"A Response to 911."

Delivered on September 30, 2001
By Charlotte Crane
(Used with permission of the author.)

When Linda, Jodie and I were asked, about six weeks ago,
to speak today, the assignment was to respond to Rev. Bob’s talk
about cultural creatives. His text was that folks like us – more or
less defined – are perhaps becoming a majority in the world, even
though we may not realize it. In other words, people who care
about the earth and the environment, meaningful life and
freedom of thought – could soon prevail.
That was before Sept. 11, 2001.
Since then, we all have felt that much has changed – which
may explain why our assignment looked a little bit different last
Sunday, when it was announced in the bulletin that we would
speak on Common Sense and Compassion.
I hope I ramble across some of those themes in the next few minutes.
I tend to think that the kind of idealists that Rev. Bob
referred to – the cultural creatives – can still prevail, but
considering that some really bad guys out there have launched an
extraordinary challenge, it might be a good idea not to seem to be
bragging about it for awhile. It may take a little longer to get from
here to there.
Perhaps our current situation may also make us more
humble, more broad-minded even, at the same time it’s changing
our priorities.
It might be that a lot of people we normally would disagree
with on a lot of things are going to turn out to be heroes in
defending things we also think are extremely important – such as
survival. I also have noticed, in stories that try to explain why the
terrorists hate Americans so much, that some of OUR faults that
THEY mention are things that have bugged me, as well – such as
extreme materialism, and sometimes a lack of civility.
Two things I regret most about the situation that confronts
us: 1, that passion and pride will cause a lot of wonderful people
to be killed, on both sides, because killing begets killing; and, 2,
problem areas we already recognized – such as injustice,
poor-quality education, the growing disparity between haves and
have-nots – will perhaps be shoved aside while we fight this
fight – and create more problems.
Of course, one can say there is good that comes of crisis: 1-
it is uniting Americans as a people where before there were many
divisions, and 2 – it puts a sense of proportion back into our lives,
helping restore some common sense to values that have been
focusing on Beanie Babies, beauty contests, game shows and
acid indigestion remedies. And whatever happened to Gary Condit?
The irony is that some see this war as a religious conflict – a
contest between two sets of beliefs. Which goes to show you: If
everybody were a Unitarian, there would be no problem.
Anybody for a crusade?).
One of the things I value most about the church that I chose
to join a couple of years ago, is that it encourages me to find my
own spiritual truth. In searching for that truth and exploring other
religious beliefs, I am finding they have more in common than
zealots would like us to believe.
I’d like to illustrate those overlapping themes with passages
from three books written in different times and places, and from
widely different religious points of view.
The first is from "Care of the Soul,’’ by Thomas Moore, a
former Catholic priest and psychologist. I think it speaks to
cultural creativeness and to our present crisis. His thesis is that we
have neglected soul in pursuit of more material things, and lost
something valuable. "To care for the soul, he writes, we will need
to give up our illusion that our consciousness is the only sign of
soul in the universe, and our desire for dominance over nature and
fabricated things.
"We will have to expose ourselves to beauty,
risking the irrationality it stirs up and the interference it can place
in the way of our march toward technological progress. We may
have to give up many projects that seem important to modern life,
in the name of sacred nature and the need for beautiful things.’’
Another text talks about war and religion. This passage is
from the "Bhagavad Gita,’’ (Bug’ e ved gee’ ta). the core of
Hindu religion, written perhaps in the fifth century B.C. In the
story, Prince Arjuna pauses on the battlefield, as two armies poise
to attack each other, because he does not want to kill worthy men
of the opposition. Krishna, his driver who turns out to be the
Blessed Lord, tells him: "Know what your duty is, and do it
without hesitation. For a warrior, there is nothing better than a
battle that duty enjoins.’’
He goes on to say: "Foolish men talk of religion in cheap,
sentimental words, leaning on the scriptures. They say, "God
speaks here, and speaks here alone.’ Driven by desire for pleasure
and power, caught up in ritual, they strive to gain heaven. …They
are lured by their own desires, besotted by the scriptures’ words;
their minds have not been made clear by the practice of
meditation.’’
"As unnecessary as a well is to a village on the banks of a
river, so unnecessary are all scriptures to someone who has seen
the truth.’’
Lastly, I would like to read from a collection of works by
Emmet Fox, a well-known 20th-century writer on Biblical
teachings – but I detect a very open-minded point of view.
He writes: "The human race is just emerging from
childhood. Its great days lie ahead.
"Our greatest engineering feats of today, our bridges and
dams, our high speed airplanes, our electronics, will be as toys
compared to the engineering of the distant future.
"Above all, man’s understanding of spiritual things will
grow by geometrical proportion; and the religious geniuses of
past ages will be but pygmies compared with spiritual leaders of
the future.
"Turn your eyes to the future. The best is yet to be.’’
Fox wrote that in 1942, soon after Pearl Harbor. I hope that
we can share that confidence, and faith, today.