My church struggles with Robert E. Lee's legacy -- Nov. 2, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER

When my church in Alexandria made the news, I knew it would be a bumpy ride.  

The historic Episcopal church, after months of soul-searching, announced Oct. 26 it would relocate from the sanctuary two marble plaques memorializing George Washington and Robert E. Lee, its most famous members.

It may not surprise you that some media reports overly simplified and exaggerated the turn of events.

Headlines trumpeted: “Cultural terrorism comes to Christ Church in Alexandria” and “George Washington’s church to tear down memorial honoring first president.”  

Blogs referred to “ripping out” the memorial to Washington the church now finds “offensive.”

Asked about the plaques in a TV interview, John Kelly, President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, criticized the decision and praised Lee as an honorable man.   

Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of Supervisors and a Republican candidate for Senate next year, and others decried political correctness.

“The next thing . . . is that they would take the name Christ off the name of this church,” Stewart declared in a news conference outside the church.

Let’s take a breath here.  

After Christ Church opened in 1773, Washington was one of the early worshippers and had a family pew. His adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis, gave the church one of Washington’s Bibles after he died.

Lee could walk to church from his boyhood home a few blocks away. He and two of his daughters were confirmed in the church in 1853, and Lee attended Sunday morning services April 21, 1861, after he resigned his commission in the U.S. Army.

His eldest daughter, Mary Custis Lee, left the church $10,000 for its endowment when she died in 1918.

The church installed the two plaques -- “In Memory of George Washington” and “In Memory of Robert Edward Lee” – on either side of the altar two months after Lee died in October 1870.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill saw the plaques when they worshipped on New Year’s Day 1942. Over the years, so did Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, Ford, Carter, Reagan and both Bushes when they visited.

In the decade I’ve been a member, there’s been a growing uneasiness among the largely white parish that the prominent Lee plaque discourages black people from becoming part of the church.

Then, white nationalist Richard Spencer moved to Old Town Alexandria, and the horrible events in Charlottesville last summer brought the matter to a head.

The vestry unanimously decided “the plaques create a distraction in our worship space and may create an obstacle to our identity as a welcoming church . . . Accordingly the plaques will be relocated no later than the summer of 2018.”

Emily Bryan, senior warden of the church, told parishioners last Sunday: “Today, the legacy of slavery and of the Confederacy is understood differently than it was in 1870. For some, Lee symbolizes the attempt to overthrow the Union and to preserve slavery . . . The plaques in our sanctuary make some in our presence feel unsafe or unwelcome.”

Where my church stumbled was in not having a new location already chosen, so outsiders would see we aren’t trying to hide our history. A committee will decide where on the church campus to put the plaques.

Remaining unchanged in the sanctuary will be Washington’s box pew, the plaque marking his funeral, silver markers for Washington and Lee on the pews and communion rail, and other references to the two men.  

In the churchyard, Confederate soldiers in a mass grave will remain undisturbed.

So, maybe you’re saying, OK, I get why they’re moving the Lee plaque – but why Washington too?

Because the two plaques were installed at the same time and “visually balance each other, maintaining the symmetry of our sanctuary,” church leaders decided they should move together.

I hope the new location balances respect for history with modern -- and timeless -- values.  

I like the way Noelle York-Simmons, Christ Church rector, explained the situation to reporters the other day.

“We are the church of George Washington, of Robert E. Lee, but most importantly we are the church of Jesus Christ,” she said. Amen.

 ©2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Big Bend is no place for a wall -- March 16, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER

You stand at the base of massive Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend National Park, and dip your toes in the placid Rio Grande. Mexico is but a stone’s throw away.

Then you cast your eyes up and up and up. The rock wall so sheer only birds can negotiate it rises 1,500 feet – the equivalent of 150 stories. The canyon stretches 50 miles in Mexico and 10 miles in the United States.

“Looks like somebody already built a wall,” a 20-something visitor declared the other day. “Nobody could build a wall as good as God’s wall.”

To see the park and Santa Elena Canyon is to understand how a wall could ruin some of the most majestic scenery in the United States.

Yet President Donald Trump plans to wall off about 2,000 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, 1,250 miles of it in Southwest Texas along the Rio Grande. His budget proposes $1.5 billion to start on a project that could cost more than $20 billion.

“Splendid isolation” is how the national park describes its 800,000 rugged acres, as remote a place as any in the lower 48. It has mountains, desert, canyons, wildlife, millions of stars in an obsidian sky – and 118 miles of Rio Grande border.  

About 300,000 people a year make the considerable effort to go there. We flew from Washington to Dallas to Midland-Odessa, the closest airport. It’s a 220-mile drive to the park, if you go directly. We meandered, stopping at Alpine -- county seat of Brewster County, three times the size of Rhode Island, bigger than Connecticut and less than 10,000 people – and other towns.

Trump talks about his wall as if all that matters is who’ll pay for it. In the Big Bend region, you soon learn there’s so much more to his project than pesos.

People elsewhere argue whether the wall is necessary. In Big Bend, there’s no question natural barriers already exist. A manmade wall or fence, even a mile from the river like the one already in Brownsville, would mar Big Bend’s open landscape, protected as a national park since 1935.

From Presidio, a dusty, dilapidated border town, we took Farm to Market 170, called the River Road, one of the most beautiful stretches of highway anywhere. The road hugs the Rio Grande, little wider than a stream in the current drought, with Mexico the other bank, often less than 20 feet away.

   

Candidate Trump promised an “impenetrable, physical, tall” wall. His fans cheered, but in the Big Bend, people worry. As for the idea of an electrified and see-through wall that wouldn’t block the view?

“I think it’s . . . asinine,” said Evelyn Glaspie, 65, of Fort Davis, one of the communities that relies on tourism. Asinine wasn’t the first word she thought of, but it’ll do. “It makes no sense,” she said.

Rep. Will Hurd, the Republican who represents the Big Bend, has 820 miles of border in his district, more than any other congressman. He has called the wall “the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border.”

At a hearing in Washington last month, Hurd showed Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly a picture of Santa Elena Canyon. He tried to get Kelly to agree that the canyon was such an obstacle no wall was needed. Kelly demurred, saying he needed to talk with the Border Patrol.

“Secretary of Homeland Security does not rule out border wall in Big Bend National Park,” read the headline in the Big Bend Gazette’s March issue.

Santa Elena is not the only formidable barrier. At the Rio Grande overlook in the park, you can see equally intimidating rock walls and cliffs as the river winds through Boquillas Canyon.

An interpretive sign calls attention to the “Wilderness Without Boundaries.” Nothing in the sweeping landscape hints where one country ends and one begins.

“The two countries also share the river environment, a narrow oasis winding through the Chihuahuan Desert,” the sign says.

For now, they do – and in spectacular fashion. Let’s hope that landscape will be protected, and not spoiled, by man.   

(C) 2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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