> Call it a delayed reaction or what-have-you, but I have something to say about the September eleventh attack on the World Trade Centre. More specifically, I want to address the following few days. I've been meaning to say this for quite some time, but until now haven't quite found the words to do so. [snip!]
>

Not so strangely, I think I feel much the same way -- in experiencing a delayed reaction to what happened -- and to what has been happening, in light of the WTC attack.


> I wanted to say something to them, something to make them realize that they were now only one step removed from being terrorists themselves. Something to make them realize that the mentality that says "some Arabs did something that upset/offended me; Arabs are therefore less than human and must be eliminated" is cleanly identical to the mentality that "the United States is the Great Satan; Americans are therefore less than human and must be eliminated." Something - anything - to make them realize that ethnic cleansing is not the answer.
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To continue the previous thought, things sort of came to a head today, when I was talking to a church Spiritual Director in my parish... who, seemingly out of the blue, suddenly (and shockingly) opined that she thought that "They ought to bomb 'those people'" and that "Some people [i.e. Muslim Arabs] are like mad dogs, and sometimes they have to be shot."

I can't begin to express the rush of dumbfounded horror I had in hearing these words from someone I loved and respected. Needless to say, these are pretty un-Christian sentiments, and I can only hope it was frustration speaking and not the spirit. But I think the media blitzkrieg and propaganda is taking its toll on our perception and compassion. My heart was not really into it when I began pointing out that first of all, the rhetoric is a false analogy because Humans are NOT dogs; and Secondly, our obvious desire to hold terrorists accountable for their acts, as well as our not-so-laudable desire for revenge, makes it evident that no one else thinks they are just "mad senseless dogs" either. My own frustration arises from seeing how persons in spiritual authority (who normally are perceptually astute) may nonetheless feel driven to make such bitter un-Christian pronouncements. The longer that the flames of fear are fanned, the more that the flow of compassion towards others becomes bankrupted by anti-ethnic gossipmongering.


> But what can one say to such people? What can one put up against the hatred, the fear, the bloodlust?
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> All I can think of is three iron nails and a crown of thorns.
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Even more radical: What Christ has done for us, in his death on the cross, is not merely the condensed entirety of *everything* he has done. I mention this only because we must not rest smug in "knowing" we are entirely saved by grace. No, I think what he invites us to do is to follow him by example in his life, as well -- to stretch out our own arms in fellowship and suffering, and take up sharing the burden of our own crosses together. Love your neighbour, love your enemy -- these things he taught aren't just words. They are an attitude to be practised continually. Quietly and firmly. Kindly spare me the militant preaching of the in-your-face radicals... Surely the way we conduct ourselves in our daily lives is the only Bible that our neighbours, and the world, will ever read.