“Mixture Strange”
Psalm 8; Romans 5:1-5
Rev. Dr. Deborah L. Clark
May 26, 2013
From the writings of Sergeant Henry Tisdale, 35th Mass. Regiment; September 17, 1862, Battle of Antietam, Sharpsburg, MD
Our brigade was ordered to the front; a rough march of some 4 miles brought us to the scene of conflict. Many wounded being carried to the rear and as we neared the battleground here and there a dead body was seen. At a little after 5 PM, we were upon the ground where the booming of artillery, the screaming of shot and shell and rattling of musketry, told us we were amid the stern realities of actual battle. The sight of the wounded sent a kind of chill over me; but in the main feelings of curiosity and wonder at the scene, took hold of my mind.
We were drawn up in the line of battle in a cornfield and then advanced to a thick wood where we met the rebels. Came upon a large number of rebel dead, lying in a ravine, presenting a sad and sickening sight.
Just after we entered the wood, I was wounded by a rifle ball passing through my left leg just opposite the thighbone. As the ball struck me it gave me a shock which led me to feel at first that the bone must have been struck and shattered and for a moment did not dare to move for fear it was so. Found on moving that the bone was not injured and that I had only a flesh wound, which relieved my mind and thankfulness to God that I was not maimed or dangerously hurt.
In a few moments growing weak and tying my towel above the wound to stop its bleeding, tried to make for the rear where the surgeons were. As I was limping off, a wounded rebel who was sitting against a tree called me and asked me if I did not have something to eat. Exhibiting a loaf and going to him I opened my knife to cut off a slicewhen he placed his hands before his face exclaiming “Don’t kill me” and begging me to put up the knife and not to hurt him.
Assuring him I had no intention of hurting him I spoke with him a little …found he had a family in Georgia, that he was badly wounded, and was anxious to have me remain with him and help him off. But I was growing weaker from loss of blood and the troops about us made it a dangerous place, so
limping and crawling, was obliged to leave him and move for the rear.
***
A few weeks ago, I went to see Framingham Community Theater’s play, “Our Civil War Story: From the Homefront to the Front Lines.” The FCT Writer’s Group took pieces from local Civil War-era letters, journals, and news articles to create a moving portrait of life during that war. The writings included letters from Massachusetts soldiers home to their loved ones, records of Women’s Auxiliary Groups who supported the war efforts in many ways, journals of nurses at the front, memories from mothers and sisters, fathers and brothers.
By intermission my head was spinning. During the break, Civil War trivia displayed on a screen made it spin even faster. One out of every thirteen veterans of the Civil War came home missing a limb. Of the Black soldiers who fought, almost one in three never even made it home. The numbers of soldiers killed in battle was staggering; equally staggering was the number of soldiers who died of diseases contracted in camp.
The second half of the show was even more intense, as the journals and letters described an increasingly bloody war. When I left, my head was still spinning, and now my heart was aching. I found myself asking my own version of the Psalmist’s question: who are we—human beings capable of such courage and self-sacrifice, capable of such brutality.
I was struck by the tenderness of letters written to their loved ones by soldiers who had just been in battle, having to ignore the humanity of the enemy in order to fight them. I was struck by a letter from a Black soldier to his wife, who was still enslaved–, and a letter from another Black soldier complaining that his regiment had still not been paid after a full year of fighting.
The director of the play was kind enough to share the script with me. As I re-read the many moving testimonies, I kept coming back to this one by Sargeant Henry Tisdale, written about the Battle of Antietam, which yielded 23,000 casualties.
Like many soldiers, Tisdale was eager finally to be sent into battle. He wanted to do his duty; he wanted to make a difference to the war effort. As he moved toward the front lines, as he saw the wounded being carried back, he felt a chill—but also, as he put it, curiosity and wonder at the scene. And then he became one of the wounded.
Tisdale described his encounter with a wounded rebel soldier. The rebel, weak and vulnerable, looked past Tisdale’s blue uniform and saw another suffering human being. He asked for something to eat. But when Tisdale pulled out his knife to cut a slice of bread, the Southerner remembered that they were enemies and begged Tisdale not to harm him. Human compassion prevailed, and Tisdale not only shared his bread but stayed to talk. Tisdale saw his enemy as a whole person, with a family who loved him. The rebel asked even more of his supposed enemy: to stay with him, perhaps so he would not die alone. From his testimony, it appears that Tisdale’s instinct was to agree, to sit beside his newly-discovered brother and share his suffering. But the reality of the situation—his own wounds and the fighting around them—forced him to say no.
“Who are we?” the Psalmist asks. He answers his own question: small, seemingly insignificant creatures, yet crowned with glory and honor by our wondrous, majestic God. The story of Henry Tisdale prompts us to ask that same question with a slightly different frame. Who are we—creatures who long for the glory of battle yet share our bread with the enemy. Who are we—noble creatures willing to sacrifice our lives for a greater cause, yet fearful of dying alone. Good people who get caught up in something larger than ourselves, unable to see the tragedy until it is too late. Human beings who long to do what’s right, trapped in moral dilemmas we can’t seem to escape. I love the interpretation hymn-writer Curtis Beach gives Psalm 8 in today’s opening hymn: “Born of earth yet full of yearning, mixture strange of good and ill.”
Who are we? The bitter ironies of the Civil War—and perhaps of any war—compel us to grapple with that question. We turn to our faith, and find there are no simple answers. Our faith does, though, offer us truths that can guide us as we struggle to live with integrity in this complicated, messy world.
The first truth we claim from our faith is that we are created by God and loved by God. So is the person we have defined as our enemy. Whatever battle we may be fighting, God loves us and God loves our enemy.
A second truth of our faith: we are created in the image of God. We are imbued with God’s qualities—with creativity and wisdom, goodness and compassion. We can use that God-given creativity and intelligence to find solutions to seemingly intractable problems. Drawing upon our goodness and compassion, we can come together to make our world a better place.
We are created in God’s image, which means we are not God. Our creativity and intelligence are amazing but limited. Our perception is incomplete; no matter how hard we try we can never see the whole picture. We are so powerful, and yet we struggle with how little control we have over our lives. Our capacity to love, though wondrous, is constrained by fear of loss. In order to live with any meaning at all, we consistently have to make choices that have huge consequences without complete understanding of the situation.
That leads us to a third truth of our faith: we are creatures in constant need of God’s grace. Sometimes with the best of intentions, we harm ourselves and others. And so we need God’s grace. Sometimes our intentions start good, but become twisted by short-sightedness and fear. And so we need God’s grace. Sometimes our intentions were never good in the first place. And so we need God’s grace.
The good news is that God’s grace is always there for us. God holds us tenderly, fully aware of what it means to be human. God offers us new possibility out of loss and brokenness. God calls us back to our better selves over and over again, challenging us to use our creativity and wisdom and goodness and compassion the best we can.
Who are we? Creatures loved by God, created in God’s image, in need of God’s grace. Who are we? Beloved, amazing, limited creatures on whom God pours out endless grace.
This weekend we celebrate Memorial Day. We remember those who have gone before us, particularly those who died serving their country. We do not glorify war, for it is a horrible thing. We do not set up our soldiers as superhuman. Instead, we honor their human struggle– their courage and their fear, their sense of duty and their questions, their determination and their tenderness. Instead, we pray that we may all live out that human struggle with integrity, seeking to use our creativity and wisdom, our goodness and our compassion in the service of God’s love. Amen.