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Reading - (Responsive) #650 - "Cherish Your Doubts"
"A High-Wire Act for the New Millennium"
"Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right." Laurens van de Post.
On September 11th, several young men boarded planes in
three cities across the US. Several carried letters offering counsel and encouragement,
and instructing them in how to stay focused as they carried out this mission in which they
voluntarily would die. "If you take a taxi to the airport, part of the letter read,
when you arrive... smile and rest assured, for Allah is with the believers and the angels
are protecting you."
The letter instructed them to pray as they set foot on the plane and again as they took
their seats. Their mission was to take control of the passenger plane they were in and fly
it into heavily populated buildings. They knew this. "When the time of truth comes
and zero hour arrives," the letter advised, "straighten out your clothes, open
your chest and welcome death for the sake of Allah.... Smile in the face of death, oh
young man!" it comforted, "for you are on your way to the everlasting
paradise!"
Since that day of devastation we here in America have been trying to figure out how to make sense of their actions. We have recoiled from their hatred and singleness of purpose. We have condemned the killing of thousands of unsuspecting civilians.
Most Americans were taken by surprise by the hatred of America unveiled by the world's reaction to the attack - children dancing in the streets in some villages of the world that America had been so hurt. For most of us it was a surprise that Osama bin Laden has published two Declarations of War against the US - one in 1996 and another in 1998 which says "...when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)."
We are stunned. Ordinary reality seems to have been left behind somewhere. One person said, of the events that have unfolded in recent days that it feels we are living a comic book. We are, each one of us, unexpectedly confronted with issues of good versus evil, life versus death, the unthinkable suddenly possible and real. We are confronted, too, with the need to take a stand, and to act.
Flying an airplane into a building takes tremendous belief in one's cause. These men were acting out of a deep, if misplaced, faith. Much that is good and beautiful has been done out of faith - many specifically political acts. The leadership of Moses, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, are some revered leaders from whom we have learned the virtue of faith in pursuit of justice and freedom.
Faith, is nearly always used to indicate something virtuous. Terry Tempest Williams said "Faith is the centerpiece of a connected life. It allows us to live by the grace of invisible strands. It is a belief in a wisdom superior to our own." He said, "Faith becomes the teacher in the absence of fact." Samuel Butler said, "You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it." And Gandhi, "Learning takes us through many states of life, but it fails utterly in the hour of doubt and temptation. Then, faith alone saves."
But faith can also be dangerous as these men have shown. Like anything that serves to focus power, faith has the capacity for good or ill. Blaise Pascal once noted, "We humans never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when we do it from religious conviction." Such is the evil we feel we see here. Bertrand Russell felt that most of the greatest evils that humanity has inflicted upon itself have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false."
For Americans this conflict isn't specifically religious. But that doesn't mean we aren't full of conviction. Most Americans are sure of many things: nothing justifies the attack, our freedom is worth defending, our security as a nation is at risk, and the attack cannot go unanswered. Like those who attack us, we have the courage of our convictions. Conviction, I should point out, is a secular relative of faith.
James O'Toole, author of Leadership from A to Z, says, "Leaders need convictions in order to attract and maintain followers. Sane people will not dedicate themselves to a cause, take a risk, put themselves on the line, or give extra effort if they sense a lack of conviction in their leaders. Conviction... helps provide the energy, focus, consistency, persistence, optimism, obsession, patience, and resilience needed to lead. In matters of leadership, convictions count for even more than brains. In describing the creative pressure cooker in which Disney executives do competitive battle... Michael Eisner is alleged to have said, "A strong point of view is worth twenty IQ points."
So conviction can be useful. But we need to be careful. Like faith, the power of conviction can work toward good or ill. There's a boundary between sensible opinion that listens and fanaticism, that doesn't. Lawrence of Arabia observed that "While opinions are arguable, convictions need shooting to be cured." The definition of a fanatic is a person with extreme and uncritical enthusiasm, as in religion or politics.
I worry because a few days after the attack a woman called a radio talk show and asked what America had done to cause our enemies to hate us so. I listened up because my son had asked the same question immediately after the attack and I had to confess I didn't really know. But the radio host didn't try to answer her earnest question. Instead he vilified her for suggesting that we in any way deserved the attack. But she hadn't suggested that. She had asked a heartfelt question. His rage implied her question was unpatriotic and forbidden. I worry because our president repeats as a mantra to he nations of the world, "Either you're for us or against us" and says "we will smoke the enemy out of their holes like dogs." Passions are everywhere high. The landscape in which we now gather is unfamiliar. But, we should beware of too much certainty. Gandhi, who led his people in a great, nonviolent walk toward justice, said that in the hour of darkness faith alone saves. Is it possible that in that same darkness of which he speaks, a faith rooted in unhealthy soil, right here on our own shores, might not save, but wreak havoc? I speak, not of the terrorists, but of malice in our own hearts. Let us be careful.
In his poem "The Second Coming", William Butler Yeats writes of a world in which "the best lack all conviction, and the worst are full of passionate intensity. When such is the case, he warns, we risk giving birth to a great evil of own making and worshipping it. And then, he asks, " what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
Let us be careful in the days ahead. We will be wiser and healthier, every one of us, if, in addition to being able to hold onto the courage of our convictions, we are able to maintain the courage of our doubts as well.
Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, during the time of the Vietnam War said, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." Eloquent words, but wrong."
I was a child who was sure of quite a lot when I was young. I can't remember what important opinions I was expressing - Perhaps it was, "I'm positive I put the hammer back! Or, I'm positive I can be ready by 2:00!" I can hear a phrase echoing in my mother's voice saying, "Patricia, only a fool is positive!"
We have a history of calling for moderation in times of war.
In a speech entitled "The Spirit of Liberty" Judge Learned Hand (Learned Hand - isn't that a great name for a judge?) delivered these words to the people of New York City in 1944 as America fought WWII. "The spirit of Liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests along with its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten: that there is a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest."
As an aspect of our own wholeness, let us value our doubts as impulses that contribute equally to our discernment of the truth. Doubt is, in the words of theologian Robert Weston, a servant of discovery. Weston says that since there is incompleteness and error in every belief, that which cannot be questioned will necessarily bind us to error. Truth should never feel threatened by testing. So let us grow together. This is the high wire act of our age. Let us maintain the courage of our convictions and of our doubts, that we may, when this current struggle is over, achieve a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.