Whitewashed Tombs

December 6th, 2017

“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all filthiness.” -Matthew 23:27

Washington D.C. is truly a beautiful city, especially at night. After eating supper, our group of demonstrators walked from the National Museum of the American Indian to the Lincoln Memorial. That long stroll took us from near the Capitol Building almost all the way down to the Potomac River. Floodlights illuminated many of the monuments and memorials.  The structures looked almost like they were glowing in the dark, the white marble reflecting the artificial light. We went past the Smithsonian Institute and the Washington Monument. We wandered around in the WWII Memorial. We hiked up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and were subsequently told by a cop to leave because we still had our protest signs with us. The figures of soldiers in the Korean War Memorial looked eerie in the half-light of the street lamps nearby. The Martin Luther King Memorial was impressive in a massive, heroic sort of way.

In some of the locations I felt a sort of reverent awe. This was particularly true when I stood inside of the Lincoln Memorial, reading the man’s words carved into the stone walls. The MLK Memorial also made me stop and think. I’m not sure why that was. Maybe it’s because these men served their country so well, and I felt the need to honor their memory.

Two other buildings were lit up: the White House and the Capitol Building. If we turned around as we walked, we could see them shining in the night. I felt nothing at all for those two buildings. To use the words of Jesus, those are just whitewashed tombs. They are beautiful and majestic from the outside, but within they are full of greed and the lust for power. People say and do terrible things in those places.

The White House and the Capitol should be left dark at night. It’s bad enough we can see them during the day.