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Eyes Wide Open Across Pennsylvania

The Fall 2006 Tour

Merion Friends Meeting
Merion, PA, October 28-29, 2006

Merion Station was our final stop on the road and the Friends Meeting organized the exhibit at the Merion Meeting House.  Michael Berg, father of Nicholas Berg, the contractor who was beheaded, spoke of the horrendous Iraqi and U.S. deaths. “What ocean, what lakes would it take to contain all the tears that have been shed?” he asked.

The opening ceremonies concluded with the reading of the names of the U.S. soldiers from Pennsylvania who have died and the words of Celeste Zappala, Gold Star Mother. “There are many who will speak for war and revenge, but who will speak for peace?” she demanded.  “It must be you, for who can stand here and see the souls that belong to those shoes and boots, think of all the people who loved these people, and if all of them were here they would fill this city…And if we had to look them in the eye and see their despair, would you tell them there was nothing you could do?... The quiet of boots and shoes can still us, but it is not silence we owe them, we owe them our voices, our witness, and our persistent conscience… In their name and with all the love we possess let us work to stop this war.”

"My country's skies are bluer than the ocean and sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine, but other lands have sunlight too, and clover, and skies are everywhere as blue as mine ... o hear my song—thou god of all the nations—a song of peace, for their land and for mine..."
-Finlandia Song of Peace

Sponsor: Merion Friends Meeting

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