Dear Friends:
In the space of an hour, thousands of Americans had their lives snuffed out by acts so cold-blooded that we cannot wrap our imaginations around what has happened. I have three grandchildren who, until Tuesday morning, worked near the World Trade Center. We held our breath until they found their ways to telephones and finally, on foot, to bridges and home. Many of their dear friends must be among the less fortunate.
It is a nightmare from which we cannot wake.
As we emerge from our pain, as we begin to accept the dimensions of this loss, we will of course resolve as a nation to make our world safer.
Whenever we suffer a tragedy, we ask ourselves, "how can we prevent this in the future?"
In answering this question, all Americans must participate and add what they can to the discussion and the plan. It is an opportunity for the political left and the political right to respect each other's point of view and their differing interpretations of history.
Those who see the attack as a military act of war are like the cancer surgeon who must find the tumor and kill it. Some minds indeed have become cancerous in this world and they threaten our survival. They are just as emotionally capable of exploding a home-made nuclear weapon in our cities, or of poisoning our air and water with biological, chemical, or nuclear toxins. What we saw Tuesday morning, horrific as it was, was essentially the loss of several large buildings and thousands of their inhabitants. We risk the loss of whole cities --millions of people-- in today's charged international environment.
While the surgeons will cut, others will look to a deeper question: how can such cold-bloodedness arise in the hearts of our fellow men? As the nutritionist examines the lifestyle that may lead to disease, we begin to ask: What can we do in the future so that love and respect are nurtured in the place of hatred? Surely we cannot kill our way to love and respect, where our only true security resides.
The surgeons will undoubtedly have their way for a time. The news shows --that incidentally are never interested in covering the reasons why so many people are angry at American policies-- are now full of swaggering militarists who are looking, please, for someone to kill for peace. They will have their way, for the emotions of our nation are running to red.
But those who seek true security must not stand aside in silence. Those who know that international justice is the only road to international peace must continue to speak their minds. It is not un-American to do so. It is, on the contrary, un-American to fall into a state of fascism, where our civil liberties are forsaken and the human needs of Americans and of people around the globe are forgotten.
The secretaries and file clerks and young executives in the stricken office buildings, and the children and mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers aboard those four airplanes would not have been the targets of hatred, had we Americans better expressed our highest values throughout the world --had our government expressed in all its actions the fairness and generosity that characterize our people. That disconnection between our people and our government does not excuse the cold mass-murders committed by terrorists, but it helps explain it, and we cannot stop it if we do not understand it.
There is much we can and must do to regain control of our own government and to stop its participation in cruelties around the world. That is our best road to long-term security for our own people. There will always be breast-beating generals to lead us into further horrors. Let us pray that some of our leaders are wiser than that, and can see that the real road to security does not lead us to places like Kabul with our missiles and troops, but to places like the CIA headquarters at Langly with our mops and brooms --and also to the mammoth political fundraising events where our representatives are bought away from us and from our values.
Many media pundits glibly say today that America will be less free from this point onward. If they mean that we will have to have our luggage examined more closely, we can all agree to that. If they mean that we will all have our telephones tapped and be rounded up if we criticize our government --that we must be fascist to be free-- then they are talking illogically and immaturely.
In my long walk across the US, and in my everyday experiences, I know that Americans are kindhearted and do not wish to colonize and exploit any other people on earth. Our central question --the question that will determine the security of our cities in the future-- is this: can those American values be expressed by the American government? Can we be more a government of our people? Can we get the greedy, short-sighted interests out from between us and our elected representatives?
Our struggle for campaign finance reform and other democratic reforms will now take a back seat as a season of blood has its day. But until we clean up our government, we will all be the targets of rising international rage, and our children and grandchildren are not safe.
–Doris "Granny D" Haddock
Doris,
Thank you for sending along this jewel.
I felt more peaceful and focused when I read it than I have since the destruction. One of my friends of like mind burst into tears when he read the forwarded message, and again when he read it to his friends on the phone.
I hope it cheers my 22 year old son who has been worried and distressed at the mindless chauvinism everywhere.
Many of us feel alone at times like this "when the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity."
Thanks to Doris for the reminder that although sometimes we may be few, we are not alone.
–Grandpa Burt
Dear Granny D,
I want to thank you for your wise and honest response to this terrible tragedy.
I have been brought to tears many times by the acts of injustice brought to me via my favorite news source, NPR. I am still shocked and dismayed at our failure to act rapidly and appropriately to the slaughter in places like Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia, Turkey... and the list could go on and on.
Though I think it is entirely appropriate to bring up the fact that we delude ourselves and the less alert public when we fail to acknowledge the their ways in which we infuriate and exacerbate situations that lead to this most recent tragedy, I think we must concede that part of the inability to accept this is due to it's magnitude and our long standing sense of righteousness. To try to ask people now to accept that we may have played a role in our own downfall is probably asking too much of many "average" citizens. Let us allow some time for grieving before we attempt to bring up the critical relaity of our own culpability.
As a middle school teacher in an urban school, I, myself, tried to point out to my students that we have behaved like a large bully on the international stage and on many occasions. That we have swaggered around defying anyone to challenge our might. Thus we find ourselves jumped from behind, so to speak, and given a hearty black eye by someone from the neighborhood tired of our egotistical boasting.
Indeed it is a nightmare. Let us hope and pray that we will learn from our mistakes. Also, that we will appreciate and cherish our freedoms all the more. For myself, I will continue to believe that reason and love can lead us forward in our search for higher levels of action and understanding. I do not see us as blameless victims (nationally, that is) but I mourn for all the victims, both home and abroad, who suffer at the hands of extremism and intolerance.
I will not accept a degradation in our personal freedoms as the price of security. The Bill of Rights is one of the finest documents we have been fortunate enough to produce. I will noisily and willfully defend its promise.
That is the doctrine I will continue to embrace and preach from my tiny pulpit. There are two sides to every dispute, and no one is ever all right. (or all wrong.)
Thank you again for all your efforts in our behalves and keep fighting the good fight. I believe we stand on the same side of the fence even yet.
Sending love,
Danette Huber Falaschetti
Dear Doris,
Almost everyone has someone in NYC--and it was a blessing for us to hear from most of them. The tragedy is confounded by our own complicity.
We have been acting, as a country, in an arrogant and greedy fashion. Perhaps the "nutrition-prevention" approach would be to share the wealth and cut the greed. It must be galling to see photos of Americans filling up their SUV's and complaining about the (low) high cost of gasoline.
It has seemed to me that we should flood our friends with little, with goods that they need, seeds, equipment for farming and building and establishing water resources. An enlarged Peace Corps effort to redress the inequities among the countries and continnts of the world..
Naive, I suppose--but as long as we puff ourselves up as we consume a disproportionate amount of the resources of the planet, it is not difficult to see that when you add political/religious fanatacism to the mix, some revengeful act becomes more likely.
–Maxine S
Dear Granny,
Thank you for your words of wisdom as always. This is a very painful time for all of us whether we have immediate family involved or not, when this kind of thing happens we realize that we are ALL family, despite the differences despite those within our own country that try to divide us along the lines of race, religion, gender etc. You begin to put things in perspective. We must be careful not to preach anger towards Americans who have a different style of dress or worship in a different way, or speak differently.
The beauty of this country is that this is a country where ALL are welcome to participate in the experience of freedom and democracy! Let us all remember this as we pray for the families who are suffering at this time.
–Kit Salazar-Smith
Dear Mr. Burke,
We have just read Granny D's comments on the recent terrorists attacks and fully agree with her. Dan walked with Doris about 80 miles as she came through Tennessee and Kentucky and our family walked with her in Washington D.C. as she completed her walk accross the United States. She is a GREAT LADY!
We want to share with you a beautiful letter from Rabbi Arthur Waskow,
Director of The Shalom Center.
PEACE!
Dan & Beverly Sweeton
THE LETTER
Dear Chevra,
In 1984, when the nuclear arms race was in speed-up mode, The Shalom Center built a sukkah between the White House and the Soviet Embassy in Washington.
We focused on the line from the evening prayers -- "Ufros alenu sukkat shlomekha" -- "Spread over all of us Your sukkah of shalom."
And we asked, "Why a sukkah?" -- Why does the prayer plead to God for a "sukkah of shalom" rather than God's "tent" or "house" or "palace" of peace?
Because the sukkah is just a hut, the most vulnerable of houses. Vulnerable in time, where it lasts for only a week each year. Vulnerable in space, where its roof must be not only leafy but leaky -- letting in the starlight, and gusts of wind and rain.
For much of our lives we try to achieve peace and safety by building with steel and concrete and toughness. Pyramids, air raid shelters, Pentagons, World Trade Centers. Hardening what might be targets and, like Pharaoh, hardening our hearts against what is foreign to us.
But the sukkah comes to remind us: We are in truth all vulnerable. If "a hard rain gonna fall," it will fall on all of us.
Americans have felt invulnerable. The oceans, our wealth, our military power have made up what seemed an invulnerable shield. We may have begun feeling uncomfortable in the nuclear age, but no harm came to us. Yet yesterday the ancient truth came home: We all live in a sukkah.
Not only the targets of attack but also the instruments of attack were among our proudest possessions: the sleek transcontinental airliners. They availed us nothing. Worse than nothing.
Even the greatest oceans do not shield us; even the mightiest buildings do not shield us; even the wealthiest balance sheets and the most powerful weapons do not shield us.
There are only wispy walls and leaky roofs between us. The planet is in fact one interwoven web of life. I MUST love my neighbor as I do myself, because my neighbor and myself are interwoven. If I hate my neighbor, the hatred will recoil upon me.
What is the lesson, when we learn that we -- all of us -- live in a sukkah? How do we make such a vulnerable house into a place of shalom, of peace and security and harmony and wholeness? The lesson is that only a world where we all recognize our vulnerability can become a world where all communities feel responsible to all other communities. And only such a world can prevent such acts of rage and murder.
If I treat my neighbor's pain and grief as foreign, I will end up suffering when my neighbor's pain and grief curdle into rage. But if I realize that in simple fact the walls between us are full of holes, I can reach through them in compassion and connection.
Suspicion about the perpetrators of this act of infamy has fallen upon some groups that espouse a tortured version of Islam. Whether or not this turns out to be so, America must open its heart and mind to the pain and grief of those in the Arab and Muslim worlds who feel excluded, denied, unheard, disempowered, defeated.
This does not mean ignoring or forgiving whoever wrought such bloodiness. Their violence must be halted, their rage must be calmed -- and the pain behind them must be heard and addressed.
Instead of entering upon a "war of civilizations," we must pursue a planetary peace.
Shalom, Arthur
Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Director, The Shalom Center
Dear Granny D,
I love your analysis of how it would be best for us to respond to these terrible attacks. But you ask "Can we get the greedy, short-sighted interests out from between us and our elected representatives?" I think this is extremely difficult. But more than that, even if we had the elected representatives that we really want, I think we would still have the same problem. I'm referring to the way the world economy works and the way the US is programmed to defend and expand its economic interests around the world. Americans may be good and generous at heart, but they will insist on a government that maintains a standard of living that is far, far above the world's average. On the scale that this demands, we must enforce this with military might and with alliances with brutal dictators--what country would bargain away its natural resources otherwise?
Being a world economic power and being just to all our neighbors do not go hand in hand. I am sorry that I believe this, but the conclusion is inevitable. Look at any marketable item that we get at a good price from abroad. Why do we get oil so cheap? And children's toys? And raw materials for manufacturing? And trade agreements that have us always on the lending end and the borrowers --poor nations--going deeper and deeper into debt? Any administration that would give away those tremendous economic advantages would be run out of town faster than the speed of light.
–Paddy Lane
SEPTEMBER 1, 1939
W.H. Auden
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
'I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,'
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the dead,
Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.