Living with Terror
By Charles Rush
September 11, 2005
Lk. 21: 9-19
couple
of years ago, I was in a group of Ministers who were discussing the
events of September 11th and their meaning for our country and our
world. People from far and wide were sharing the common experience we
all had watching the television in disbelief and confusion. I was
listening to people speak about this as a national and international
event and my mind kept coming back to a lot of small personal images
that get lost in that bigger picture.
Things like lots of people calling their spouses cell
phones only to get that message, "This is Kevin, I can't take your call
right now…" and wondering if they should keep calling and wear the battery
but wanting to call it over and over.
I remember the poignant, incredibly sad, messages that
were left on voice machines at home by people that knew they wouldn't make it
out alive, like one father that said goodbye to his wife and children and
concluded with a note to his very young teenage son, "You are the man of
the house now."
Someone from town hall called the Church that day and
asked if I would go down and meet the trains as they came home and provide
counseling. It was oddly funny at the time. As you remember, in the midst of a
crisis, no one much wants to talk about it… But I did go down and I'm glad I
did. There was almost no speech at all. People stopped, dusty, controlled, they
made eye contact and said 'hey'. Sometimes we shook hands, occasionally we
hugged. They kept going, straight to the schools, then straight to home.
And the next day, no one could work, whole families
out walking, everyone stopped to see each other; practically everyone wanted a
hug. I heard more stories of people who were supposed to be at work but
weren't… I started wondering how we ever get anything done actually. We had
time and a real reason to be better neighbors to each other than we usually are
and in the process we discovered that we have real spiritual fabric block by
block.
And when we gathered on the green and asked prayers
for people that next night and lit candles, we were neighbors in the best sense
of community. When Father Harahan did the prayers for the people and offered an
opportunity for everyone to say the name of someone out loud that they wanted to
remember, it just went on and on. That solidarity was very moving.
And in the months that followed, reading the
obituaries that were so thoughtfully done in the New York Times, time and
again, it was surprising how many people you knew or knew of… Our great
metropolitan area is actually a skein of intertwined small communities that
aren't anonymous at all. It is a big group of small villages and clans; they
are spiritually organic and interwoven… and personal. That whole event for all
of us here, a little different than the rest of the nation, was very personal
and grounded.
I think we were all changed by that awareness. Some of
our cynicism was held in check and we allowed the dimension of our humanity and
our warmth more centrality in our lives. It was hard to pinpoint this
observation because it is subtle. I went to the Thanksgiving Day parade that
year with my children. We were sitting on the slopes in Central Park up towards
the beginning of the parade with thousands of other people. That year, for the
first time I can ever remember, and to the surprise of everyone watching, the
Fire Department of New York came marching in uniform under a banner. Without
any prompting at all, thousands of people sitting on those hills all stood up
as one person and removed their hats. At the time, I thought to myself, these
are not the New Yorkers I remember as a child in the 70's. Cynicism was checked
by a warmth of humanity; there was a new found respect for unsung bravery;
there was a sense of spiritual community and civic mindedness that binds us
together, even in the Capitol of the World.
A few years down the line, it is much more complicated
isn't it? I was reminded of this after the bombings in London, reading the
soul-searching British press struggling with the question, "Why do they
hate us?" We've went through a couple years of substantive reflection on
that subject, reviewing the imperialist nature of American foreign policy as a
possible root cause, our failure to understand and appreciate the culture of
the Middle East and/or Islam; the way that our dependence on oil has fostered
has caused us to minimize the autocratic, repressive regimes that make up the
Middle East and the ways that these regimes create repressed anger in young men
that take up the cause and vent their violence against the U.S. because it is
safe and the only form of political protest they are allowed. In the European
press, in particular, they often pick up on the values of tolerance, pluralism,
and relativism that characterize societies that have gone through the
Enlightenment, so that we are witnessing a clash of civilizations in Bernard
Lewis's view.
All of these are partial and none of them are
definitive, in large part, because we are not hated for what we do, so much as
who we are. We are a symbol in the apocalyptic imagination of Islamic
fundamentalism.
In the middle of the summer, quite a
number of people in England were writing about the connection between the war
in Iraq and the bombings in London, as if to suggest that were the British not
involved in Iraq, the bombings might not have taken place. One of the experts
on this subject, the French scholar Olivier Roy, finally wrote a piece
that lifted up the deep cynicism that
defines the actual terrorists. And this is disturbing because we want them to
have rational interests that we could theoretically meet and so find a
resolution.
But they don't have interests in the
way we would like. Professor Roy said[i]
“It is interesting to note that not
one of the Islamic terrorist captured so far has been active in any legitimate
antiwar movements or even in organized political support for the people they
claim to be fighting for. They don't distribute leaflets or collect money for
hospitals and schools. They do not have a rational strategy to push for the
interests of the Iraqi or Palestinian people… The Western-based Islamic
terrorists are not the militant vanguard of the Muslim community; they are a
lost generation, unmoored from traditional societies and cultures, frustrated
by a Western society that does not meet their expectations. And their vision of
a global ummah is both a mirror and a form of revenge against the globalization
that has made them what they are.”
It is not so much what we do as who we
are that is threatening. And even if we somehow, as the leader of the modern
world, were able to suddenly retract within our borders and have no influence
on the rest of the world, there are still trends toward global development that
would engender the same response for only slightly different reasons.
Historians regularly write about retro-trends and back lash elements during
historic epochs that are giving birth to a new age and a new direction. And
while you can look at these fringe elements of resistance from the perspective
of historical distance and understand what they saw as so threatening, it is
just as obvious that nothing substantial could have really altered the overall
direction of national and international development. Terror we will simply have
to live with, never really understanding it, never completely able to address
it. It is something that will hopefully just be quarantined and controlled.
Christopher Hitchens has regularly commented in the past year that one of the
great fallacies of people who look to understand the interests of terrorists
and meet them, is that they presume there is something we can do as Americans
that will substantively alter terrorist activity. Some argue that we should
withdraw from Iraq, that we should solve the Palestinian problem, that we
should retreat from support from Saudi Arabia, etc… These may be wise in their
own right, but what is not true is that any or all of them will stop the
terrorists from attacking us. They are going to keep on coming for the
foreseeable future in our life time. It is simply more complicated and less
rational than we can fully understand. And all of us, at some deep level, would
like to see the Neville Chamberlain model work and go to Munich and make a deal
with the Hitler's of the world. We deeply want there to be a sensible,
rational, mutually agreeable solution to the social ills that divide us. We
want to come together as a comity of Nations at the U.N. and find a way to
include everyone at the table. But we also know that is not realistically
achievable. Indeed, underestimating the depth of resentment and resolve in the
case of Naziism was actually dangerous. And the way that we had to respond then
was counter-intuitive to the Spirit of the Age, committed as it was to having
the League of Nations solve international crises peacefully through negotiation
after the horrors of World War 1.
We, too, find ourselves in a new era
of terror, the symbol of which is the suicide bomber. Common sense social
wisdom is not adequate to interpret or resolve what is happening around us
which is why you see so little analysis of terrorism in Iraq or Spain or London
that elucidates what is going on in any meaningful sense. We are not likely to
understand the internal motivation of terrorists or dialogue with them or
change in any substantive way to meet them half-way that would brook some
reconciliation.
What is likely to happen
internationally is something like what happened in Northern Ireland. Terrorism
continued for decades unabated then it stopped as mysteriously as it began.
Historians will sift out the subterranean forces decades from now, but when you
talk to people that actually live in Northern Ireland, no one can say exactly
why the bombing at Omagh turned the tide and brought a wave of pressure that
they had endured enough random violence. But it did. And then it just ceased…
No, we are just going to live with
terror unfortunately. It is certainly not a better way to live but in the wider
scheme of things it is spiritually more realistic. If you look at the long
witness of scripture, this is the world they describe. Famine's happen. Enemy
armies invade. The seas erupt with hurricanes. Locusts swarm over the earth and
destroy all of the crops. Earthquakes flatten centuries old cities. Babies die
in childbirth. Disease ravages a whole region. There is no ultimate explanation
for these things theologically. They are accepted as part of the world. We
simply live with random, chaotic forces that we cannot control entirely. And
while we do not want these things to happen to us, there is some ultimate sense
in which our spirituality is more comprehensive because it has to deal with
suffering, loss, frustration, incompletion, injustice, the arbitrary.
It is more difficult, it is more
challenging, but it is also more mature and rounded. And looking backward, it
is the tame suburban expectations of Upper Middle Class expanding prosperity,
safety, and controlled growth that look less realistic. Viewed through the
spiritual lens, the predictability and control that governed the Ward and June
Cleaver phase of our social life never plumbed any depth, in large part because
it never addressed the issues of suffering, frustration, and overwhelming loss.
But as it turns out, for thousands of generations before us, and for most of us
as well, these events of frustration and loss loom large on the horizon of our
character formation. They define whole chapters of our lives and how we respond
to them often sets the direction of the rest of our lives. They are not chosen,
but they are usually profound, and change us in some of the deepest ways we
will experience.
It is simply not realistic to try to
avoid them or to set ourselves up believing that we can avoid them, that
missing them is a better way to live, that somehow we are exempt because we are
too sophisticated or prosperous, or we've grown past that phase of our social
life.
This is actually one of the most
realistic aspects of the life of faith in scripture. St. Paul never suggested
that we could omit suffering and loss or that we should be exempt from it. What
he said is that we have spiritual resources to take up loss and suffering and,
through God, make it redemptive. When he wrote to the Church at Rome, they were
being persecuted, tortured and killed unjustly. At one point, he asks the question,
"What shall we say of all of this suffering that we have to endure?"
And his answer is "If God is for us, who can ultimately be against us?...
Who can separate us from the love of God we have known in the Christ? Shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or the sword?... No, I am sure that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all
creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus"
(Rm. 8:31-39)
What kind of love is that? It is a
love that is borne out of shared suffering. It has a biting courage to it. It
is compassion. It multiplies empathy and solidarity. It heals. It lifts up. It
restores. It manifests community. It acts in ways of peace and justice. It is
broadly humane. It is the Spirit of the Christ moving in our midst in
reconciliation and redemption.
No question that it is powerful and
reshapes our world. Four years ago, in the days immediately following our
tragedy, just remember flipping on the television and seeing those prayer
vigils that were held in Madrid, in Moscow, in Sydney, Johannesburg and
Carracas. In the immediate aftermath of an extreme attack on civility itself,
an outpouring of solidarity, compassion, warm humanity. Anarchy happens but it
is not the last word, it is not the ultimate word. The ultimate word is that
redeeming Spirit of God that takes brokenness and fashions out of it healing.
Those firemen were right when they
found a couple twisted steel beams and fashioned them into a cross and planted
them on the ash heap of lower Manhattan. Death, and destruction, yes, but
redemption and humanity will trump it too. It was important to know that we
were surrounded by a wider cloud of witnesses that were praying for us and
praying for a sane world.
And now, in this season, we standing
with our brothers and sisters, our neighbors in Louisiana, Missisissipi and
Alabama. It is important for them to know that we are praying for them. It is
important for them to see us show up with tangible support. That is the
redemptive love that gives us the power to get on through the blank expression
of losing everything you own and with it a large part of your identity, a large
part of your memory; the world as you knew it is over. They have a dazed
expression, a fundamental disbelief that this has really happened to them and a
flat affect in the face of what to do next.
We live in a world where anarchy
natural and man-made happens and will continue to happen… and so does
redemptive love, it's spiritual antidote. St. Paul once said "We have this
treasure in earthen vessels" All that is warm and precious, humane and
worthy of celebration is vulnerable". But, he went on, "to show that
the transcendent power of love belongs to God. We are afflicted in every way,
but not crushed; perplexed but not driven to despair; persecuted but not
forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed… So death is at work in us, but life
is also with you." My brothers and sisters, may you choose life. May you
embody life. May you radiate life out that others might be blessed with it's
healing, redemptive power. Amen.
[i] "Why Do
They Hate Us? Not Because of Iraq" from the New York Times, July 22, 2005,
p. A19.
© 2005
Charles Rush.
All rights reserved.
