Banner of Mourning Honors Fallen Soldiers
Art, Music, Meditation, and God's Word Engender a Deeply Moving Spiritual Experience at United Parish in Brookline
 by Anne Mahon, Member of the Arts Committee
Editor's Note: You are invited to bring this memorial to your church. Read below for contact information.
Last Fall on All Saints' Day, the Arts Committee at the United Parish of Brookline unveiled a deeply meditative, shrouded memorial for all who have lost their lives in Iraq.
The memorial, a community wide effort, is a 50x8 foot canopy that was suspended above the center of the sanctuary. It is made of 3,841 three foot long black strips of cloth. Each of the mourning bands represents one of the US soldiers killed in Iraq (at the time of the installation). Each is labeled with that person's name to bring home to us both the enormity of the loss and the individual persons who make up the count of fatalities. Observed from the pews, the memorial appeared like a black tear, a jagged wound, into darkness. It rent the peacefulness of our church and reminded us of the cost of war.
The Arts Committee feels that with Mourning Bands it achieved one of its most cherished goals: to involve a significant portion of the church community in the artistic process. The bands were torn, labeled and attached to a chicken wire frame by many of our United Parish family.
As the Rev. Patricia Coughlin, senior pastor, noted in her sermon on All Saints Sunday, she started to see black threads everywhere. "On the parsonage floor, on the church office floor, in the sanctuary, in dens and living rooms and kitchens throughout the parish, threads clinging to people's clothes when they came to church on Sunday. Black threads connecting each of us to the bands under which we worship today; black threads connecting us to the people whose loss we mourn; threads connecting us to one another; threads connecting this faith community with all who suffer in this war; black threads that remind us of the Christian call to witness for peace." Whatever our personal politics, the memorial brought us together to honor those who have given their lives, to remember those they have left behind and to reflect upon the Christian call to be peacemakers.
Many found the tearing of the bands, which was meant to evoke the rending of clothes during mourning, a deeply moving and meditative experience on the cost of the war. We were unable to physically include the estimated 83,000 Iraqi civilians killed since the onset of the war. But our congregation was aware that to do so our memorial would have extended more than 1000 feet outside of the church. T
he memorial generated a positive response from the community, including members with family in Iraq. One mother talked about her son who was so touched. "He thought everyone had forgotten [the soldiers fighting in Iraq]."
Immediately after the opening several members petitioned to have the memorial hang throughout the Advent season, rather than striking the installation before Thanksgiving. We also received positive news coverage in the local press. The Boston Globe (November 11, 2007) called it "a bold statement" and "powerful." It said, "As the canopy rises in the center, the names seem to disappear into the darkness."
Equally important, Mourning Bands demonstrated how art and music, together with the meditation on God's word engender a deeply moving spiritual experience. At the unveiling of the memorial, the choir intoned portions of the Fauré Requiem, a hauntingly evocative musical composition conveying the feeling of faith in eternal rest. The deep, reflective and marmoreal tones of the "Libera me" and "Offertorium" seemed the most fitting accompaniment to the depth of our sadness for those who gave their lives for their country. The "Pie Jesu" brought us from deep mourning back to a feeling of hope so necessary in these troubled times.
Indeed the following Sunday the message from the Reverend Suzanne Woolston Bossert, Associate Pastor, was one of hope. Speaking of the installation as a 'thick river of mourning,' she rallied us beyond the perception that we stand on the brink of despair, but inspired us to redefine our possibilities and responsibilities by spiritual practice.
Mourning Bands hung as a somber reminder of how war has changed us. It was taken down on Martin Luther King Day. For many it remains a deeply moving experience, impossible to express in words. Truly, some members felt they had, as Reverend Coughlin's visionary words of 2005 predicted, encountered God at the deepest part of their being, that they had been given a 'way in' to the mystery that is our God.
Kerry O'Donnell, a member of the Arts Committee, hopes someone else will take on the memorial. "It was really moving when we took it down because we realized that it wasn't complete," she said. "While it hung in our sanctuary, sadly more names needed to be added. And still more while it is in storage."
O'Donnell invites other churches to take on the project. She does warn that because of its length and girth, it is not simple to hang and the building must have substantial space, but the framework is assembled in 8 pieces so it can be moved to another location. Her wish is for it to become a revolving memorial until the war ends.
If no one wants to take on the project, the memorial will be disassembled and the pieces burned one by one, name by name, in a quiet ceremony.
You can contact O'Donnell at the church office, located at 210 Harvard Street, Brookline, MA 02446, telephone (617) 277-6860, email unitedparish@verizon, or visit their website: www.unitedparishbrookline.com.
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