Ashes from the destructed World Trade Center towers plumed over New
York City and lay inches deep in the streets. A smaller scene was duplicated
at the Pentagon in Washington, DC. Such ashes, a metaphor for the work
of terrorists, had fallen on other places around the world, and a few
years earlier, had even fallen on New York City - but this was an event
of horrific proportions by comparison.
Several times since this attack, as a community, we have gathered to
share our feelings, send our prayers and embrace one another and the
nation, as have communities across the world. And, again, at the beginning
of this service, we have given focus to this opportunity to grieve and
pray and begin the process of personal and community healing.
Such grieving, supporting and embracing is both necessary and appropriate.
And it is also necessary and appropriate for our national leaders to
assure us that all that will be done, that is morally possible, to bring
to justice those remaining terrorists who participated in this attack.
However, these responses are insufficient within themselves to address
this happening or to prevent more ashes falling on America in the future.
We must seriously look for the remedies with a sense of immediacy.
With this future in mind, I share my personal perceptions about the
larger meanings of this historical moment.
And the first is that these ashes represent a wake-up call for America.
Whether we wish it or not, our nation is now directly subject to the
concerns of the global community. There are no more geographic exemptions
for the world's greatest power and most privileged people. The neo-isolationism
of this power and privilege is over.
This does not mean that some politicians will not try to use this event
to build and even stronger cocoon of isolation around us. But it does
mean that for thoughtful Americans we must join the world community,
not simply to root out terrorism, but to be genuinely concerned, beyond
our own self-interest, about the global economy, about the global environment
and about the quality of life of the globe's people.
The second observation has to do with big government. As I use it,
"big" refers not necessarily to size, although size is important,
rather to a powerful and pervasive influence.
Our nation was birthed out of an ambivalent attitude toward government
- a knowledge of its necessity, coupled with a fear of its influence.
Caught in this ambivalence, we have inevitably and erroneously equated
the corruption and abuses of government with its size.
But the lesson of our history is clear - a big, or government powerful
and influential, has made us what we are.
-- It saved the Union.
-- It freed the slaves.
-- It translated all liberation movements into law and enforcement.
-- It created the infrastructure for commerce.
-- It provides both the external and internal security of the nation.
-- It protects the weak from being exploited by the powerful.
-- It regulates business and keeps the nation from being totally ruled
by economic oligarchies.
-- It provided the projects and programs that electrified the nation
which made it an economic and military power in the world.
The list is endless. Needless to say, big government has been the only
power pervasive enough to hold the fabric of democracy together and
elevate the nation to its present quality of life. The corruption and
misguided directions, so often characteristic of our government, are
not due to big, rather, to small, unprincipled politicians elected by
a small, self-centered citizenry.
When the terrorists attacked on Tuesday, it was only big government
that had the power to respond. And if terrorists are brought to justice
the world around, it will only be through the powers of big government.
And if the shores of our nation are going to be secured from further
terrorism in any measure, the only agent capable of doing so and the
only agent capable of raising the resources to do so, is big government.
It's time to rethink the meaning of big government in the modern world.
It's time to give big government its proper due. Its time for the citizenry
to assume responsibility for how it is run, rather than scapegoating
big government. And, it's time to quit listening to unscrupulous politicians
who scapegoat big government as campaign issues.
The third observation I make is that we, as a nation, must at last
lose our innocence. Loss of innocence is not to experience anguish or
suffering - as so many of those at this present moment would have us
believe. It is to admit one's complicity with evil.
American history, both nationally and internationally, is a record
of such complicity:
-- Our native American Indian holocaust.
--200 years of both slavery and continued abuse of the black population.
-- Over 200 years of various forms of subjugation of women.
-- Our aggressive land grabs on the American continent.
-- The contrived Spanish American war.
-- Our economic exploitation of Central and South American and our aggressive
military overthrow of legitimate governments in these countries in order
to continue this exploitation.
-- Our hypocritical and selective application of the democratic process
in world affairs for economic and propaganda purposes.
-- Our being the largest supplier of arms to other nations in the world
and our simultaneous decrying of the use of these arms.
-- Our exploitation and use of the lion's share of the world's resources.
-- Our support of brutal, dictatorial political regimes around the world
when it serves our perceived national good.
In brief, ours is a history of the abuse of the democratic myth and
our privileged status in the world. And we naively ask ourselves why
some fanatical, political, religious extremists, raised in deprived
third world countries, would want to attack such a wonderful place as
ours.
We are an adolescent nation awaiting the maturity of this acknowledged
complicity with evil. With such maturity come a gratitude rather than
an arrogance toward privilege, a sharing rather than a hoarding of the
earth's resources, an empathy rather than a contempt toward less developed
nations, and a principled application of the democratic myth in the
global community.
How we posture ourselves among nations as we respond internationally
to this terrorist attack, will be a measure of our country's willingness:
-- to see ourselves as others often see us
-- to see ourselves as we really are
-- to lower the facade of our innocence and see the world around us
with different eyes
My last observation is that this tragedy we face is a reflection of
a much larger mythic battle. Myth is a view of reality. It is our answers
to life's compelling questions about the mystery of our existence. Myth
is the filter through which we push our experience to create meaning.
Every individual, every institution, every nation lives through and
by myth. That is, all humans and the cultures they create are shaped
by peculiar views of reality.
History is nothing more than the interpretations we give to the conflicts
or consorts of myth. Every human contention and aggression is myth-driven.
The terrorists who attacked America were being driven by their personal
interpretations of political and religious myths. While we, through
our myths, may see them and their act as evil - they, obviously, saw
it as nobility and even assuring of their place in everlasting glory.
I remind us that the extremist Jews and Christians of Western history
have shared this same kind of militancy along with extremist Muslims.
Most nations are reluctant to use massive weapons of destruction available
to them because they know that the outcome can only be ashes falling
upon their own heads. But those who live extreme militant mythologies,
which offer eternal rewards for the mass destruction of their enemies,
have no such reluctance.
The question is, what is the answer to this kind of extreme mythic
militancy? I do not recall his name, but an expert in middle eastern
affairs (to whatever extent there is such an expert) interviewed this
week on television, suggested that we must look at terrorism from two
different perspectives. First, we must, indeed, see it as a war and
in this war must do all that is necessary to eliminate the threat of
terrorism by eliminating the terrorist. Then, he reminded us that such
action is insufficient because other terrorists will simply take their
place. He went on to say that we must not only eliminate the terrorist,
we must eliminate the disease that creates the terrorist. I believe
this perception to be the only answer to terrorism.
Even if President Bush could destroy the terrorists responsible for
this horrific attack (who are still living), that would only be eliminating
a momentary symptom of the real cause. Such may satisfy the spirit of
vengeance, but it will not satisfy a peaceful future. It is like stopping
the immediate epidemic without killing the germ that caused it.
This germ is mythic and cannot be destroyed by technological weaponry.
It can only be either replaced by an alternative myth or contained and
curbed by the mythic environment in which it resides.
This means there must be a global myth which essential parts are shared
by the nations of the world. These shared parts must spring from an
international affirmation of respect for the worth of all people. These
mythic parts are a mutual acknowledgment:
-- of the human interdependency with the natural environment
-- of each nation's interdependency with the global community
-- of the necessity of cooperation over violence as the means of international
problem-solving
-- of the right of all individuals and nations to peaceably live differing
views of reality
While America cannot dictate how these shared parts will be expressed
in the myth of other nations, it must model adjusting its own mythic
perceptions to accommodate them. In my mind, such an accommodation will
require two primary mythic shifts in our culture.
The first has to do with the American Dream. This Dream is predicated
on two notions. The first notion is that every citizen should have the
opportunity to improve the quality of their life. This is a notion which
is consistent with the essential principle of egalitarianism that undergirds
and sustains the myth of democracy. The second notion is that human
worth is an external commodity which can be purchased through achieved
position or financial status. This notion is false and counterproductive
to democracy. And it is the root of America's self-centered pursuit
of external rather than spiritual satisfactions. And when applied by
our nation internationally, it instructs us to behave with the same
greed orientation among these nations as it does internally within our
own culture.
As long as human worth is externalized as a social commodity, it will
not be possible for America to model effectively any of the shared mythic
parts I have mentioned. So, the first step is to kill that part of the
American Dream which defies the principle of egalitarianism and fosters
spiritual corruption.
The second primary mythic shift is to deny the legitimacy of the Messianic
myth which has wrapped itself around the myth of democracy and pretended
that they are synonymous. The Messianic myth rises out of Judaism and
Christianity and roots itself back to the birth of the nation. For years
it reflected itself in the notion of Manifest Destiny. But it has been
a major staple of the speeches of religious leaders and politicians
throughout American history - and found a special empowerment following
World War Two. There are four facets of this myth:
1. America is God's chosen nation.
2. God is on America's side. Note, not that America is on God's side.
3. America is, therefore, invincible.
4. The purpose of America is to save the world for democracy. After
all, God's nation is fueled by the democratic myth, therefore that is
God's myth.
The war in Vietnam caused this myth to be questioned - particularly
that facet about American invincibility. But it was restored as legitimate
through the Gulf War. This war was about the control of oil. But in
cloaking America's participation in the Messianic myth of saving the
world for democracy - specifically Kuwait - we reinstated its honor
in our national history.
I watched the televised service of Prayer and Remembrance held at the
National Cathedral in Washington, DC on Friday. I was moved by the music,
the spirit and some of the words. Yet, as I participated, it became
obvious to me that the mythic perspective which served as its background
was Messianism.
The American flag and the symbols of the Judeo-Christian faith linked;
a Psalm from the Old Testament affirming God's righteous judgment upon
the enemies of his people; the Lord's Prayer sung; the Bible as the
source of authority; all appeals for healing and empowerment to deal
with the issues confronting us to an omniscient god; the conclusion
setting the mythic tone of warfare and triumph; singing the "Battle
Hymn of the Republic"; and, all of it bracketed with speeches from
the nation's two primary leaders of the Messianic Myth - the Reverend
Billy Graham and the Reverend George Bush. I suspect it would have been
of little difference had it been the Reverend Bill Clinton rather that
the Reverend George Bush.
It seems to me, that this Messianic myth is a myth of profound arrogance
and intolerance. And until we shuck the myth of democracy of its cloaking
we will never, as a nation, be humble enough or caring enough about
the plight of the global community, or accepting enough of alternative
views of reality to model a myth that addresses the needs of the global
community and particularly at this moment.
In essence, until we throw off this cloak of arrogance and intolerance,
which sees our privileged status in the world as a right conferred upon
us by God, we will continue to be the ugly American that garners the
contempt and hatred of many parts of the global community.
The remaining question is: "What can we, as a nation, do in response
to last Tuesday's attack on America?" Here are my answers:
-- We can spread the word that America needs to join the global community
rather than simply exploiting it. That is, we can contribute to a national
change of lifestyle that will cause us to cease being the Robber Baron
of the global community.
-- We can acknowledge our national complicity with evil. We can affirm
that even when we intend good it may redound to bad. And we can express
the humility that comes from such acknowledgment in our relationship
with other nations.
-- We can, with seriousness, enjoin the mythic battle of history. We
can lay aside the Messianic myth and engage a mythic cloaking more consistent
with the true spirit of democracy and model such among the nations.
-- We can grant other nations the same right of self-determination we
assume for ourselves.
-- We can understand that true patriotism has nothing to do with the
blindness inherent in the aphorism: "My Country Right or Wrong"
- rather, that it is an avowing and a living of the egalitarian principles
of the myth of democracy - and know that our protests of our own nation's
violations of this principle are expressions of patriotism.
I believe if we do not do these things ashes again will fall over America.
We can assure ourselves that if any of these suggestions are to become
a national reality, their translation must begin in this religious community.
I close with one last observation: The event of this past Tuesday not
only cost thousands of lives, it calls for a change in our cultural
lifestyle and it will end up costing a staggering billions upon billions
of dollars. For those of you who thought that little pittance of a tax
refund was a windfall, you have a rude awakening ahead of you.
How could just a few people accomplish such an astounding impact on
this nation? The answer is because these terrorists were willing to
die for what they believed in the same manner that Martin Luther King,
Jr. admonished the workers of the twentieth century Civil Rights movement
to approach and engage their beliefs. We may not like this comparison,
but it makes no difference how atrociously misguided we perceive the
application of these terrorists' devotion to be or how evil we perceive
the end result. The principle of history is clear: it is convicted devotion
to belief which alters the course of human destiny.
Consider this: what impact on human destiny could this religious community
have if it lived a similar devotion to its values of nobility?
So Be It.
