by Theresa Scherf
The terrorist attacks of September 11 have left not only a nation but much of the world in shock. The sheer number of those who died, the magnitude of the physical destruction involved, and the unexpectedness of this traumatic event have been difficult for many of us to fully absorb. And, on its heels, we have been dealing with the specter of biological terrorism as well, the precise methods and potential effects of which are not yet fully known.
Some of us have felt extreme anger and the desire to retaliate, to inflict equal pain, to exact justice. Some of us have felt immersed in grief and mourning. Some of us have felt deep distress over the course of violence through military action that our country has taken. Some of us have simply felt numb, finding that our whole world has changed in an instant into something that we do not recognize, a place that is both alien and makes us aliens to one another. Underneath this, for some, are feelings of a vulnerability and fragility, an unpredictability, about life—and about our own lives in particular—that have not been experienced before.
I believe that underlying all of what is happening to us in this time is a widespread sense of spiritual and moral resourcelessness—in coping with life today and now in coping with our disillusionment regarding the assumption that modernity equals security and stability. In his book Landscapes of the Soul: The Loss of Moral Meaning in American Life, Douglas Porpora finds that Americans today manifest a lack of moral purpose. Thus truth becomes relative, ultimate questions are ignored, and one’s sense of self is provisional. This, he says, has made larger moral undertakings such as creating a better society very difficult. And it results in spiritual numbness.
As those who live in a world growing ever smaller, among peoples who live ever closer to one another, we can no longer afford, if we ever could, to be morally purposeless and spiritually numb. We must reclaim our conscience and our values in order to seek and find the things that make for peace, justice, and mutual wellbeing. Most especially, we must become willing to become involved in and assume responsibility for shaping the policies and practices that we pursue as a nation. We can no longer continue to embrace the illusion that we are a country set apart and a law unto our self. We can no longer ignore the consequences of our actions as they affect others around the globe, seeking our own ends by any means.
In a September 20 newspaper column, George Ella Lyon wrote: "It is not just that the enemy has no return address, but that we all have the same address. The presence of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and the dispersal of terrorist groups make it clear that we can no longer divide the world into ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Ultimately, it is all us."
President Bush notwithstanding, the ‘war against evil’ is not about us against them. It is about the state of our heart, about our loving or not loving and what that may mean. "If only there were evil people out there insidiously committing evil deeds and it was only necessary to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them," writes Alexander Solzhenitsyn. "But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being, and who among us is willing to destroy a piece of their own heart?"
Within the Christian tradition, Jesus has made it clear that violence is not an acceptable option in the way that we relate to one another—although many have struggled with and sought to qualify his teachings:
We must do this collectively, and we must do it individually, within our own heart. We have to work at what is within us as well as what is outside. Everything that we feel most deeply from our outer experience is linked to something deeply rooted inside us. This inner work demands, among other things, the courage to risk living with the new vulnerability we are feeling, to sit with it and enter into it, until we begin to feel growing within us the qualities of compassion, forgiveness, and understanding that will ultimately lead to healing for ourselves and for the world.
As we do this, we are able to become peacemakers, instruments of peace. The writings left behind by the terrorist hijackers reveal a poignantly chilling attempt to justify violence spiritually. As a moral force they failed—and so will we. However unpopular or difficult, we must seek to live out the words of the song: "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me." We need to see this as a vocation, a calling, for our time.
In his lament over Jerusalem, over the failure of his fellow believers and countrymen to understand God’s call to them, Jesus said:
If you...had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you into the ground... because you did not recognize the time of your visitation (Lk.19:41-44).
For those with ears to hear, the violence we have experienced is a reminder of these words and how they came to pass. They have continued to come to pass again and again. We have a new opportunity to try to break this cycle. Our very closeness as a human community, unlike any every seen before, has much potential for good. But we must recognize God’s visitation and the things that make for peace as being one and the same. It is the peacemakers, Jesus tells us, who—like himself—will be called sons and daughters of God (Mt.5:9).