On Hope
By Charles Rush
September 8, 2002
Romans 5:
pe is such a powerful spiritual reality. And the near opposite of hope is, in non-lethal form, a low-grade, resigned dread that what can go wrong will and that somehow, someway, we have it coming to us. I had the chance this summer to see that resigned dread in action in Ireland, resignation being the base notes on which the fugue of Irish personality is played.
Part
of the Irish resignation is due to their tragic history and part of it, I
maintain, is simply the weather. This year, it rained every day from May 15th-August
15th… every day. And today's forecast is… rain, but a gentle rain…
Day after day. I was at a B & B, reading the comments from people staying
there. Some Irishmen left this. “Today the mist and drizzle finally lifted. At
last, I could clearly see the rain.” That is resignation.
Hope
is a fitting theme on the weekend before a year anniversary, when, in the words
of one commentator, “I looked into the pit of smoke and ashes… and I saw evil.”
Hope,
in contrast to resignation, breaks through, often in the midst of tragedy.
Hope, it is said, is always on the horizon, always just a glimpse. But that is
all we need at the moment, just a beacon to remind us of where we are headed.
I
remember hope rising out of the ashes September 12th or 13th,
when those firemen found a tattered flag in the ruins and raised it, not in a
tribal drum beating nationalistic way… but as a reminder that the great ideals
of “justice and liberty for all” had not been extinguished. Out of the rubble
and ruin, it was a beacon on the horizon to remind us where we need to be
headed, not just Americans, but all of us collectively.
I
was slightly surprised this summer by two things. First, people would sometimes
ask me where I was from. I would usually say, “I live in New Jersey, in the
suburbs of New York City.” Almost invariably there was a pause. Almost everyone
would say, “I'll never forget where I was on September 11th.” Or,
“Our thoughts and prayers were with you.” Sometimes they would just touch me in
silence. Or in one case, a rather inebriated Scotsman said, “When you finally
find that bastard Bin Laden, the Highlanders will be right behind you. We're a
wee army but we're mean when we're mad.” Because all of them wanted to ask, and
a few did, “What was it like on September 11th?”
You
can say, “Well, we lost 9 people in our town.” You can say something obvious
and banal. I wish I could have told them all our simple, human stories… Like
one of our neighbor here in town who was headed to her job on the NYSE that
morning. She got off the ferry, walked through the World Financial Center, over
crosswalk and decided to go downstairs out on the street because it was such a
beautiful day. She heard the explosion, stuff falling. She and a friend ran up
to the corner, looked up and saw, what… they didn't know… fire… Then she turned
and went through a revolving door into building #5, down a long corridor when
she saw a whole bunch of other women with babies. One woman, right near her was
carrying two babies. As mothers will do, she said to her, “give me one of those babies.” The woman wouldn't. Again
she asked. No… It was a responsible worker in the Day Care Center. Finally, she
relinquished one of the babies.
The
whole crowd reconnoitered out in front of St. Paul's Church, accounting for the
kids, when the teacher realized someone was missing, handed off her child to
another woman, and headed back.
At
that point, there was another boom, and people just started moving east, these
two women had dropped their commuter gear and were carrying infants, one 9
mths, the other 11 mths. They got to the Seaport, collared the concierge at the
hotel, started making calls when they looked up to see the huge dust ball
coming at them.
Worried
that the kids would have to breathe in the dust, they made the executive
decision to head north. At the Brooklyn Bridge an F-16 flew past, very
disconcerting, and then one of them suddenly worried this might be an attack,
maybe the bridges would be next. Away from the bridge. She said, ‘let's head to
Chinatown… nobody cares about Chinatown.'… Military strategy… All the while they are running, walking,
jogging… Cell phones don't work. So our neighbor is just beaming out prayer
messages to her husband, to her own children… everything is going to be
all right. And she is beaming out
prayer messages to the Mother of the baby she is carrying saying, “She is okay;
it's going to be okay.”
Finally, they get to a
friends apartment on the lower East side, turn on the TV…Eventually, they
mention the Day Care Center on T.V. and flash a number to let people know the
babies are okay. They call. The mother of the baby calls. Meanwhile, our
neighbor is remember again all the stuff about formula, feeding infants. 6
hours later, having traversed a long, long way on foot, mother and child are
reunited. And by the way, all three of them- Mother, Child, and our neighbor,
will be together in a couple days.
I wanted to tell people the
human stories, that we weren't extras in a Bruce Willis movie, but this was our
life, going to work… But you really can't. Sometimes a long silence was the
only way to communicate.
And
the other thing that surprised me was my heart. Here I had the chance of a life
time, a great adventure, I was on my own, overlooking the cliffs of Scotland
and the dramatic North Sea, wind in my face… and, and, and I was crying…
suddenly overtaken by this deep sadness. At first, I thought I was losing my
grip. But it occurred to me that it was just a sad year and for most of us
going through it, we were just trying to be good neighbors to those suffering
the worst of the tragedy. I only mention this because you too, might have found
that when you got away on vacation this year, when you got to the place you
relax and let down your guard, you might not have felt the way you thought you
would feel. It might have been a complex scenario of sadness, revenge,
frustration, longing. That is the way that it is. We live with it. In the
coming months, we need to still be patient with each other. The psychologists
remind us that for many people, it is the second year that more toxic stuff
bubbles to the surface. We will have to be sensitive to each other this year
because you can't really control the time or the place of these deep reactions.
You can only respond to them creatively, maturely, spiritually.
This morning, I don't
want to dwell so much on the past as look forward in hope to where we are
headed, the higher ideals to which we ought to pledge ourselves. I am thinking
of the profound aspirations of Lady Liberty who stands in the harbor. On her
pedestal, the familiar words:
"Keep ancient lands
your storied pomp!"
cries she with silent lips.
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Her visage
inspires literally billions of people around our world because the noble ideals
of freedom, of people being able to pursue happiness and control their own
destiny, the ideals of participatory democracy, of human rights for all
regardless of creed, ethnicity, religion, gender or social status, the ideals
of justice- all these stand out as in noble bold relief against the stain of
wanton terrorist destruction. These ideals have been hard to build, hard to
live day in and day out. But the hope and promise they embody can help to heal
the arbitrary wounds of the past, they can shape for us some meaning in the
midst of social ambiguity, they can fill us with commitment and purpose,
guiding us like a beacon through storm tossed seas.
And
we are going to need to hold to that hope because our immediate future will not
be easy and it is fraught with danger all around. It was informative for me to
be in Europe for the summer and read the editorial page of the papers in Italy,
in Spain, in France, in Ireland and England, to listen to European political
leaders on television. It was important to learn what they think of our country
today.
Lady
Liberty has a deep and profound impact on the social imagination of Europe. Of
course, many of them remember fondly emigrating to our country. I was on
Rathlin Island on the northern coast of Ireland. There were once 1000 farmers
on Rathlin. Today there are 70. I found a memorial about the potato famine.
There was a plaque remembering the day that 800 people emigrated to America. In
one day… The Irish people left behind remember the better life their cousins
made for themselves. They are grateful for the idea of America. But…but the
Clinton administration or the Bush administration, that is a different matter.
Europe
is in a very different place from the United States, especially in terms of
military power. The European nations, by and large, have systematically under
funded their armies, relying on the United States to provide protection during
the Cold War and afterwards. Meanwhile, we have grown more and more powerful,
and developed a whole new generation of military technology, gotten better organized,
developed better training, unmatched by anyone else in the world.
Europeans,
by and large, have relied on diplomacy and selective foreign aid to deal with
difficult foreign situations. And they have some notable successes, not the
least of which is the remarkable transformation of Germany in the past 50
years. The European hope, best articulated by the French, is a comity of
nations, where no single nation has enough power to act unilaterally, so all
are forced to negotiate a resolution until consensus is reached. That is the
way the European Union works and they would like to see the United Nations work
like that.
So when our European allies
look at us they are conflicted. They admire the ideals of our country, they
admire the considerable economic and cultural achievements, but they also fear
us, and they envy us, and they resent us. Watching the United States,
criticizing the United States has become a national pastime for several
European nations. What they fear is the preponderance of concentrated power. As
Lord Acton said, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Today Europe would say that “unilateral power corrupts unilaterally.”
I
listened to a debate on BBC 1 radio from Oxford. The proposition was “America
is a power for good.” They had one speaker for, one against, followed by
questions from the audience, closing comments, and then the audience voted and
then the BBC allowed listeners to vote across Great Britain. Our virtues were
listed, our vices catalogued. Then the vote. The proposition failed 70-30. I
have to admit, I was a bit stunned. 70% of sober English people, our best
allies, said that our power was not a force for good. It is hard to hear, and
yet, if there is any country in the world that knows realistically how difficult
it is to handle disproportionate international power, it would be Great
Britain. There are 72 nations around the world that make up the British
Commonwealth. The sun never set on the British Empire at its height. And their
vices in the Colonial era still impact them today, as in Zimbabwe. Of all
countries, they know of which they speak when they talk about the corruption of
power.
It
is difficult to hear, even it if it true because there is an undertone to the
editorials in Europe that says that, in some sense, we deserved what happened
to us on September 11th, not because of any single thing we have
done, but because this is just what happens when you have a preponderance of
power. It is simply the price that you pay. That kind of undertone not only
reveals the ugly face of envious resentment, it also profoundly misunderstands
the real nature of terrorism, almost willfully hoping to keep it in someone
else's back yard.
Resentment
aside, of all people Christians, with their realistic understanding of human
existence, ought to understand the very real dangers that attend an imbalance
of power. I will mention just one example of that danger, one that is presently
before us.
Understandably,
in the immediate aftermath of September 11th, President Bush said
that it would not be enough to simply arrest those responsible for the attacks.
Instead, he said, we have to systematically attack the underground roots of
terrorism. Then he went on to declare a war on terrorism. We know
what he meant to say and why he said it. But we also ought to understand that
such a declaration makes even our allies nervous and it should. It is a
little like a Minister declaring war on sin. The scope of the campaign is
so wide that you could never declare that it is over, nor could you ever really
win. Sin on a personal level, like terror on a social level, are realities we
need to corral and contain, but won't be eradicated, not in our life times.
Just as all of Europe cowered when the Church had the power to arrest sinners
during the witch hunts of the 17th century, so all the nations of
the world today are fretting over just how much intervention American military
power intends to justify in this wide open war. We need to make sure our
leaders set limits. And we need to make sure that we can communicate to our
allies what those limits are.
And
yet it also strikes me that the failure to exercise power in the face of clear
and present evil is not virtuous either. Interestingly, Europeans widely
acknowledge this and understand it is their besetting temptation. They admit
that while they are afraid of the unilateral exercise of American military
power, when Slobodan Milosiveic was wreaking ethnic cleansing in Serbia and
Bosnia, the Europeans could not have put a military solution in place that
would have stopped him like the Americans did. Their political process to build
consensus was way too slow, and their military organization slower to
coordinate still. Had not the Americans assumed the lead, they acknowledge that
thousands more people would have perished needlessly.
But
we will need the hope of the high ideals in the next couple decades will be
more important than ever because, for better and worse, in the Court of World
opinion, we will be on our own to shoulder the responsibility for the decisions
in foreign policy, and the mistakes we make, in particular, will be subject to
vociferous critique with something of a condescending moral tone to it. It is
much easier to critique than to craft a plan of action and it is much safer in
an era of terrorism to let the United States be the target for the Free World.
Europeans are more than happy to lie low and let the effigies of Uncle Sam and
President Bush be burned in the streets of Jenin. They don't come out and
directly say it, but they expend considerable effort to create some distance
from the U.S. and to deflect responsibility, hoping against hope, that
terrorism will only hit American targets. It will work for a while, perhaps a
generation.
So
we will need hope because in the next chapter that has opened before us after
the Cold War ended, we are going to have to exercise power without much
gratitude from any one in the world and quite a lot of critique. It will be
difficult but it will mature us. And we will make mistakes, profound ones. All
the more reason for us to keep our gaze fixed on the noble ideals of freedom,
human rights, self-development, justice- not just for ourselves, but ultimately
for every one, even those people that are presently attacking us.
And
we should be hopeful, too, remembering that those who wreak anarchic havoc in
terrorism are actually few in number. We need to remember, too, the generosity,
the comfort, the hospitality that this tragedy unleashed.
I
am reminded of our fine Canadian neighbors in a small town in Newfoundland,
Gander, Canada. Immediately after the World Trade Towers were hit, planes were
grounded all over the world ASAP. 36 of those planes, mostly commercial
airlines flying back from Europe descended on a small airway in Gander, a small
town of 10,400 citizens. All in all, there were over 6000 stranded passengers
sitting on the runway that day- a veritable cross section of our world, I might
add. A woman pregnant 33 weeks into term, a Saudi prince, an Orthodox Jew, a
princess from Nigeria.
Word
went out and the whole community of Gander responded. The bus drivers in Gander
were actually on strike at the time the planes landed. They mobilized and
suspended their strike, drove to the airport, and began to drive the “plane
people” wherever they needed to go. School gyms were opened, military hangars
were outfitted with cots, community hall and churches were all converted into
temporary dorms, and all of the elderly people on the planes were housed in
private homes.
No
one was allowed access to their luggage, so clothing was provided in some
cases; showers were offered, pharmacists called in emergency prescriptions all
over the world, restaurants served free meals to people without access to cash,
fireman delivered toys to the little kids on the planes, and they even got the
dogs and cats off the plane to tend them. The bakery stayed open late.
Apparently, the local Canadian Mounties even donned his ceremonial red uniform
the few days that the “plane people” were downed because that is the way foreigners
think the Canadian police dress all the time. School was canceled. Meetings
were called off so the whole town could show hospitality to “our guests” as the
citizens of Gander called them.
On
occasions like this, it is important to remember how much goodness was
unleashed that day, goodness that surrounded and enveloped the evil that terror
would produce.
I
love the remark of one elderly Dutch woman that was stranded in Gander. She was
overwhelmed with gratitude and the simple, profound kindness that she
experienced there. Some 50 years earlier, when she was a child, her town was
liberated from the Nazi's by some Canadian soldiers. She was telling the story
of that liberation to some of the citizens of Gander and she looked around at
the hospitality they were providing people, and she said, “You wonderful
Canadians have not changed.”
Writing
about Gander, Jim Defede said this, “[The citizens of Gander] affirmed the
basic goodness of man at a time when it was easy to doubt such humanity…If the
terrorists had hoped their attacks would reveal the weaknesses in western
society, the events in Gander proved its strength.” And so did you. I watched
the deep, abiding humanity in people doing for each other, people hugging one
another, people holding each other up, people helping out, volunteering, being
surrogate Dad's and Mom's, friends that were a real community support like an
extended family.
And
through this year, we've shed some of our New York cynicism. We've rid
ourselves of some callousness and vanity. We now understand what heroism really
looks like. We have a renewed appreciation of what is really real, what is
spiritually real, what is meaningful.
Evil
will be with us always. I think it is
important to remember the goodness that enveloped evil that day. The ultimate
hope of Christianity is that God will finally envelop all of our compromise,
all of our evil in Divine goodness. In prospect of that let us prepare the way
now, releasing goodness and healing, living out our highest ideals, not just
for ourselves but in such a way that more and more of the world can live them
too. Peace, Courage, Strength be with you. Amen.
© 2002 .
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