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“Temporary Shelter”
I walked into the upstairs room at the library Thursday night for a talk by Chip Berlet, a specialist in the religious right who was giving a talk on the religious polarization that divides this country so painfully at the moment. Having arrived early I found myself looking at the room more closely than I ordinarily would have. On one table stood a bust of Charles Dickens, author of Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and Great Expectations. Now there was a social observer who would have appreciated the complexity of these times! Remember those words from A Tale of Two Cities?
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going directly the other way…”
Dickens was writing about the French Revolution, but, boy, do those words have resonance today! American public life is meaner and more divided than I can remember it in my lifetime. One reason, I’m sure, is that we are still reacting to the attack on the World Trade Center towers. The United States, really for the first time is feeling vulnerable as a nation and on every level and that is reflected in our public discourse. In the presidential campaign our politicians are accusing one another of sending our troops into harm’s way without sufficient body or tank armor. The cover article in this week’s Time Magazine is about the lack of security along America’s borders. There are worries about our seaports and our reservoirs – and about anyplace large numbers of people gather.
The idea that we are likely to be attacked at home as well as abroad is new for the American psyche. Our harsh public debate comes from differences in how security might best be achieved. The tone of the debate is shrill partly because the stakes are so high.
Vulnerability is new to us as a nation – but on a personal level we all know what it is to feel defenseless or exposed to danger – and it’s not a good feeling. To be vulnerable is to be without control. If there ever were a month on the liturgical calendar when it is appropriate to observe that, as human beings we are vulnerable, it is September. This is the season in which the leaves fall from the trees and flowers die back in readiness for winter – without our permission. This is also the season of the hurricane. Ask the citizens of Florida how much control we have over our daily lives. It’s sort of a joke at my house, but one of my brothers was a charter boat captain in St John, in the Virgin Islands until a few years back. After a decade he finally moved back to the US – one of the reasons being that he was sick of the disruption of the hurricanes. The storms would decimate the island and disrupt tourism – his life’s blood – for a year at a time. So he moved to Florida for more stability! We laugh at his situation but in a cosmic sense we’re probably just as defenseless.
This sense of national vulnerability may be new for Americans, but, of course, all of us know what it is to feel personally vulnerable. We are vulnerable to crime; some of us know what it is to be robbed. We are vulnerable to diseases and infirmities that do not bend to our will. Right now a health advisory is in effect for this region. All of us, our friends and loved ones are at risk for the time being- a lowly, barely noticed mosquito can change our lives. Think about that.
The story Ed sang to us this morning is about the break-up of a family. We hear in the story remnants of an argument that couldn’t be settled, of differences in world view that, for the time being at least, couldn’t be reconciled within the family, causing a split that no one truly wanted. We are all vulnerable to internal changes and changes within ours or another’s belief system that can cause conflict within those we love.
And right now there is a great white shark swimming off shore locally – now there’s an image that reminds us of our vulnerability! Some of us feel our vulnerability more readily than others. Are you afraid of the dark? I was talking with our young people about silence recently and learned that it is very common for our youth to go to sleep with either the television or the radio on. They fear the silence.
Probably the most famous children’s story about vulnerability is The Three Little Pigs. The three little pigs learn they are not safe in their quick and easy house of straw or their house of sticks. So they put in some extra time and effort, build a house of bricks and, we assume, they live happily ever after!
There are lots of good messages here: laziness is bad, industriousness is good, plan for the future, etc. But the implication that we can be in complete control – a soothing message for children – isn’t exactly true. We want our children to trust the world we have created for them. But as they grow up they will need to develop a more complex and realistic view of the world at large. As adults we need to know that there is much against which we cannot fortify ourselves.
There is a funny story which seeks to address the complexities overlooked in the Three Little Pigs . In The Three Little Wolves and the Big, Bad Pig, three innocent little wolves, aware of the existence of a Big, Bad Pig, build a brick house right off the bat. That should be the end of story, right? But the snarling thug of a pig demolishes the house of bricks with a sledgehammer. Their next place is concrete; but the pig has a pneumatic drill. When they construct a metal fortress, complete with steel chains and Plexiglas, the pig goes for dynamite.
The reader is just beginning to realize that there has to be another way when the wolves encounter a flamingo pushing a wheelbarrow full of beautiful flowers. Long story short: the wolves weave a house of flowers. The beautiful fragrance of the flowers so intoxicates and delights the pig that he is tamed. When the story ends the wolves and the pig are sitting down together enjoying tea. The message here, of course, is the only way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend. (1,222)
These are complementary fairytales. The first places no faith in human nature and suggests fortifying yourself. The second says that no security measures will keep you safe and our only hope is to make friends. (I’m tempted to say that one fairytale is sort of Republican and the other more for Democrats!) In any case, I would suggest reading both to your child.
Both imply that it’s possible to live happily ever after, and that’s what makes them fairytales. In reality, no matter which route you go, vulnerabilities will persist. Writer Annie Dillard says the idea that of control is a complete illusion. (“We are most deeply asleep at the switch when we fancy we control any switches at all,” she says.)
We will be hurt. Storms will come, accidents will happen, diseases will strike, bombs will fall, and justice and fairness will fall by the wayside again and again. We can build a house of brick or a house of flowers but neither can provide more than temporary protection.
How do we keep an even keel in such a world? How do we function - where do we place our faith?
There is a difference between who we are and what happens to us, and this is key to remember. The answer is that outside events can’t control who we are if we know who we are and what our values are. Grief and suffering can be catalysts for individuals to look within, to seek to gain a deeper knowledge of themselves and try to respond to their situation, however tragic, with fidelity to their ideals rather than with self pity or anger at the world.
I was thinking through this sermon yesterday when a first cousin called who is struggling with breast cancer for the second time. The first time around she underwent surgery and the chemo, and radiation and lost her hair; but once the treatments were finished and she was told things looked good, her thought was, “I can handle this.” She said she slipped back into normal life feeling rather good about herself.
But recently, when she was told the cancer was back at her six month check-up, she was completely shocked; more shocked by this than by the first cancer. Now she says she believes she is vulnerable no matter what the doctors tell her, and she is deeply changed. She is living more thoughtfully and tries to live each day fully and appreciatively. I think it’s fair to say she takes herself more seriously, and out of that fidelity to what she holds dear, she says she is developing a new kind of peace.
What we can control then is ourselves. If we can keep our fidelity to our highest values then we can develop a steady and rich relationship to living in spite of – perhaps because of, our vulnerability. You’ve heard this advice before – it’s a familiar maxim – When bad things happen don’t lose it, don’t blame the circumstances and waste time feeling sorry for yourself. Do the opposite – center, focus, and “To thine own self be true.”
On September 11th I listened to a radio broadcast commemorating the lives of those we lost on that day. The interview I remember most vividly was that of Donn Marshall, who lost his wife, Shelley at the Pentagon. It would have been easy to rail against the world or fill with hatred. He thought deeply about how he wanted to live and about the wonderful woman he lost. He wanted to do something that would tell his three children something about who their mother was. He chose to use the proceeds of his share of the 9/11 fund to start up the Shelley A. Marshall Foundation. This foundation organizes intergenerational tea parties for elderly nursing home residents and high school students where he lives. His wife loved elders and children. Donn says he hopes that this will bring the loving spirit of his wife alive for his children and help them know better who their mother was and the kind of giving person she would want them to grow up to be. Donn Marshall dug deep into his being for this.
One more. There is a wonderful old book called This I Believe which is a collection of the living philosophies of one hundred men and women who were asked to write down 600 words describing their philosophy of life. They wrote in the immediate aftermath of WWII – 1950 – 52. We think of that era as shallow and naïve, but it wasn’t. With the two world wars and the dropping of the atomic bomb, the world had just witnessed carnage unprecedented in history. The radio show in which these living philosophies were aired was the most popular radio show of its day. Listen to the very first entry, which was by a lawyer named Robert Allman:
“I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a box car in a freight yard in Atlantic City and landing on head. Now I am thirty-two. I can vaguely remember the brightness of sunshine and what color red is. It would be wonderful to see again, but a calamity can do strange things to people. It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadn't been blind; I believe in life now. I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply, otherwise. I don't mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply, mean that the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left. Life, I believe, asks a continuous series of adjustments to reality.”
Life asks a continuous series of adjustments to reality. We are vulnerable, things happen, we adjust. The way I see it we do not win, but we prevail if we can be true to ourselves and our own understanding of God, or our highest values when tragedy strikes.
Thinking this through has been helpful for me. I can tend to get very discouraged about American public life right now, discouraged with the fact that both sides are spending more energy on character assassination than they are on the very serious issues we face as a nation. I wrestle with feelings of hopelessness at times.
It is in exactly these moments when I need to remind myself that what I am responsible for is fidelity to my highest values, no more and no less. I fear for American public life and for the world at large. You may also. But should things go off in a bad direction our task is to adjust to that reality. This means we need to focus, to look ever more deeply into our own beings, and to remain even more faithful to the ideals we hold. Both in our public lives and in the personal this holds true.
When Charles Dickens said, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,….it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness…”,he knew that the choice actually belongs to us, each and every day.