I keep thinking about how surreal that day was for me. I remember I was in high school - 9th grade - and I was walking in between classes when I noticed that students were talking excitedly in hushed voices and actually hurrying into classes - rather than just dawdling outside in the hallways.
I walked into one of my Humanities courses - and the teachers had the television on - with the news up. I slid into my seat, confused as to what was going on - and we watched the smoking towers on the TV and then in horror as they fell - like a jenga puzzle falling apart.
I remember even then - thinking about how remote - how strange and oddly detached I felt at that time. Wondering how that would ever affect me - what it even meant - I didn't have anyone in New York - no one I loved was hurt... it felt miles and miles away.
How little did I realize.
I think most of my high school years went by without me even thinking about September 11th again except for once a year when we would remember it on its anniversary - and then it would fade out from existence again for the next year until the date would roll around again.
It wasn't until ten years later and as I look back now - that I think about it so much more often... maybe it's age - maybe it's perspective - but I feel like I see more and more the ramifications of what the attack meant for our country - how deeply it has embedded itself into the psyche of the nation until it has so transformed our country and our world to the point that I feel like I see its imprint on every heartbreaking situation that arises - including this one in Paris today.
I remember how in the days following the attack - our country responded in resilience - yes, and initially in unity... but how quickly that devolved. We entered into a hasty war - that seemed to cascade into others - until several years later now I look back and can see this thread tying Sept. 11th to the Iraqi war, to the Afghanistan war, to the disrupt in the Middle East, the dissolution of powers in the Arab Spring, the situation in Syria, the rise of more and more extremist groups that are taking over the Middle East and striking out in coordinated attacks like the one against France.
The response of racism, bitterness, and hatred that resulted in busted business windows, innocent Muslims being attacked on our streets, death threats, and even murders in the days following Sept. 11th seems to echo down throughout the years in the increasingly harsh division in our country, the vitriolic comments online, the increasing extremism in our own political divide, the racism that continues to perpetuate fear - misunderstanding - and continual lashing out... I hear it now resounding off of tweets and facebook posts and soundbytes and I'm terrified - absolutely terrified - for the refugees (many of them Muslim or from Muslim countries) in Europe - already reviled, hated, targeted, and vulnerable - knowing that they will inevitably be caught up in the backlash of all of this - already are.
When the haze and the confusion begins to wear off - and the days begin to wear on - I am actually scared that what is to come for France will be far, far worse than this attack...
When I think back to our own September 11th - I feel like the terrorists won a larger victory than any they may have been intending to score. They broke something in our country, that granted - had already been stretching somewhat thin in the years leading up to 2001, but whatever openness - whatever grace - whatever mercy - whatever sanctuary this country had stood for for so many years - slammed completely shut in the years following 2001. The attack on the World Towers took down everything that the Statue of Liberty stands for in New York in a way that was more devastating than if they had blown up that iconic symbol for our country... because I feel like we let the fear and the instinct to protect - the entire response of "never again will we ever be that vulnerable" - rip the heart of unity right out of us.
Community - UNITY - takes vulnerability. It requires give and take... which isn't possible if what you're concerned about is protecting yours and your own - to hell with all the rest.
Already France's prime minister is talking about striking back. The French people and surrounding European countries are responding in hatred and vitriol against the refugees. The governments are tightening border security and Europe, already overrun with an entire nation of refugees - is turning a baleful eyes to the masses of desperate people.
"Don't you realize these are the people the refugees are running from?"
One person asks - and it brings anguish in my heart. Because to answer in an affirmative realization of that statement would take compassion - vulnerability - a response of openness in the wake of an attack...
... I think the frightening answer may be that we no longer care. Send them back. Back to their own problems - back to their own countries - don't infect us with your issues anymore. We have a duty - we have a calling - to protect ours and our own -- to hell with all the rest.
Can I blame them?
In the midst of this - I am struggling with the dawning realization of the increasing and urgent need for forgiveness - for conversations of reconciliation, redemption, restoration of relationship that are so largely lost in this country - even ebbing in my own life.
Never in all my life have the verses that Christ spoke in Matthew 5:43-48, Luke 6:27-42, or 1 Peter 3:13-17 made more sense to me... but in a way that I do not know if I could even begin to make them make sense to the rest of the world.
The natural human reaction when someone hits you is to hit back - in fact - hit back harder than when you were hit. Who can blame that natural instinct? The problem is - how to strike at a shadow? How do you strike at hate? Instead - you end up hitting the closest thing that you think is casting the shadow... and unfortunately, a lot of times that means hitting the innocent... and the shadow of hate lengthens and grows in the face of this retaliation... because at least some of the innocent you just struck are now determined to strike back - 10 times harder.
Christ's way is different. It calls for heaping love on people who strike out in violence.
Give more - go in with even less defenses - when they strike you - turn the other cheek.
This is his command: To the detriment of yourself - go - serve and love others.
... because that is what Christ did.
Giving up your own safety, your own provisions, your own glory, your own pride, your dignity, your rights, yes --- even your life.
Give it for the ungrateful, the spiteful, the angry, the abusive, the cruel.
How does this make sense, Father?
I cry out.
How does any of that make sense? What good would that do?
And yet I've watched - as we've done the opposite... and I've watched how the terrorists have made us something to be hated to others as we've retaliated. How we have become a reason for people to flee their homes. We struck at a terrorist leader earlier today - it seems we decimated him... and rejoiced.
But I can't help but wonder if the attacks on France this night was their answering retaliation.
Hit us - and we will hit back - ten times harder than before.
Politics can't work on this level, I argue with God, what nation would stand if it followed your code of forgiveness - This absurd command to love your enemies?
And he answers: I'm not really interested in maintaining national powers - borders - rights - or privileges.
Then there is the SENSE of what he says - in this paradoxical way, it is the only thing that HAS worked in revitalizing a hate-torn, war-torn country... See Japan and Germany after World War II. We learned after World War I what happens when you allow a country to wallow in the salted-lands-aftermath of devastating war -- it gives rise to extremism and dictators who manage to push inane agendas founded solely upon hate to horrific consequences. We managed to apply what we had learned in WWI in changing our actions in the aftermath of World War II - but it seems we have not been able to repeat that ever since.
And doesn't it make some sense? At some point - when love is being poured out in service, in prayers, in blood, in lives... at some point would you not say "These people are caring for our wounded - they are feeding our poor - they are serving our people - they are laying their lives down... and you want us to strike back at them... why would we?"
And yet - Christ calls us even higher.
Even if that isn't the change your kindness results in -
Even if you are reviled - even if you pouring out love after love affects no change - you are called to love MORE - because more love is needed in the face of great hate.
Martin Luther King, Jr. understood this.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."
"For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him." 1 Peter 3:17-22
“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” Luke 6:27-42
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." Matthew 5:43-48
There's this song that I have been listening to - it was first introduced to me by a philosophy teacher in college. My mother recognizes it as the song that the entire nation listened to after John F. Kennedy was shot and the entire nation mourned (the ENTIRE nation and world mourned - in the wake of his death). They listened to this song: Adagio for Strings written by Samuel Barber.
I was talking to Jason about this the other day as we listened to this song - that though we experienced September 11th - our generation didn't experience the blow of an assassination of a president... and his response broke my heart because of the truth in it:
"There are some in our country who would rejoice if our president was killed today... and that is sickening."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50WIs0Rbm9Q
There's this point in the song that makes my heart weep - it's at the critical climax of the song - when every single string is screaming in agony at the pinnacle of suffering and pain... and when you think it could go no further - it rachets up to a new level of agony... and then to another... and then to another - before suddenly snapping into silence.
After that precipitous fall - the music moves forward - it goes from the broken, discordant minor chords - to hitting complete, whole, and unified major chords - with the minors being played in between. The pain is still there - but it is being reconciled... healed... incorporated into the healing and reconciliation.
And I think about this in context of this world.
Time after time after time I feel like we are brought to this point of unreal agony - and then it increases, and increases...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im0ymVp8qdo
the flight of a thousand people from this suffering met with barbed wire fences and with new faces of hatred and hostility...
I wonder how much worse it can get - and I'm frightened to know.
And I think about how God will let us choose our own paths - choose our own ways - choose retaliation - choose revenge - and that it will perpetuate this annihilation - until we snap.
And into that broken silence - He will descend - and every knee will bow, every tongue confess that He is Lord - because we will have dashed ourselves so utterly to pieces in our own efforts and machinations - that we will be relieved for apocalypse. We will be thankful for the ending... because no one wants to live in the hell we've created for ourselves...
I think about why it is necessary that we have a God who is both forgiving and gracious - but also righteous and just.
Repentance is key to the end of violence... to the end of the perpetuating selfishness, the impulse to "protect me, myself, and my own - to hell with all the rest"... How can you give grace without first experiencing it yourself? How can you remove the speck - without removing the log in your own eye? Without that, it is pouring into a bucket with holes... a love that is only taken advantage of but never affects change.
Repentance is the start to transformational love.
And transformational love is the only thing that will stop the perpetuating wars of violence. And if we refuse it... then we choose our own destruction as our end.
