Harper's Ferry: May the angels of the Lord camp around you

Earlier this week, Lori and I visited Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, a peaceful and beautiful place where the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers join.

Harper's Ferry looks like it is out of one of those sublime 19th century landscape paintings, with rocky gorges, forests and rivers with smooth rocks and shimmery pools.

Yet it is also a place where great violence took place long ago.

You may recall from your American history books that it was here that John Brown, an ardent abolitionist, attempted to start a slave uprising in 1859.

Brown came to Harper's Ferry because it was where the federal government mass-produced rifles and other arms and kept them stored. Harper's Ferry was the first "military industrial complex," as a National Park Service sign explains.

What makes Harper's Ferry beautiful is also why it became a 19th century armament center -- the rivers powered wheels that turned the lathes that produced the guns. And so it was that John Brown wanted to seize the guns and distribute them among the slaves.

He and his band took control of Harper's Ferry for a few hours, but their control did not last long. Robert E. Lee, then still a federal officer, led a squad of Marines who captured Brown, killed several of his followers and re-took control of Harper's Ferry.

Brown was hung two weeks later, becoming a martyr to African American slaves of the South and abolitionists of the North. His aborted raid, however, sparked enormous fear among Southern politicians and plantation owners and helped fuel the already hot political drive toward succession, ultimately igniting the Civil War 18 months later.

The war was not kind to Harper's Ferry or to the people sheltered there. Escaped slaves by

thousand found refuge with the Union Army in Harper's Ferry. But in 1862, the Confederates took the town, and captured thousands of blacks, taking them into slavery.

The town was damaged badly, and the damage is still there to see. The original St. John's Episcopal Church was destroyed, and all that remains today are the stone outer walls (see photo above).

Harper's Ferry is a place of contrasts. It's violent history is inescapable. But the peacefulness of the rivers and mountains is also inescapable.

Today Harper's Ferry sits astride the Appalachian Trail, and we walked several of the footpaths in the area including along the old C&O Canal. Harper's Ferry now thrives on tourism, not gun manufacturing. We stayed in a nearby American Youth Hostel, and I highly recommend you read Lori's description of where we stayed by clicking HERE.

The rivers and surrounding mountains remain unspoiled, though there are many reminders of the unspeakable violence long ago and the industrial revolution that brought the town its prominence. Yet Harper's Ferry also exudes a certain serenity as if it has come to terms with its past and is waiting for the rest of us to catch up. New life is built atop the rubble.

St. John's Episcopal Church was

rebuilt in a wooden clapboard church about a mile from the old ruined church. St. John's has found a very special ministry as a station for hikers on the Appalachian Trail.

A big water jug sits outside the church, and hikers are invited to refill their canteens and come inside to cool off.

The church wrote a prayer for hikers, putting it on cards to take with them. Here is the prayer, I rather like it:

Prayer for Appalacian Trail Hikers

May the angels of the Lord camp around you,
And may you commit your way to the Lord.

May you walk in integrity,
Sure as the feet of deer in high places

May you know in your heart
That all the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth.

May you be led beside still waters,
As well as along rocky paths.

May the Lord make your mountain stand strong,
And be your rock and your fortress.

May he strengthen your heart,
And teach you his paths.

May God be your salvation and glory,
And may you find water when you are thirsty.

May you finish your journey in peace,
And live in the habitation where his honor dwells.

The Rev. Georgia C. DuBose and the congregation of
St. John's Episcopal Church
898 Washington Street
Harper's Ferry, West Virginia
georgiad@ctlink.net
House of the AT Water Ministry
(Prayer phrases taken from the Psalms of David)

Photos by Lori Korleski Richardson

A comment from a friend about our governor's declaration of "Confederate History Month"

I have not heretofore commented on Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell's declaration of "Confederate History Month" and his appalling omission of any mention of slavery until his statement became national news. My lack of comment in no way reflects any trivializing of this on my part. If anything, I am still groping for words on this one.

So it was definitely helpful that on Thursday my friend Wallace Adams-Riley, the rector at St. Paul's, Richmond, commented on his blog. Allow me to pass along to you his comment in full:

Consciousness, the Light of

April 14, 2010

My Dear People,

Memory: a golden bowl, or a basement without light.

--Mary Oliver, Poet

The light of consciousness is the light of the One.

--Eckhart Tolle, Mystic

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I joked with a friend last week, while in South Carolina, that I was getting used to being in Virginia and being embarrassed by South Carolinians (my distant cousin Joe Wilson's "You lie!," the governor's "hike on the AT," the lieutenant governor's comparison of the poor to stray animals), but it was a new thing, for me, to be in South Carolina and be embarrassed by something a Virginian did. But so it was a week ago, with our governor's proclamation of April as Confederate History Month.

A lot of commentary has gone under the bridge since then, as would be expected. (I commend to you, by the way, yesterday's RTD op-ed by Charles F. Bryan, Jr.; and M.P. Williams' column, particularly as it quotes U of R's Ed Ayers.) Embarrassment has been a common motif, as has sadness; and there has been talk of blindness. Language like "shockingly amateurish" and "gaffe" has been used. Apologizing for leaving African-Americans and slavery entirely out of the proclamation, the governor explained that he had not been "focused" on slavery.

The thing is, this was not merely about a misstep, or an inattentive moment. This was not a gaffe. This was not about things being done in an amateur fashion, versus professionally. To think or speak of it in those terms is to trivialize the substance of the matter, is to miss entirely what is important about the moment. Something much deeper and much more significant was and is at play.

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He was standing by Hagood's side on the right of the line, when Hoke's aide brought the order to advance. The men, who had been told to follow his lead, were intently watching him, and when he was ordered to go, without speaking, he drew his handkerchief from his breast and raised it aloft. The men sprang over the parapet with a yell and rushed upon the enemy across the intervening space, he moving upon the right of the line... When they were driven back and had laid down in the oats (as they were instructed), to await the coming of the supports, he moved east along the whole length of his line under the close fire of the enemy and shortly after reaching the left, disappeared.

"He," like me, was a South Carolinian in Virginia; and he was my great-great-great grandfather Nelson. He died that day, in 1864, in between the lines at Petersburg, just below the Appomattox River.

I was raised to be very proud of him, and my ten other direct ancestors who served in the Confederate armies. I grew up, meanwhile, with no meaningful consciousness of what that whole war meant for African-Americans.

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My sons will grow up differently. They will be conscious of their two great-great-great-great grandfathers named Nelson, one who served in the 7th South Carolina, and one who served in the 7th Vermont, both of whom died honorably in that service. They will also grow up more consciously than I did of what that war meant for and means to African-Americans, namely, the end of an "evil and inhumane practice," as the amended version of the governor's proclamation put it, and the beginning (albeit a far from perfect beginning) of liberty and justice for African-Americans.

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The religious quest can be spoken of in many ways. There is, however, no more apt way to speak of the religious quest (or, to put it another way, the human quest) than to speak of waking up; of consciousness; of emerging, from the unconscious darkness, into the light of consciousness. ("In him was life, and the life was the light of all humanity," the Gospel of John says of the Word made flesh, Jesus.)

Let us pray for a greater and more whole consciousness, for ourselves; for all Virginians, including our governor; and for all people; especially as we approach the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War and of Emancipation. Again, last week's excitement was not about a mere gaffe. It was about being awake; it was about being conscious. And how we talk about our history (memory) is as true a sign as any of how conscious we are; of how awake we are; of how much the light of the One shines in our minds, in our hearts, and in our lives, today.

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May our history be for us, not a basement without light, but a golden bowl.

As the song says: Shine, Jesus, shine.

Your brother in Christ,

Wallace+