An Open Letter to Religious Leaders of All Faiths around the World

We ordinary people need your help. Time and again we are asked to send people we love to fight in wars against people other people love. We are asked to contribute our treasure to finance these undertakings. We are tired of it. We think maybe you have more power than you think you do. Please take our earnest plea into consideration.

First of all, we want each of you to have a special hotline phone like the one the president of the United States had to link him to Moscow during the Cold War. This would be your direct link to each other. We want you to have conference calls on a regular basis to answer among yourselves the old Jewish question, What in the world needs healing today- Or maybe, where in the world needs healing-

When you arrive at a decision, we want you to pack your bags and go there. All of you. In the United States we have "interventions" when a friend of family member is sliding into alcoholism, mental illness or self destructing in some way. Our human family has beloved members who are being destroyed by dictatorship, genocide and civil wars. We need an intervention, and it simply is not working any longer to send soldiers or politicians to do this job. We need you.

We want the pope and the Dalai Lama, the leaders of the Orthodox Church and the Lutherans, Reformed churches, the Pentecostals and Evangelicals and Mormons, prominent imams and rabbis, Zen Buddhists and Hindu swamis, all of you, to descend on Burma or Bagdad or wherever it is you choose. We want you to land at their airport and tell the government you are staying until something gets worked out. You don't have to work it out yourself; you are there to intervene and get them to work it out.

You can bring a bunch of us with you, sincere people of faith from all over the world. We will be happy to set up a tent city and stay for as long as it takes. After all, such things are created on a regular basis for refugees. We ordinary people will stay until the host government gets so sick of us and the attention we create that they will make changes just to get rid of us.

We will be a lot cheaper to send than soldiers. We will be more welcomed by the local population. We will hang out and get to know each other. We will be there to show our support for what you are doing. We think this will be a lot more effective than each of you issuing statements from Rome or Salt Lake City or Istanbul or Dharamsala or wherever. 

But, you might object, you have an institution to run; this is not your job. It has not escaped our notice that when you set about to protect and defend your institution, often the results are not good for us or your institution. Scandals happen.

Support for your institution weakens. Maybe the best thing you can do for your institution is heal the world.

You might object that this is dangerous; what if you all get killed- Well, martyrdom is not the worst way to die. And you are older than most of our soldiers.

No political leader who kills all of you would last long; they do know that. It may be impolitic to point this out, but it is easier to replace a pope than it is to replace the young parent of a couple of schoolage children.

You might say this is impractical and can't work. Well, what we are doing now isn't working, and this hasn't been tried. Why don't you try- Just try, for God's sake. Give it a shot. Show up. Please show up. Do it for us. Do it for our children. Do it for the Great Spirit or God or Allah or Krishna or in obedience to reality as you understand it.

Even if you fail, your efforts will be the occasion for rejoicing around the world. You will be a beacon of hope. And if you succeed, bells will ring and fireworks will go off; people will weep in the streets around the globe. Every child can look at the future with hope that is unimaginable now.

Please show up. Please try.

Patricia Hunt is a Mary Baldwin College chaplain and Staunton resident.