UM mom, leaders join crowd outside Bush ranch

United Methodist News Service
CRAWFORD—As President Bush’s motorcade sped by, Celeste Zappala stood behind a police line, singing and waving a cross bearing the name of her fallen son.
Zappala wanted to meet the commander in chief and ask him about the rationale for starting the war against Iraq. Her son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, 30, died there last year.
“He literally was killed looking for the weapons of mass destruction that never existed,” she said.
Zappala, a United Methodist, traveled from her home in Philadelphia to Texas to support a friend who also lost a son in Iraq. Cindy Sheehan was making international headlines after pitching a tent alongside the country road leading to the president’s ranch.
Zappala said her faith and her church, First UMC of Germantown in Philadelphia, have helped her through the ordeal of losing her son.
Several United Methodist leaders joined her in Crawford for a prayer service Aug. 12. The list included:
> The Rev. Robert Edgar, a United Methodist pastor who is top staff executive of the National Council of the Churches and a former congressman.
> Retired Bishop Joe Wilson, now bishop-in-residence at Southwestern University, Georgetown.
> The Rev. William McElvaney, an emeritus professor of theology at Southern Methodist University, Dallas.
> The Rev. Andrew Weaver, a research psychologist and author from Brooklyn.
Edgar said his visit was not political or partisan.
“It’s a no-brainer,” he said. “If the president can go to a barbecue and throw out the first pitch of a Little League baseball game, he can give these family members a hug and offer them his best wishes. One doesn’t have to agree with their views to show compassion.”
Wilson said he came to Crawford to offer pastoral care to those who lost loved ones in the war.
Wilson noted the Council of Bishops had adopted a resolution that “laments the continued warfare” in Iraq and questioned whether the reasons for going to war were misrepresented.
Edgar said he believes Bush, a United Methodist, is “eventually going to do the right thing” and meet with Zappala, Sheehan and other families questioning the war’s justification. So far, there are no signs of that happening.