mennonite upbringing was paying taxes. This cloistered approach to the life of faith did not work for me, which is one reason why I left the Mennonite church. I ended the op-ed piece by noting that the political questions then facing our nation were important ones, and the stakes were high. I asked, "Who are we as a people, constitutionally? Toward what goals have we set our course? Whose leadership and which policies will guide our journey rightly? I have listened to the conversation long enough."
Thus I began my political engagement—my climb to the light. Many young people have done the same during this election season, along with many adults who had become either too jaded or too cynical to care. Together, we are all climbing toward the light. We want our nation to be in fact what it has always been in story and song. For our sake and the sake of the world, our nation must live up to its promise. We have a lot of climbing to do. The climbing will not end when the polls close on Tuesday night. In fact, that's when it will begin