Wasn't that a fine photograph of the spot on the southwestern corner of the state's Capitol where a garish monument to the Big Ten (Commandments) is due to be erected? It was as if a halo of sunlight had settled there. Thank you, Stephen B. Thornton of the Democrat-Gazette's staff, for capturing that moment on film.
Let's enjoy the sweep and peace of that uncluttered space while we may. Because Jason Rapert, state senator from Bigelow and Disruption in General, has plans for it and for all of us. And, as usual, they've led not to concord but conflict. Wouldn't it be a nice change if that lawn could just be left alone? So its grass, like God's grace, could cover the all-forgiving earth. And bury all our old grudges, disappointments, feuds, wars and other unending conflicts. Or as Carl Sandburg put it in his poem "Grass":
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz
and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work--
I am the grass, I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg.
And pile them high at Ypres
and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers
ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.
Instead, a subcommittee of this state's Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission had to meet to take testimony about whether Arkansas shall have no gods but one. Or as Arkansas' current post-Civil War constitution emphatically declares: "No human authority can, in any case or manner whatsoever, control or interfere with the right of conscience; and no preference shall ever be given, by law, to any religious establishment, denomination or mode of worship, above any other." The simplest way to achieve that commendable aim is to erect no religious monuments at all on the Capitol grounds. Just let the grass hold sway. And a heavenly silence.
It was said that when the Roman conquerors of ancient Judea breached the walls of Jerusalem and went on to enter the Temple's innermost parts, even the Holy of Holies, all they found was an empty chamber. Their quest had been to unravel the secret of this strange religion of the Jews, but instead they found nothing at all. A space not profaned by any symbols at all. Lo! form or body He has none, and man/ No semblance of His holiness can frame/ Before Creation's dawn He was the same; The first to be though never He began.--Prayer Book for Jewish Personnel in the Armed Forces of the United States.
Instead of a holy temple, some of our legislators would erect something more like a Tower of Babel where competing gods are invited for a kind of free-for-all on the Capitol grounds. Place your bets now on which one will emerge as the winner of this not-so-grand competition because once the gates are thrown open to one faith, all others must be allowed to enter. As both this state's constitution and the country's make clear. And a long line of entrants is already forming.
To name just one of the fearsome contestants, the Satanic Temple out of New York has already announced plans to erect a bronze eight-and-a-half-foot idol of its god Baphomet on the grounds of the state Capitol, and surely other cults will follow in its idolatrous wake. It won't do to pretend that our own favored monument, unlike the others, is not religious in nature but secular or historical or esthetic. Its religious nature is there in plain sight. To quote Eugene Levy, a retired rabbi of Congregation B'nai Israel in Litttle Rock: "You can tell that it's a religious motivation to have this commandment monument up." For its backers "spoke totally in religious terms."
To quote Jeremy Brasher of Little Rock, who showed up for this hearing: "'I am the Lord your God. You shall have no gods except me'--on the Capitol grounds. Do you want a Baphomet statue? Because that's how you get a Baphomet statue." Case closed. And this state's Capitol grounds should be closed to such intrusions, too. And become one of the most beautiful, unsullied stretches of lawn in an increasingly crowded urban space. Peace, it's wonderful.
Editorial on 12/21/2016