[9/16/01] Responding to Fear
by Rev. Joan Montagnes
September 16, 2001
This has been a week of terror. Four planes crashed; two towers fell burning to the ground. The number of dead and missing is rising. Casualties from the crash scenes have stopped coming to the hospitals, and now they go directly to the morgue. Hospitals have stopped treating people for injuries and are now treating police, firemen, and other emergency response professionals for post-traumatic stress. In New York, there are startlingly few identified bodies and only a few more unidentified bodies, and only a few more than that of body parts coming out of the wreckage. Relatives of the missing are wandering the streets with photographs of their loved ones, pleading for information. And this week we have found a whole new picture of terror - painted more clearly for us than ever before - because of cell phone calls. Phones were used from doomed planes, from burning buildings and even from deep within the rubble. And our terror today is shifting from the events of Tuesday to the uncertainty of the future.
The last time I spoke to you from this pulpit, I lifted up the lessons of James Luther Adams who told us that if we are to be a viable religion today, we need to have a response to human evil. Little did I realize how soon we would be confronted with human evil. And I don't want you to understand me too quickly. I believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person, including terrorists. I also believe the terrorists' actions are desperate and evil. They deny life. They say 'no' to life. They say 'yes' to a destructive force that lies latent in all of us.
The goal of terror is to disable us with fear. The antidote to terror is to find a way not to be disabled: to build a house out of bricks, to use our wits, to have a response to terror. And we've seen many responses to terror this week, many different responses.
The international community has shifted its anger at the U.S. trade and foreign policies and withdrawal from the summit on racism to full support in our grief and solidarity in condemning terrorism, as hundreds of citizens from other countries died in the World Trade Center attack.
The federal government has responded to the terror by assigning 7000 personnel to the investigation, calling up 50,000 reservists, and approving 40 billion to clean up the crash sites, beef up security, hunt up terrorists, and help out victims and their families. President Bush says he weeps and mourns with the country. He has spoken of a quiet anger in America and asks us not to target our anger at American Muslims and Arabs. The President said that this was a new kind of war and that the government was going to adjust to it and call other governments to join in the response. The President declared Friday as a national day of prayer and mourning and in his address at the national prayer service he said, "Our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil." Tall order.
The public has also responded in terror. Eighty-three percent of an NBC poll support a response of "forceful military action". We've seen thousands volunteer at every kind of duty. We've seen long lines of blood donors and the Red Cross has received millions of donations. We've also heard of a Texas mosque and Islamic school which has been firebombed.
Locally, we've responded to terror with all kinds of vigils - four in this building alone this week. And every other congregation on the Palouse is experiencing the same kind of activity. Not to mention the University of Idaho, Washington State University and all high school vigils. We sang the Star Spangled Banner at the farmer's market, had a minute of silence at the county fair. President Hoover has asked us as a congregation to find emergency housing for foreign students should they be harassed in the days to come. (And if you're interested in opening your house to a foreign student who may be harassed in the days to come, there is a sign-up for you out in the foyer. Please sign up after the service.)
Well all this information - all these responses to terror: political, social, economic - they're all widely available to you on the tv, radio, newsprint, Internet. But how are you doing? How are you doing? How are you responding to the terror? Maybe you find yourself preoccupied with Tuesday's events and subsequent news reports. Maybe you have trouble focussing on daily tasks and remembering little things here and there. Maybe you feel guilty because you're coping best with humor, or by getting back to work, or by sitting dumbfounded on the couch, and somehow think that those are bad ways to respond. Maybe you are feeling anxious, numb, sad, distressful, irritable, vengeful or helpless. Maybe you find yourself wanting to talk to and be with other people. Maybe you're feeling a little more protective than usual of your loved ones. And perhaps you are having bad dreams. These are all healthy and normal responses to extraordinary situations. Let's forgive ourselves and each other for dealing with this stress in all the different ways that we do deal with it. Let's be kind to each other. Especially now.
A very common response to terror is anger. Because anger is a mask for fear. Anger is an expression of fear and pain. Unfortunately, as we all know, one of the first responses to terror - to violence - is lashing out in kind, lashing out with random acts of violence that threaten the lives of more innocent people. And many of us fear for the Muslims and the Arabs in our community. We heard about that from the Human Rights Task Force. Joann Muneta was telling us about the flier she has for us.
If we can learn anything from the story of the three little pigs it is that violence begets violence. Now you need to know that I truncated the story this morning, and probably most of you do know that I truncated the story a little this morning. In the end, after a few more mishaps, the pig ends up eating the wolf. And it's gory. I figured we'd all been exposed to enough gore for one week. Sometimes it's hard to tell who is afraid of who. Sometimes it's hard to tell who is going to get gobbled up in the end. Violence begets violence.
A first response to terror may be anger and thoughtless violence, but it need not be. I think we all know that. Should we look deeper, past our anger, into the pain and the fear, we might begin to see things that we do not want to see: a pain deeper than anguish; a fear deeper than terror. A piercing truth born from what we have failed to say, failed to do, failed to overcome, born from the reality of the situation. Beneath the terror is a core of sadness.
"What did I do, my brothers, to provoke you to such horror?"
"How, my brothers, could you be so mistaken?"
Touching that core, that sadness, that inner self, we can begin to renew our lives. Apathy to action; provocation to collaboration; misunderstanding to understanding. For after we have touched the core of our humanity, after we have dug deep into ourselves, after the towers have fallen, the world can not - will not - ever be the same. Once we have gone deep into ourselves like Orpheus into Hades and returned forever changed, forever seeing the world and our brothers and sisters on this planet in a new light, once we returned to the world transformed others may turn from us enraged, in pain, in vengeance, in victimhood, but we, we can, as we said in our meditation today, we can chose to belong to the generations who refuse to give up their humanity in times of terror. I refuse to give up my humanity in times of terror. In this time of desperation and lamentations, my response to terror is deep sadness. And sadness opens me to the possibility for change. Sadness becomes hope, and I begin anew the legacy of caring.
Our very first response to terror may be pain and fear. But pain and fear can almost instantaneously become bravery and love. In this tragedy our picture of terror was painted more clearly than ever before by the cell phones. Our understanding of how to respond to terror was also painted more clearly than ever before. We heard people in doomed planes, burning buildings and even deep within the rubble not only telling us that they were striving to save the lives of their brothers and sisters, but they called to us, and they said "I love you", "be brave".
In this time of terror - terror not only at the crash sites at New York and Washington and Pennsylvania, but also terror at what our future may or may not hold - in this time of terror let us say "yes" to life, as hard as that might be. Let us say "yes" to truth, as awful as it might be. Let us say "yes" to love as dangerous as it might be. Let us invoke the spirit of life that it might help us find our compassion, our rooots, our freedom, and show us the larger face of justice. Let us invoke the spirit of life that we may respond to terror with bravery and with love.
Let's join now in singing Spirit of Life.
September 16, 2001
This has been a week of terror. Four planes crashed; two towers fell burning to the ground. The number of dead and missing is rising. Casualties from the crash scenes have stopped coming to the hospitals, and now they go directly to the morgue. Hospitals have stopped treating people for injuries and are now treating police, firemen, and other emergency response professionals for post-traumatic stress. In New York, there are startlingly few identified bodies and only a few more unidentified bodies, and only a few more than that of body parts coming out of the wreckage. Relatives of the missing are wandering the streets with photographs of their loved ones, pleading for information. And this week we have found a whole new picture of terror - painted more clearly for us than ever before - because of cell phone calls. Phones were used from doomed planes, from burning buildings and even from deep within the rubble. And our terror today is shifting from the events of Tuesday to the uncertainty of the future.
The last time I spoke to you from this pulpit, I lifted up the lessons of James Luther Adams who told us that if we are to be a viable religion today, we need to have a response to human evil. Little did I realize how soon we would be confronted with human evil. And I don't want you to understand me too quickly. I believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person, including terrorists. I also believe the terrorists' actions are desperate and evil. They deny life. They say 'no' to life. They say 'yes' to a destructive force that lies latent in all of us.
The goal of terror is to disable us with fear. The antidote to terror is to find a way not to be disabled: to build a house out of bricks, to use our wits, to have a response to terror. And we've seen many responses to terror this week, many different responses.
The international community has shifted its anger at the U.S. trade and foreign policies and withdrawal from the summit on racism to full support in our grief and solidarity in condemning terrorism, as hundreds of citizens from other countries died in the World Trade Center attack.
The federal government has responded to the terror by assigning 7000 personnel to the investigation, calling up 50,000 reservists, and approving 40 billion to clean up the crash sites, beef up security, hunt up terrorists, and help out victims and their families. President Bush says he weeps and mourns with the country. He has spoken of a quiet anger in America and asks us not to target our anger at American Muslims and Arabs. The President said that this was a new kind of war and that the government was going to adjust to it and call other governments to join in the response. The President declared Friday as a national day of prayer and mourning and in his address at the national prayer service he said, "Our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil." Tall order.
The public has also responded in terror. Eighty-three percent of an NBC poll support a response of "forceful military action". We've seen thousands volunteer at every kind of duty. We've seen long lines of blood donors and the Red Cross has received millions of donations. We've also heard of a Texas mosque and Islamic school which has been firebombed.
Locally, we've responded to terror with all kinds of vigils - four in this building alone this week. And every other congregation on the Palouse is experiencing the same kind of activity. Not to mention the University of Idaho, Washington State University and all high school vigils. We sang the Star Spangled Banner at the farmer's market, had a minute of silence at the county fair. President Hoover has asked us as a congregation to find emergency housing for foreign students should they be harassed in the days to come. (And if you're interested in opening your house to a foreign student who may be harassed in the days to come, there is a sign-up for you out in the foyer. Please sign up after the service.)
Well all this information - all these responses to terror: political, social, economic - they're all widely available to you on the tv, radio, newsprint, Internet. But how are you doing? How are you doing? How are you responding to the terror? Maybe you find yourself preoccupied with Tuesday's events and subsequent news reports. Maybe you have trouble focussing on daily tasks and remembering little things here and there. Maybe you feel guilty because you're coping best with humor, or by getting back to work, or by sitting dumbfounded on the couch, and somehow think that those are bad ways to respond. Maybe you are feeling anxious, numb, sad, distressful, irritable, vengeful or helpless. Maybe you find yourself wanting to talk to and be with other people. Maybe you're feeling a little more protective than usual of your loved ones. And perhaps you are having bad dreams. These are all healthy and normal responses to extraordinary situations. Let's forgive ourselves and each other for dealing with this stress in all the different ways that we do deal with it. Let's be kind to each other. Especially now.
A very common response to terror is anger. Because anger is a mask for fear. Anger is an expression of fear and pain. Unfortunately, as we all know, one of the first responses to terror - to violence - is lashing out in kind, lashing out with random acts of violence that threaten the lives of more innocent people. And many of us fear for the Muslims and the Arabs in our community. We heard about that from the Human Rights Task Force. Joann Muneta was telling us about the flier she has for us.
If we can learn anything from the story of the three little pigs it is that violence begets violence. Now you need to know that I truncated the story this morning, and probably most of you do know that I truncated the story a little this morning. In the end, after a few more mishaps, the pig ends up eating the wolf. And it's gory. I figured we'd all been exposed to enough gore for one week. Sometimes it's hard to tell who is afraid of who. Sometimes it's hard to tell who is going to get gobbled up in the end. Violence begets violence.
A first response to terror may be anger and thoughtless violence, but it need not be. I think we all know that. Should we look deeper, past our anger, into the pain and the fear, we might begin to see things that we do not want to see: a pain deeper than anguish; a fear deeper than terror. A piercing truth born from what we have failed to say, failed to do, failed to overcome, born from the reality of the situation. Beneath the terror is a core of sadness.
"What did I do, my brothers, to provoke you to such horror?"
"How, my brothers, could you be so mistaken?"
Touching that core, that sadness, that inner self, we can begin to renew our lives. Apathy to action; provocation to collaboration; misunderstanding to understanding. For after we have touched the core of our humanity, after we have dug deep into ourselves, after the towers have fallen, the world can not - will not - ever be the same. Once we have gone deep into ourselves like Orpheus into Hades and returned forever changed, forever seeing the world and our brothers and sisters on this planet in a new light, once we returned to the world transformed others may turn from us enraged, in pain, in vengeance, in victimhood, but we, we can, as we said in our meditation today, we can chose to belong to the generations who refuse to give up their humanity in times of terror. I refuse to give up my humanity in times of terror. In this time of desperation and lamentations, my response to terror is deep sadness. And sadness opens me to the possibility for change. Sadness becomes hope, and I begin anew the legacy of caring.
Our very first response to terror may be pain and fear. But pain and fear can almost instantaneously become bravery and love. In this tragedy our picture of terror was painted more clearly than ever before by the cell phones. Our understanding of how to respond to terror was also painted more clearly than ever before. We heard people in doomed planes, burning buildings and even deep within the rubble not only telling us that they were striving to save the lives of their brothers and sisters, but they called to us, and they said "I love you", "be brave".
In this time of terror - terror not only at the crash sites at New York and Washington and Pennsylvania, but also terror at what our future may or may not hold - in this time of terror let us say "yes" to life, as hard as that might be. Let us say "yes" to truth, as awful as it might be. Let us say "yes" to love as dangerous as it might be. Let us invoke the spirit of life that it might help us find our compassion, our rooots, our freedom, and show us the larger face of justice. Let us invoke the spirit of life that we may respond to terror with bravery and with love.
Let's join now in singing Spirit of Life.
posted by UUCP Sermons at 7:38 AM
