The Catafalque<\/p>\n
I had the honor of working for a US Congressman in 1977.\u00a0 I was twenty, a young \u201cpolitician\u201d with \u201call the answers.\u201d\u00a0 I interned in Tom Luken\u2019s (D-Cincinnati) office, and had a pass that gave me free rein in the US Capitol.\u00a0 While most know the four main floors of the building, there are several floors below, each with passageways and chambers.\u00a0 There\u2019s a barbershop, and stores, and in one anxiety filled moment, the power plant with armed guards.\u00a0 That was the time to push the \u201cup\u201d button on the elevator!<\/p>\n
In my wanderings I found the \u201cWashington Crypt.\u201d\u00a0 It was designed for the internment of George and Martha Washington, a fitting national site for their graves.\u00a0 However, their heirs determined that Mt. Vernon would be their final resting place (still there today) so the crypt is empty.\u00a0 Stored in the room was a catafalque, the base caskets are placed upon when they are displayed \u201cin state\u201d in the Capitol rotunda.\u00a0 The catafalque was first used to support the casket of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, and in 1977, you could walk in and touch it.<\/p>\n
In these days of high security, you probably can\u2019t get to the Crypt anymore and certainly not touch things.\u00a0 The Lincoln Catafalque has been moved to the new Visitors Center. But it still is used; for over one hundred and fifty years it has supported our honored dead.\u00a0 In August it supported John McCain, and this week, it held the casket of President George HW Bush.<\/p>\n
It is easy to feel like our Democracy is at risk.\u00a0 We are in a constant state of crisis; either the \u201cResistance\u201d is a threat to the Presidency, or the President is a threat to democracy.\u00a0 It feels like we are facing an extra-Constitutional chasm, a crisis not foreseen by the founding fathers, and one that our \u201c\u2026one nation, indivisible\u2026\u201d might not survive.<\/p>\n
But yesterday we had the opportunity to remember our America again.\u00a0 The death and celebration of the life of President George HW Bush gave us an opportunity to all be \u201cAmericans:\u201d to see the people and the institutions that continue to function even as we struggle with events of the day.<\/p>\n
Our structure survives.\u00a0We can see it:\u00a0 in the young soldiers who so proudly escorted the casket, in the old friends who cried in the Cathedral, and in the crowds that waited for hours to pay their respects.\u00a0 We see it in Bob Dole saying goodbye to his friend and rival, and in the pew of Presidents sitting awkwardly together.<\/p>\n
The celebration of George HW Bush\u2019s life pushes us to take the long view, because of the scope of his long life.\u00a0 Born \u201cwith a silver spoon,\u201d Bush was the product of upper class society with education at Andover Academy and Yale.\u00a0 But he also was the product of his sense of duty, leaving high school to join the Navy, and risking his life daily at that young age to fight in World War II.<\/p>\n
President Bush forces us to take a wider view, raised in Northeast, he moved to make his own way in the oilfields of Texas.\u00a0 The son of a US Senator, he didn\u2019t run for public office until he had become accomplished in business, waiting until he was forty to step into the political limelight.<\/p>\n
And President Bush makes us look at the wide scope of our recent history.\u00a0 He was a warrior in World War II, but became a Cold War leader as CIA Director, UN Ambassador and Ambassador to China.\u00a0 As President he helped orchestrate the peaceful end to the Cold War, and began to deal with the complications of our current world.<\/p>\n
And, of course, the ceremonies make us look at the contrast with our current politics.\u00a0 When former Senator Alan Simpson talked of political courage, of Bush sharing his political popularity and then taking a political \u201cgut punch\u201d of increased taxes to support a bipartisan economic package; his example is a rebuke to our current politics of \u201cbullying by tweet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Our structure remains.\u00a0Our institutions, the military, the government, even the church; continue to function regardless of the seeming chaos at the surface. \u00a0\u00a0The establishment of America, like the Lincoln Catafalque, is still there, supporting our nation, even in our time of peril.\u00a0 The near future will be rough, we will face fear and crisis, but in the long view, that view from a lifetime of public service, our America will survive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"