The Raven Foundation

 

 

“Those who say that the media and our political leaders are out of touch with the ‘real’ America have a point.”  Thus begins Stuart Muszynski in his fascinating article on the Huffington Post called “Taking America Down the Rabbit Hole”. Muszynski (who runs "Purpe America", a really cool educational organization that explores America's values) claims that the news media has become a form of violent entertainment by “framing everything [in politics] as a fight.” This pattern of violence infects more than the news media, of course.  Muszynski says it permeates much of our television airwaves and he specifically holds “reality” TV responsible for its use of violence.  He tells a story of someone who works for a non-profit that raises money for an “important and worthwhile cause.”  According to this person, the co-chairs of the non-profit “have been increasingly disagreeable, catty and outright, publicly mean.”  Muszynskin explains the behavior by stating that it turns out “they’ve been watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”

 

This violence has real effects on our culture, according to Muszynski.  He warns that “Our children and even adults replicate the language and actions they see on TV, on the Internet and in the newspaper.”  From a mimetic theory perspective, this is fascinating because of its truth about human nature.  As I read the first five paragraphs, I kept thinking:

 

“C’MON!  SAY MIMETIC THEORY!!!”

 

Then came the sixth paragraph.  “It’s human nature to mimic what we frequently see.”  Exactly.  But there is something missing from Muszynski’s analysis.  He’s right that we humans are mimetic, or imitative, creatures.  And it’s easy to see how the news media often frames political debates as a violent battle between gladiators, and how politicians frequently fall into the trap of demonizing one another.  The problem, though, is that this pattern of violence is much bigger than the news media or politicians. In fact, when we blame the news media, television, and politicians for their violent rhetoric, we usually do so using violent rhetoric in return.  Muszynski says that current American political conversations are not sustainable.  “By vilifying one side over the other and turning everything into a fight, public policies become intense wars that will be reversed once the other side comes to power.”  I appreciate the truth in that statement, however, I can’t help but think Muszynski is mimicking that fight.  His solution to the vilifying in media and politics is to vilify the media and politics.  The final paragraph of his article is evidence to my point.  The way to fight the corrupt power in American culture is through … yup, you guessed it, power.  “So let’s demand art, politics and citizenship that reflect the values and goodness of America and spur us to be our best.”

 

Now, I want America to be a more peaceful place and I agree that the escalating, combative rhetoric in politics and on television is a problem for American culture.  But I disagree with Muszynski’s solution.  Demanding that “art, politics and citizenship reflect the values and goodness of American” and vilifying the news media and politicians is simply another form of violent rhetoric, which is exactly what he is critiquing.  Violence, even violent language that seeks peace, breeds more violence.

 

What’s the way out of this cycle?  One of the first steps in transforming our pattern of violence is to acknowledge that we all (even good, peaceful people) fall into the “rabbit hole of violence.”  We all have our scapegoats that we enjoy vilifying.  Acknowledging this truth about human nature leads us to the next step, which is transforming the pattern of violence into a pattern of forgiveness.  Only through forgiving ourselves and others can we begin climbing out of the rabbit hole.

 

 

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Is there any rational reason to believe in miracles? The question is not about belief in miracles per se, but the reason behind belief. Lots of times the question of miracles involves the search for a rational explanation. If you find one, then bingo, you debunk the miracle and score another triumph for reason. Recently I experienced a miracle trifecta in New York City’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral: mass was being said at the central altar; to the left was a really impressive nearly life-size crèche complete with adoring camel; and to the right was a chapel dedicated to the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe to a Mexican peasant in 1531. Transubstantiation, incarnation and visitation – easily debunked miracles, right? Yet there I was all dewy-eyed and verklempt receiving communion, lighting a candle at the crèche, and joining the crowd adoring Our Lady of Guadalupe because it just happened to be her feast day (coincidence or miracle?!). Had I taken leave of my senses and given in to some emotional, romantic experience of the presence of God or had my reason come along for the ride?

 

The question of rational reasons to believe in miracles might seem to be off the table from the start as a contradiction in terms. Yet I do think that there is a very rational reason to believe in miracles, a reason rooted in the very mundane reality of this world. At Christmas, angels (another easily debunked miracle!) announced that the mundane reality of the world was about to change. They proclaimed that a Messiah had entered the world as a little child to bring peace on earth. Really, now?? That would be a reality shifter of volcanic magnitude! The reality of this world is definitely one of not-peace and the idea that it could be transformed by a child, well, that would be a miracle! I couldn’t agree more! What I’d like to propose is that the reality of not-peace is sustained by a powerful, totalizing logic which would take a miracle to disprove.

 

Here goes: the desire for peace on earth is nearly universal, yet peace has been an elusive dream. Why is that? There always seems to be one more obstacle to peace, one more evil villain who must be defeated before peace can reign on earth. The job of good people is to be vigilant against evil and, if possible, to learn to identify evil before it can do harm to innocent people. This is the current quest of our own Department of Homeland Security, FBI, CIA, Department of Defense and so on. The logic of good versus evil requires them to identify evil and destroy it by any means possible, all in the service of goodness and peace.    

 

This logic is familiar to us and it permits the use of violence by good people in the name of peace. I have written about this many times before, so it will not be surprising when I point out that everyone who employs violence is doing so in the name of some ultimate good or another. Goodness is defined using me and my aims as the standard, of course, and evil is always located somewhere outside of me and my community. If goodness is always me-orientated, then anyone who opposes me, my goals or desires is by definition evil. Do you see how totalizing this is and how completely logical? If you begin with the premise that goodness equals me and evil is that which opposes me, then every “me” on the planet can self-identify as good and justify the destruction (figuratively or literally) of all the evil others out there who get in my way. We see it in domestic politics, international relations, and our own personal relationships when others seem to be willfully intent on obstructing our desires. They can be none other than evil by virtue of their opposition to the good – moi! This logic prevents us from seeing the truth that our enemies are using the same logic to define themselves as good and we as evil. All parties to a conflict use this logic to justify their use of violence so no one employing violence is self-identifying as evil. It is the good people, at least in their own opinion, who are doing all the bad things. Paradoxically yet logically, we find ourselves very busy creating a world of not-peace in the name of peace while never doubting our own goodness! A real predicament, isn’t it?

 

So what is the way out of this logical system? We could try to reason our way out, but ironically we have reasoned our way into it so successfully that any challenge to the system fits neatly into it: challenge my goodness or use violence against me and I have proof of your wickedness. Yet if I challenge your goodness or use violence against you, magically this is evidence of my commitment to the good. So anything that could crack open the logic at play here can’t come from within the system itself. A successful challenge would have to come from outside the system and appear other worldly, outside of our everyday experience – in other words, a miracle. A miracle that allows us to see ourselves in the face of our enemies and our enemies as children of God. The miracle can come to us in and through our mundane experiences: a birth, a meal, a message of love. When it comes, the logic of good and evil and of violence in the name of peace is revealed for a lie and peace becomes possible.

 

I believe in miracles because their existence challenges our reliance on logic and reason, which is an absolutely good thing given how much trouble logic can get us into. But miracles have a logic of their own, the logic of the possible impossible. In fact, the idea of a miracle might actually have some support from mathematics, the language of science. In the early twentieth century, the mathematician Kurt Godel discovered what he called the theorem of incompleteness which is the proof of a paradox, that there are true but unprovable statements. True but unprovable: maybe that’s what miracles are. You see, it was very reasonable for me to be verklempt at St. Pat’s and for all of us to be a bit dewy-eyed at the sight of the babe in the manger. Miracles make sense! Peace is possible! Merry Christmas!

A.C. Grayling (from left), Matthew Chapman, Rabbi David Wolpe and Dinesh D'Souza faced off on the notion "The World Would Be Better Off Without Religion."

 

A rabbi, a descendant of Charles Darwin, a philosopher and a scholar recently teamed up at New York University's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts to debate this motion: “The world would be better off without religion.” The live studio audience was polled before and after the debate and a winner was declared. Before I tell you the numbers, what do you think? Would the world be better off without religion?

 

Even more relevant – what do you think of the question? I had a hard time taking it seriously, especially after I started listening to the debate. I had hoped that before they jumped into arguing for or against the motion they would define what they meant by “religion”. They did not. For the sake of clarity, I hoped they also might have defined what “better off” meant since it requires a comparison to an imaginary world in which religion doesn’t or never did exist. They did not do that either.  Those arguing for the motion said the things you would expect – we’d be better off without religion because it is the cause of war, provides justification for violence, and is indicative of faulty reasoning. People who believe in God are irrational, hypocritical and violent. Those arguing against the motion said that more wars and genocides had been committed in the name of atheism than God, that religion is an organized system that encourages people to be better and to work for a better world.  They made the counteraccusation that those who said we’d be better off without religion were the ones guilty of faulty reasoning. Nothing either side said changed my opinion that the motion itself was flawed.

 

What the two opposing teams had in common was more telling than their so-called differences. For example, they both clearly got that there was a strong connection between religion and violence. One side thought religion made the world more violent and the other side thought less, but “less violent” was clearly what they meant by “better off”. What both sides failed to see, however, was that it isn’t the presence of religion in the world that’s the problem or the solution, but rather how successful religion is at any time or in any place at doing its job. In other words, the problem is not religion but violence itself. The job of religion is to respond to the problem of violence. Anyone familiar with anthropology knows that wherever human culture is found so is religion. The one does not exist without the other. A key idea of mimetic theory, which is the study of the connection between religion and violence, is that religion solved the problem of human violence, thus making human culture possible. Religion can be thought of as the mechanism that made the proto-human world less violent, putting the side arguing against the motion on the right side of the issue.

 

But to say that religion makes the world less violent misses a crucial point: If it was religion that controlled violence in the proto-human world, how did it do it? Ancient or archaic religion was a religion of sacrifice and it used violence to control violence. It involved rituals, prohibitions, myth and sacrifice: violence was controlled through sacrificial means, temple rituals in which humans and animals were killed often after ritual reenactments of wars or wild times in which all prohibitions were relaxed, kind of like Mardi Gras. The community discharged all its angers, resentments, little built up hurts and grudges in a ritual frenzy ending in the shedding of blood. Mel Gibson’s movie Apocalypto captured the pre-sacrificial frenzy and the calming effect of the sacrifice really well. A little bit of violence in a controlled (ritual) setting kept the violence outside of the community and life could flourish.

 

We no longer have ritual sacrifice per se, but archaic religion survives in a more subtle form. Anywhere violence is justified as a way to bring peace by invoking God’s name – or in the name of any supreme good like ethnic, racial, tribal or national identity – you have archaic or sacrificial religion. Today’s revealed religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism are the biggies) are still engaged with the problem of violence just as they were when they were revealed. The presence of violent passages in the sacred texts of these religions does not mean that they are advocating violence, but that solving the problem of violence is their main function.  To think that those texts are the cause of violence would be like concluding that hospitals cause people to become sick and die. Violence is in the texts for the same reason sick people are in hospitals: everyone is looking for a cure. Revealed religions, though, offer a different cure than archaic religions. Rather than using violence to control violence, they aim at building peaceful communities through practices of love, mercy and forgiveness. This is the non-sacrificial solution but not all their adherents get the message. Religious and non-religious people too easily revert to ancient sacrificial practices: we find all kinds of excuses for using violence, including invoking God’s name, despite the efforts of revealed religions. When Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or any religious group claims God to be on their side, they are caught up in an old and dying paradigm. The long trajectory of human history is a religious journey away from the use of sacrificial violence toward a new way of achieving peace by peaceful means.

 

Here are the results of the audience survey: Before the debate 52 percent of the live audience thought the world would be better off without religion and 26 percent disagreed, with 22 percent undecided. Afterward, those in favor of a world without religion jumped to 59 percent and those against the idea rose to 31 percent — making the side arguing for a world without religion the winners of the debate. Ten percent of the audience remained undecided, maybe because they sensed the debate had been about the wrong question. The better motion would have been: The world would be better off without the justification of violence by anyone for any reason. Revealed religions are in favor of that motion. Which side are you on?

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I reflect on the 9/11 anniversary events I attended in the Chicago area: the Ground Zero 360 exhibit at the Field Museum and a conversation with community leaders at the WBEZ studio sponsored by the Project on Civic Reflection. When asked how we could recapture the unity of those early days after 9/11, one women I met at the Field said, "Turn to God". That got me thinking.

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I was very surprised when I heard Ronnie Dunn’s Bleed Red on the radio a few months ago.  Country music (like most pop music) tends to produce mindless songs about sex.  Take a look at country music’s current top 40 and you will find songs called Just a Kiss, Remind Me, Honey Bee,
and the top two candidates for the most mind numbing country songs of 2011: You and Tequila and Country Girl (Shake it For Me).

 

When I first heard Bleed Red, we at the Raven Foundation were just beginning to talk about our latest project called Be a Hero for Peace.  My ears perked up as I listened to these lyrics:

 

Let’s say we’re sorry ‘fore it’s too late

Give forgiveness a chance

Turn the anger into water

Let it slip through our hands

 

Whoa.  This is interesting.  Then this:

 

If we’re fighting, we’re both losing

We’re just wasting our time

Because my scars, they are your scars

And your world is mine.

As 9/11/11 quickly approaches, I couldn’t help but hear this as a song for peace that promotes reconciliation with our enemies.  You, me, Americans, Iraqis, British, and the Taliban, yes, we all bleed red.  If we have the courage to take a look into the dark places of our individual and national souls, we will find much that we need to apologize for.  When we do that difficult and painful work, we will discover that we stand in need of forgiveness, which will make forgiving others a little easier.  We share a common humanity that connects us all together.  Fighting is more than a waste of our time; it is counterproductive – in the end, we all lose.  Indeed, we inflict the same scars, wounds, and death upon one another.

 

Emphasizing our common humanity is a good message and I applaud Dunn for having the courage to speak that truth.  But it’s not enough.  There is a dark side to our common humanity, and that dark side is what leads to conflicts.  As mimetic theory claims, we humans “have an irresistible impulse to desire what others desire, in other words, to imitate the desires of others.” (Rene Girard, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, 12)  We hold desires in common, not because they arise spontaneously from within, but because they are given to us by others.  When it comes to desire, we are never individuals; rather, we are interdividual.

 

Sharing common desires can lead us to become friends, but it can also lead us to become enemies.  When we desire the same things, we can easily become competitors for that thing.  The United States, for example, desires, and even proclaims to be, the most powerful nation in the world.  The more we arrogantly desire to control the world’s affairs, the more others desire the same thing.  We will use all the physical, verbal, and economic violence needed to maintain that control, while other countries become resentful of our presence.  As Rene Girard claims about the West in general, “The West is going to exhaust itself in its fight against Islamic terrorism, which Western arrogance has undeniably kindled” (Battling to the End, 209-210).

 

Part of emphasizing our common humanity is emphasizing that we desire the same thing as our enemies.  The US and the Taliban both desire autonomy, freedom, and security.  And our methods to achieve those ends are exactly the same – violence.

 

The way forward, as Dunn says, is to “say we’re sorry ‘fore it’s too late.  Give forgiveness a chance.”

 

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Adam discusses the new Raven Foundation project "Be a Hero for Peace" and how violence and non-violence work. Violence is mimetic in that it leads to more violence, and violence that escalates. This happens in our personal lives with physical and verbal violence, but it also happens on a national scale as well. What's the way out? Nonviolence, forgiveness, and love. Nonviolence, used in the spirit of love and forgiveness, is the force that allows us to see our enemies as human and allows our enemies to see us as human, too.

 

 

We recently received this comment on our new project page “Honor Their Memory – Be a Hero for Peace”:

 

You say you are Christian based but you don't quote scripture in your so called peace movement. Let's take this step by step, First of all the name Raven alone you will find that it is a unclean bird and unclean people assocciate themselves with such, book of LEVITICUS. The book is about Clean and Unclean. Jesus Christ did not come to give peace on earth but, rather a division,LUKE Chapter 12 Verses 51,52,53.
You want others to be a hero for peace, So lets find it in our FATHERS word, PSALMS Chapter 144 Verses 1,2

I responded with this:

 

Hi,

Thank you for your comment. Indeed, the raven is an ambiguous creature, but the raven is not a bad bird. It is part of God's good creation. Humans have done a good job scapegoating ravens, which is a major reason we chose to identify ourselves with it. But remember, it was the raven who came to the prophet Elijah's aid in the desert. Ravens can be an instrument of God. If Elijah can associate himself with the "unclean" we figure we can, too.

In the first century, Jesus did bring division between family members. That is true - and he continues to bring division between family members today. He challenged human systems of violence and encouraged his followers to challenge those systems, too. That challenge causes family divisions because family members may think that violence is redemptive, which it isn't. Only love is redemptive, which is why Jesus calls his followers to love their enemies. Any quote from Jesus that looks like an endorsement of violence must be interpreted through the cross, where Jesus takes the human system of violence upon himself and refuses to retaliate in kind. He subverts violence in the most subversive way: with forgiveness - "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

I'm not sure what you mean by referring to Psalm 144:1-2. Are you suggesting that if we kill all our enemies we will have peace? It seems as though humans have been trying that for a while now, and it hasn't worked. It has only led to more cycles of imitative violence. Isaiah 53, Leviticus 19:18, and Jesus offer the way out. It's time we take them more seriously.

Thanks again,
Adam

 

I think my response was fair, but, I really wanted to respond with something like this:

 

First, we really don’t claim to be a Christian movement.  We are ecumenical in our project and hope Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Secularists, and Atheists will join in the movement to bring peace by peaceful means.  But we do happen to be Christians, and as a Christian I feel responsible to comment more about the statement, “Jesus Christ did not come to bring peace on earth but, rather division.”  In my original comment I pointed to the partial truth of that statement.  Unfortunately, partial truths are always misleading.  If we want to see why Jesus is a hero for peace, then we must look at the historical context of first century Rome and the Jesus movement.

 

First century CE Rome was guided in large part by Caesar Augustus’s exploits during the first century BCE.  In fact, the Battle of Actium between Octavian (who, of course, would become Caesar Augustus) and the forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra was a battle for the future of Rome.  Octavian won that battle, due in large part to the poor military strategy of Antony and Cleopatra, who decided to have their army hide out in a swamp … a mosquito infested swamp.  OOOPS!!!  That was more than an annoying blunder, as many of their soldiers caught malaria and died.  Antony and Cleopatra soon committed suicide.  Octavian won, changed his name to Augustus, and sought to conquer the world.

 

But, really, Augustus was offering the world peace.  The Pax Romana.  For Rome to spread Roman peace, it had to spread Roman culture.  Thus, Rome sought to “Romanize” the world.  And Augustus had the god given right to force people to become Romanized and to live into the Pax Romana.  A whole Roman theology of conquest was created to support Roman political conquest.  For example, in Virgil’s Aenid we are given this line from the great Roman god Jupiter: “For these I set no bounds in space or time; but have given empire without end [to] the Romans, lords of the world, and the nation of the toga.  Thus it is decreed” (I.278-83).

 

“The nation of the Toga.”  Thanks be to the Romans for togas.

 

Aeneas, the original Roman, was reminded of Rome’s manifest destiny by his father, Anchises – “You, Roman, be sure to rule the world, to crown peace with justice, to spare the vanquished and crush the proud” (6.851-53).  Of course, “the proud” consisted of anyone who wanted to maintain their culture by refusing to become Romanized.

 

Virgil’s theology of Roman conquest and Augustus’s actual conquest reinforced each other.  Take this inscription Augustus made in the city of Nicopolis, named after the Roman god of victory, Nike, “From here I went forth under heavenly protection to complete my divine mission and to fulfill Rome’s imperial destiny.”  Octavian left Nicopolis to defeat Antony and Cleopatra.  His “heavenly protection” came in the form of mosquitoes.  But it didn’t matter how he won.  What mattered was that victory meant the gods were on his side.

 

Then there’s the inscription Augustus had engraved in a monument at Ancyra, Turkey.  “I added Egypt to the empire of the Roman people.”  He then continued to create a long list of other nations he conquered, including this statement, “When an army of Dacians crossed the Danube, it was defeated and routed under my auspices, and later my army crossed the Danube and compelled the Dacian peoples to submit to the commands of the Roman people.”  All of this, of course, was in the name of bringing “peace” to the world.  As Augustus would claim, “I brought peace to the Gallic and Spanish provinces as well as to Germany.”  Roman peace was secured by victory; by defeating the enemies of Rome and killing “the proud.”

 

This was the way of Rome and it was strengthened by a theology of conquest, military might, and the leadership of Caesar.  Dominic Crossan, in his book God and Empire, puts Caesar’s influence like this, “There was a human being in the first century who was called ‘Divine,’ ‘Son of God,’ ‘God,’ and ‘God from God,’ whose titles were ‘Lord,’ ‘Redeemer,’ ‘Liberator,’ and ‘Savior of the World’” (28).

 

Anyone who said otherwise would be viewed as an enemy of Rome and killed in the name of “peace.”

 

Enter Jesus.

 

It’s true.  Jesus did not come to give peace, at least, not peace like Roman peace.  For Jesus, peace would come only by way of peaceful means.  That is why he refused to use violence.  He could have.  He had the choice to be like Rome.  When he was arrested, one of his followers attempted to protect him by hacking off someone’s ear.  Jesus replied, “YOU FREAKIN’ IDIOT!  WHY ARE YOU SO DAMN SLOW?!?  YOU’VE BEEN FOLLOWING ME FOR THREE YEARS AND YOU STILL DON’T GET IT!”

 

Okay, that’s not exactly what Jesus said.  According to Matthew he said, “Put your sword back in its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.  Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?”

 

Jesus could have used violence, but he refused.  And he asked his followers to do the same.  And eventually they got it.  The first century Christians refused to use violence and they would call Jesus names like, “Divine,” “Son of God,” “God,” and “God from God,” and they would give him titles like “Lord,” “Redeemer,” “Liberator,” and “Savior of the World.”

 

I fully admit that those names and titles weren’t original, but they were high political treason.  Which makes the early Christians officially B.A.  In claiming “Jesus is Lord, God, Son of God, and Savior of the world,” they were saying “Caesar is not.”  In claiming that Jesus is the “way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6) they were subverting Caesar’s way of violence.

 

Jesus had choices, and he chose love and non-violence.  We have choices, too.  We can choose to respond to violence with the way of Caesar or the way of Christ.  When George W. Bush sent us into the “War on Terror” he did so in the name of God.  That was the god of Caesar, not the God of Jesus.  When Barack Obama claimed “anyone who would question that the perpetrator of mass murder on American soil didn’t deserve what he got needs to have their head examined” he was speaking as a follower of Caesar, not a follower of Christ.

 

Like Jesus, we have options.  We are not enslaved to the gods of Rome.  We can choose another way.  We can choose to claim that Jesus is Lord.  We can choose to claim that the way of violence and revenge is not Lord of our lives.  We can choose to show the world another way that involves courage, forgiveness, turning the other cheek, and loving our enemies. It’s been 2,000 years.  It’s time Christians choose the way of Jesus.  It’s time we choose peace by peaceful means.

 

 

 

 

  "Love never fails."

- I Corinthians 13:8

 

As we launched the “Honor Their Memory: Be a Hero for Peace” project last week, Suzanne and I reflected quite a bit on evil, loss, and meaning.

 

One of the sayings we will continue to hear as 9/11/2011 approaches is “America will not forget!”  How can we?  The terrible images from that day are etched in our minds.  We will always remember where we were when it happened.  We will not forget.  There is no doubt about that.  The question is, “In what way will we remember 9/11?”

 

Because we can choose how to remember evil events.  We can remember them in ways that lead us to more evil, violence, and destruction.  Or we can remember them in ways that lead to healing, reconciliation, and love.

 

I was beginning my senior year at Linfield College in the small town of McMinnville, Oregon on 9/11/2001.  The previous year I changed my major to religious studies in order to explore the meaning of human suffering.  That topic may seem to some as an impractical existential concern.  Many parents balk when their college student majors in religious studies, but for me there was no choice.  I had to do it.

 

My mother died two weeks before the end of my sophomore year at Linfield.  For 10 years she suffered from cancer.  It was evil.  No other word can describe it.  It never should have happened.  Sometimes, well meaning people would say things like, “All things work for good in God’s time.”

 

To that statement, I want to say, “No.” And then I want to say, “Yes.”  It’s a paradoxical response, but I think any response to evil must be paradoxical because evil is an existential paradox.

 

There are things that happen in our world that are evil and should be called evil.  The cancer that took my mom was evil.  It never should have happened, but it did.  Her suffering, the pain she went through, the pain her family went through – it never should have happened.  No good came from the cancer.  My family and I continue to grieve her death.  It’s a loss we will never forget.

 

That’s the “No” to the above statement.

 

Here’s the “Yes”: Love overcomes evil.  As my mother was dying, I witnessed the most amazing love between her and my dad.  I remember my dad holding her, comforting her, and loving her in the sincerest, most heartfelt, way.  When my mom was at her lowest, most ignominious point in her life, dad was there.  As the cancerous evil took my mom’s life, and as she lay in her hospital bed, her husband of 25 years sat by her side.

 

During this time, my dad and my mom were both models of how to love.  Dad gave love.  Mom received love.  They loved with courage and they were both heroes in my eyes.  My mom died, but the love between my parents never failed.

 

Love won.  And it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

 

That’s how I choose to remember my mom and her experience with cancer.  Love overcame an evil that never should have happened.

 

The evil events of 9/11/2001 happened soon after my mother’s death.  I witnessed 9/11 from my college campus.  I awoke later than usual on that day.  As I walked to the living room of my apartment, my roommates faces were glued to the television screen – their faces blank.  “What’s going on?” I asked.  After a brief pause, one of my roommates turned his head and told me the news.

 

Like the rest of the United States, we were all in a state of shock.  Some of us went to class; others didn’t.  I remember watching the events of that day unfold on the television in our student union.  The terrible evil and violence of that day is etched in my mind, but so are the selfless acts of love and heroism.  Firefighters, policemen, and countless others sacrificed their lives and health in order to save people they didn’t know.  That kind of sacrificial love is courageous; it’s heroic.  In the midst of tragic evil, there was love.

 

That’s how I choose to remember 9/11/2001.  I can’t forget the evil and violence, but I remember that evil didn’t have the last word.  Love didn’t fail on that day.  Love overcame evil.  Love won.

 

As heroic and courageous as love is, it is hard to trust that love never fails.  So, we easily get caught up in evil – we punch back.  And that’s what the United States did.  The problem is that, as Walter Wink claims in his book The Powers that Be, “Evil is contagious.  No one grapples with it without contamination” (124).  As we are entering the 10^th year since 9/11, and as we enter the 10^th year of the “War on Terror,” we are beginning to realize that war, violence, and evil cannot win.  Evil, violence, and war are contagious.  The United States got sucked into its trap and we are suffering the evil done to us and the evil we’ve inflicted upon others.

 

So, how do we remember the past and move forward?

 

Our friends at the Metta Center suggest we respond by doing something counter-intuitive and extremely courageous.  They are challenging us to respond with the 2,000 year old wisdom of loving our enemies.  We at Raven are trying to do our part by encouraging people to “Honor Their Memory – Be a Hero for Peace.”  During the next few months, we will have activities on the Raven website that will help do and be just that.  We invite you to join us and the Metta Center in this project.  The world needs courageous people who trust that “love never fails” and who, in their daily lives, will bravely be heroes for peace.

 

 

 

 

For the last two months or so at Raven, we have been thinking about how to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that will be occurring this September. Because we want to invite you to do something that day that is a bit more meaningful than flag waving or grieving, we have to think ahead. Now I know it’s the middle of summer and really not the best time to be asking you to think about such a serious subject, but maybe it’s the perfect time. As I’ve remembered those dark days the closer I’ve inched towards feeling something like a glimmer of hope.

 

I have dipped back into the darkness as Adam and I have prepared a music video to go along with a song written by a friend of the Raven Foundation, Michael Hardin. Michael is a gifted preacher, teacher and writer who has devoted his life and ministry to spreading a gospel of peace. He was in New York City on 9/11/01 and his song captures the fear and panic we all felt whether we were in New York or miles away. His chorus goes:

 

How are we supposed to pray in a time of war?

What are we supposed to say to the gods above?

How are we supposed to feel, when everything’s surreal?

When all that’s left are the ashes of those we love?

 

Notice that the chorus is a series of questions, which captures how I felt that day. A galaxy sized hole of panic had opened up where my sense of safety and security had been. My grief was expansive and I can still feel it threatening to swallow me up. In the months following the attack I became paralyzed with grief and then gripped by despair as I observed our nation’s response. We succumbed to the age old reflex that has kept humanity trapped in endless cycles of violence – return attack for attack, hate for hate, while accusing our opponent of being aggressive and justifying our response as defensive. It made me sick then but I rarely expressed how I felt. Everyone was so caught up in fear and a belief that we had no choice but to respond in kind that it seemed futile to voice anything but agreement. And if I did venture a question about whether invading Afghanistan was the right thing to do, I was greeted with responses that ranged from disbelief to outright anger.

 

So where’s the hope? It’s coming, I promise. More than war, terrorism, surges and insurgencies have been going on during the last 10 years. Below the headlines the work of peace building has been quietly and steadily taking place, even on the African continent, so long a symbol of intractable violence, poverty and illness. In a story for the New York Times, An African Adventure and a Revelation on July 1, Nicholas Kristoff gives a hopeful portrait of the changes taking place there. Here are two highlights: the number of electoral democracies in Africa has risen to 18 from 4 in the last decade, and because of anti-hunger and poverty aid initiatives, child mortality has dropped from 12.4 million children in 1990 to 8.1 million in 2009. Still too many children dying from preventable causes, but the trend is moving in the right direction.

 

Another note of optimism is sounded by our friends at Nonviolent Peaceforce who report that they are working with the United Nations to develop a training program in nonviolence peacekeeping for UN peacekeepers. The move away from a belief that violence is more powerful than nonviolence is slow but palpable, not only at the UN but in the democracy movements that are part of the so-called Arab Spring. I could go on but instead I hope you’ll respond to this column with the signs of hope that you have been observing going on in the world. I’d like to collect enough to create an avalanche of hope that will inspire more of us to get actively involved in working for peace.

 

After nearly a decade of war, I believe that there is a silent majority in America fatigued by violence and longing for us to rethink our military response to the 9/11 attacks. When I question the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq, the responses I get are not nearly as hostile as 10 years ago. Folks are honestly, though still skeptically, looking for an alternative to violence. It seems more and more difficult to dispute that violence can only bring more violence into the world and that if we our goal is peace, it’s time to be more creative about our methods. We need to tap the commitment and heroism we saw in the rescue efforts on 9/11 as well as the heroism of our troops abroad toward the larger goal of global peace.

 

I’d like to invite you to a different sort of 9/11 anniversary this year. If you have been part of that silent majority for the last 10 years, take the occasion of 9/11/11 to make a public commitment to nonviolence. It will take courage and commitment to change America’s course but it is my fervent hope that America will take a leadership position in the effort to build a peaceful world by peaceful means.

 

Here’s what you can do. As a first step, “Like” our Facebook page for the 9/11 anniversary, “Honor Their Memory – Be a Hero for Peace”. Ask your friends to “Like” the page, too, so we can build a network of people committed to peace by peaceful means, one big enough to get the attention of U.S. policy makers. And please reply to this email with your signs of hope. In the coming weeks, visit the “Honor Their Memory” Facebook regularly for inspiration and ideas about how you can shape a 9/11 anniversary for your community this year that represents your longing for peace by peaceful means. I will close with the last two lines of Michael’s song and invite you to keep this hopeful lyric in your mind as inspiration for your efforts for peace: “I do believe in love, and I do believe in life/ And I do believe that evil will not triumph.”

 

 

 

Suzanne Ross explains the focus of the Raven Foundation project "Honor Their Memory - Be a Hero for Peace."

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We should not forget 9/11, but how will we remember? Can we provide a different response to violence other than more violence? What are the nonviolent ways to respond to violence that can bring about lasting peace, security, and justice? Join the silent majority that is looking for a better way forward.

 

A Message from Suzanne

Everyone claims to be for peace, even suicide bombers, warring armies, and violent insurgencies. It’s a nearly universal belief across cultures that violence, properly used by the right people for the right cause, can achieve peace or justice or some other noble goal. Why is that? Because also universally believed is that the obstacles to peace are bad guys or bad nations who must be defeated for peace to be realized.

 

Human history, both ancient and recent, reveals the problem with this thinking – there is always one more bad guy, one more evil enemy whose defeat justifies the use of violence. Ironically, the good guys are as busy justifying their right to use violence as are the bad guys they are battling. The result is that the only difference between good guys and bad guys is what they say or the color of their uniforms, not what they do

 

In the ten years since 9/11/01, the United States has engaged in a campaign of aggression in the name of justice and national defense.  To preserve the peace we have become an instrument of war. To truly honor the dead, to truly memorialize the heroism of the New York firefighters and passengers and crew of flight 93, to be sincerely grateful for the sacrifices of our armed forces overseas, there is only one worthy response: to abandon the flawed strategy of peace by violence and demand a new heroism from all Americans, the heroism required to build peace by peaceful means.

 

We invite you to “like” this page to send a message to the world that you are ready to do your part for peace. The United States and the entire world are reaching the level of maturity that peace by peaceful means requires. This 9/11, join the global effort to build a sustainable peaceful future for all the world.

 

Suzanne Ross
Founder

 

To learn about the practice and power of nonviolence, visit our inspiring partners at the Metta Center for Nonviolence Education.

 

At the Gate - By Michael Hardin

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"At the Gate" was composed by Michael Hardin just days after 9/11/2001. The song evokes the heroism of that day, along with the pain, fear, and grief. In the 10 years since 9/11, America's military response has spread the pain, fear, and greif of that day to Afghanistan and Iraq. Please join the Raven Foundation in our project to honor the memory of 9/11 with a commitment to establishing peace by peaceful means.

Join the Raven Foundation here:http://www.ravenfoundation.org/soar

Like the Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Raven-Foundation/208056722551942#!/pages/Ho...

At The Gate

© 2001 Michael and Lorri Hardin

 

At 8:48 this morning, my world crashed without warning

From nowhere came barbarians at the gate

Falling sounds of silence echoed in the violence

Entombed within a rubble heap of hate

 

Nameless men and women became heroes in my eyes

They bravely gave the finest sacrifice

And when all hope was gone, still they carried on

For strangers there not questioning the price

 

How are we supposed to pray in a time of war?

What are we supposed to say to the gods above?

How are we supposed to feel, when everything’s surreal?

When all that’s left are the ashes of those we love?

 

My brave new world of pain, human history’s gone insane

Etched now in a memory full of holes

And everyone was there and everyone was watching

While evil stole the laughter from our souls

 

How are we supposed to pray in a time of war?

What are we supposed to say to the gods above?

How are we supposed to feel, when everything’s surreal?

When all that’s left are the ashes of those we love?

 

But I do believe in peace and I do believe in hope

And I do believe we’ll find the strength within

And I do believe in love and I do believe in life

And I do believe that evil will not win

 

Thousands still lie buried and I’m left to wonder why

All I want to be is anywhere but here

Bereft and I’m left grieving with so many things unsaid

Good-byes are the one thing that I fear

 

Too long the dust’s been blowing; unrest is what it’s sowing

Spewed out from death’s carnivorous grin

I’ve said all I can say and I’ve felt all I can feel

And I never want to go this way again

 

How are we supposed to pray in a time of war?

What are we supposed to say to the gods above?

How are we supposed to feel, when everything’s surreal?

When all that’s left are the ashes of those we love?

What are we supposed to say to the gods above?

 

I do believe in love, and I do believe in life

And I do believe that evil will not triumph

Reflections by Michael Hardin

I was working in NYC (Queens) that day.  It was a Tuesday. We had a TV set on in the office tuned to CNN so just after the first plane hit we started watching the news coverage.  Needless to say there was no more work done that day.  I remember at around 11 am after both towers had fallen standing outside the office looking west to the skyline as great billowing clouds of grey and black filled the horizon and my friend Frank Langone saying "This means war." I couldn't get a hold of Lorri as the cell phones all went dead and knew my daughter Arwen had planned on being in the city that day since it was her 21st birthday.  I arrived home around 3 pm, Lorri around 4 or so and we still had no word from our daughter. There was only one TV station (the local PBS station) since all the networks had their broadcast towers on the World Trade Center and they no longer existed.  We sat glued to the TV until midnight, when our daughter finally came home and we could breathe again.

 

On Wednesday September 12th it was a hot day and we had no air conditioning in our home, just an attic fan.  So all the windows were open drawing air from the outside.  The wind shifted and blew straight across Queens and all night long we could smell smoke, burning rubber and burning flesh. We knew that the ash particles had to contain remnants of those who perished in the fire.  It was surreal. Everything was shut down, everyone was in shock; New York City and Long Island had gone quiet.

 

I had been writing songs for almost a decade and on Thursday the 13th September I was playing my guitar in the afternoon when "At The Gate" just poured out of me. Later that night I played it for Lorri.  She thought the lyrics needed reworking, but liked the chorus.  So Friday night we went to a restaurant and rewrote the verses. We contacted a local recording studio who wanted $75 an hour.  We were broke back then but felt we could spend $300 and so on the 20th we went to the studio and laid down two guitar tracks, our vocals and had enough left for one hour of mixing. My friend Jeff Krantz put the song on-line on the 27th September and it immediately began getting tens of thousands of listeners.  I still have scores of e-mails sent to me by fire and police who survived September 11th, from families of those who lost loved ones and many others. Lorri and I felt like the song brought some measure of healing and seemed to resonate with those who were hurting.

 

That's the story of "At the Gate." A careful listener will find echoes to Simon and Garfunkel and Aldous Huxley as well as a number of ironic puns. One final comment: Although I am a monotheist, the reason for the plural "gods" in the chorus reflects my sense that when we are at war we all want our god to be on our side.  Thus, the "gods" are plural like one would find in a Greek or Roman pantheon. And because they are rivalrous and fight with each other, we also imitate them and so fight and maim and kill one another. The bridge, which gets repeated is our faith statement that light and love has and will prevail.  "Faith is the bird that sings in the dead of night."

 

Michael Hardin
Executive Director, Preaching Peace
www.preachingpeace.org
Lancaster, PA