Repeating a Prayer Across the Chasm
About eight and a half years ago (on September 14, 2001) I wrote an article in response to the shock and horror of the 9/11 disaster. Yesterday someone found that old article and reprinted it on their blog. I’d forgotten I ever wrote it, but the message is just as important now as it was then. Here’s that article again for your review.
A Prayer Across the Chasm
Shock fell heavily across the American continent on Tuesday, and it continues to roll outward in a black, morbid wave, spreading across the consciousness of the world’s people
The last few days have shown us terrible hatred and the results it spawns.
We hear stories of people who hate the United States so bitterly that they rejoice to give up their lives if it will cause hurt to this country and to its people. Their bitter and hated enemy, the USA, is termed The Great Satan. And killing its people is a holy act that will win them automatic admittance to paradise.
In America, now, we’re hearing vows of vengeance. Cold, icy rage is being expressed.
“Only an insane person could conceive such heinous acts,” we hear. “Only madmen could carry them out,” many people are saying.
Some are calling for military attacks, even before it is clear who was involved, or the extent of that involvement, in perpetrating this tragedy.
True, it is tempting to lash out at the first obvious targets. “There are names, people who we know are terrorists, and they almost certainly had a hand in this. But even if they didn’t participate this time, they’re guilty of other terroristic acts, so they should be punished anyway. Let’s go bomb somebody into the stone age. Let’s do it now.” These are some of the comments we hear coming from some outraged Americans.
But isn’t this the same thinking that mobilizes lynch mobs? Irrespective of guilt or innocence, how would a quick, angry bombing raid differ from a hanging party?
Other, cooler heads are urging caution, patience, careful investigation. They argue a need to treat any military action as a surgical procedure. Carefully, meticulously, but with the same ruthless coolness that a doctor cuts out a tumor that endangers a patient’s life.
There is some merit to this second approach.
The entire Arab world is not the enemy of Americans.
Nor are all Muslims.
Islam is a noble and great religion. But tragically, it is being hijacked by some for vicious ends, exactly as those four airliners were hijacked and used for destruction.
So the voices calling for immediate and broad-based retribution need to be calmed so that we can carefully and clearly identify our enemies. But just as carefully identify the friends who stand with us
We have seen news footage of people here and there around the world celebrating our grief. Exultation and jubilation greeted the sad news in several parts of the world.
Have you not paused for even a moment to wonder why those people hate us so bitterly? What do they see when they look at our country? What do they see when they gaze at you? At me?
What do they see? Why are they so glad of our suffering?
Is it not time to open real channels of dialog so that we can learn what their problem with us might be? Such strong emotions don’t happen in a vacuum.
Have our elected and appointed officials caused terrible things to be done to them? Are there wrongs – genuine wrongs – that need to be righted?
If there are, could we not try to find out what they are and somehow, no matter how small the steps, begin the process of healing this difference?
It takes a great hatred to build such a great schism. Perhaps an even greater love and understanding will be needed to quench that hatred and to heal it.
Is it possible?
I believe that the political and military voices advising caution and care in our retribution may be buying us enough time to begin some part of this healing process. I hope they will.
The tools these people hold in their hands are far more frightening than ever before in history. Cool heads MUST prevail or we all face dire consequences.
Can we not turn to our neighbors and simply ask them, “Please tell us what you see when you look at us with such hatred? What have we done? What CAN we do?”
My prayer.
Charles
Wow Charles
This article spawns so many thoughts, each of which I could easily turn into passionate ‘soap box’ material. I’ll just throw out some of my bigger ‘ropes’ and hope someone picks up and runs with a ‘thread’.
* I believe the vast majority of the world’s population to be peace-loving people. We live in an ever-shrinking world where people are more awake and aware than ever before of their own personal roles and responsibilities. We can see with our own eyes, and especially our hearts, that ‘THEY’ are the same as ‘ME’… real people who just want to LIVE!
* War is BIG BUSINESS and the world’s leaders are very active and WILLING participants at their citizen’s expense! There ARE better ways to deal with differences. Enough said here.
* This will likely piss off many veterans and their families. My own draft ‘lottery’ number was very high in my year of eligibility so I guess you could say I was lucky. Still, I would have consciously chosen NOT to take part in any ‘war’ games. Peace NEVER comes by attacking/killing a perceived enemy. Peace can only come by attacking/killing the PERCEPTION that there is an enemy.
* Having said that, we all have the right/responsibility to protect and defend ourselves. I believe this is hard-wired into every human being and given a fair chance, the ‘common man’ would easily figure out how to get along with his neighbor if (s)he wasn’t fed a constant stream of ‘enemy’ crap and fear propaganda by their teachers and leaders. Call me naive, but I sincerely believe that ‘John and Jane Everyman’ would rather help than harm. “Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me” is innate in every human being.
Again, these are just a few of my most passionate thoughts. The next time you watch CNN, take your eyes OFF the relatively few tanks and gun-slingers. Instead, focus on vast majority of every-day citizens – communities of people who only desire to live in peace with their families – who are being denied these basic human rights because of the beliefs and decisions of a handful greedy ‘leaders’.
Love and peace to all from Toronto
Russ
Somewhere in here, there is the echo of proportionate response ringing in my ears.
I find myself wondering. If there was someone threatening the very life of my wife, or my children, or my grandchildren. What would I do? How far would I go to stop them killing the people who are close to me, the people who I love and respect, the people with whom I have many shared values.
If that threatening someone was absolutely hell-bent on destroying one of those lives at any cost – even at the cost of their own life. Then what would I be prepared to do?
It is not a simple choice of, ‘am I prepared to take a life or not’. It is a question of which life of the two should be taken. It eventually comes down to whether I am prepared to destroy one life to save another.
It is not such an easy decision.
More often than not we delegate that decision to our political leaders. Our political leaders want to be seen as strong and as capable of safeguarding those people that we love, and respect and with whom we share common values. They have that as an additional agenda. It is not enough to be strong and capable, they have a need to be seen as strong and capable.
It is that need to be seen as strong and capable which I think is seen as justification for additional deaths on top of those minimum deaths necessary to safeguard the people we love, respect and share values with. We dissociate ourselves from those extra deaths by calling them collateral damage. It can’t really be helped, can it?
Whilst we delegate our decision making on ‘whether we can destroy one life to save another’ to our politicians, our politicians delegate the safeguarding role to the armed forces. It neatly detaches us ‘normal’ people from the messy end of the safeguarding job. In short ‘we’ don’t have to do the politicians’ violent bidding. The cost is that we don’t have to argue too much if there are a few extra deaths. And we don’t have to look in the face of the threatening someone (or the collateral damage) as the light fades from their eyes.
We ‘normal’ people keep it compartmentalized and… neat.
We do all this to enjoy the luxury of relative safety without the responsibility of making and acting out that dreadful decision.
Sometimes though, responsibility shows us it’s face.
Can you see what it looks like?