A Thought for 9/11 - Quareness Series (11th "Lecture").
About 2000 years ago a simple man
Walked the roads of a far off land
With a simple message for all men
To have the courage to trust in good
And to simply do good to all who hate us.
So tell me why do we uphold the “right to retaliate” ?
Is such doing good to those "who hate us" ?
Does it show courage and simple trust in good ?
Does it honour that simple man of yore ?
Or does it simply hang him on a cross again ?
They say the world changed that September
But somehow I don’t think so
Oh sure there was a great opportunity to change
When our most materially powerful country
Could have ushered in a new quantum leap for man
Could have simply foregone the “right to retaliate”
And opened up to simple trust in good.
So tell me why did you draw a line in the sand ?
Why did you say we’re all either for or against ?
Some say you too are a simple man, like me
But by drawing that simple line in the sand
We somehow lost that other message
You see this either/or stuff makes many suspect
For simply trying to do good to those "who hate us".
To many this “pacifism” will seem utterly naive
As it must surely have seemed 2000 years ago
The frightened and righteous then couldn’t cope
With the prospect of losing their powerful illusions
And all that to which they had given their hearts.
In this labelling, slogan and sound byte age we live in
Perhaps it’s not so strange how war has become peace
And how simply trusting in good and doing good to all others
Is seen as something stupid rather than a thing of beauty
Still....about 2000 long years ago there was a simple man..........
The most effective (perhaps only) real antidote to the "endless" chain reaction of revenge and counter revenge is forgiveness.
I heard that Nelson Mandela, when he was finally freed from prison after much persecution, said to himself that he had to forgive all those who had wronged him by the time he reached the prison gates or he would never be free of them - he'd be bound to them by the chains of revenge, like twin shadows joined at the hip. JC also (who knew a bit about real freedom) when asked "how many times must you forgive?" replied "seventy times seven" - in other words as often as it takes.
In choosing clemency for the wrongdoer those wronged make a noble choice which will free them from their anger and sense of victimisation. Again we have a relatively recent apt example from South Africa in the remarkable Truth and Reconciliation process that occurred with the ending of the apartheid era. Where forgiveness is sincerely given and sincerely received it does
indeed appear to have a real liberating effect. The desire for revenge is a heavy chain and revenge itself leads to a chain reaction. Forgiveness cuts the chain both ways - "take these chains from my heart and set me free".
Now let's imagine that in reacting to the WTC tragedy on that fateful day, the President of the USA (even allowing for a felt need to apportion blame to a particular enemy) had said something on the following lines.....
"We have suffered a grievous loss. We have been struck a blow motivated by an obsessive desire to harm us. We realise that this was the work of a small group of fanatics. Other nations might bomb the civilian population where those fanatics are located, but we recognise the futility of such action. Neither will we accuse any bystander nation of having been involved. We realise that acts of vengence recoil upon those who so act and we do not wish to perpetuate a chain reaction of revenge.
Therefore we will forgive".
Imagine the impact of those words. Imagine how different the US and the world could have been today - no ongoing wars in Afghanistan or Iraq? - no out of control ruinous debt? - no excessive curtailment of people's freedoms and rights to dignity and respect in the name of security?
This may be an appropriate time to ponder these questions.
Sean.
Dean of Quareness.
September 2011.
We might also usefully ponder these heartfelt words of the great Martin Luther King -
"Violence is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than to win his understanding, to annihilate rather than to convert. It thrives on hatred, destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. And it ends by defeating itself, creating bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers".
And lift our heads to his great hope for all mankind -
"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty! We are free at last!".
For quite a comprehensive compilation of the known evidence and some central unanswered questions in relation to what really happened on 9/11 see....
http://www.luogocomune.net/site/modules/sections/index.php?op=viewarticle&artid=167
(This is quite a long video - 5 hours in total - but it needs to be in order to cover so many aspects of the tragedy).