After the Rubicon...

On the day the twin towers fell, the western world moved from a relative collective peace to profound collective trauma. This is probably not an original thought but one that needs wide expression, despite an increasing anxiety in our civilisation and an awareness, like the Roman senate before us, that a Rubicon had been crossed. (At this point, it's worth reflecting on what happened after the Rubicon - as articulated in the preface to Rubicon by Tom Holland. Holland says "By crossing it, Caesar...helped to bring about the ruin of Rome's ancient freedoms and the establishment, upon their wreckage, of a monarchy - events of primal significance for the history of the West. Long after the Roman Empire itself collapsed, the opposites delineated by the Rubicon - liberty and despotism, anarchy and order, republic and autocracy - would continue to haunt the imaginings of Rome's successors.") Given the current apostacy of the West, our particular Rubicon may be the hand of God. Our generation's response to the 9/11 event caused a plethora of books to be born attempting to articulate and characterise responses to the event and its impact, particularly relating to the future. However, from within our culture there was little written material (there was some!) which addressed the Western world's subconscious identification of reaping seeds we ourselves had sown - seeds born of a spirit of empire, Roman, British, American and European through control imposed on other human beings. These spiritual seeds of worldview and paradigm had often been forcibly sown deep into the furrows of other cultures - sometimes with good intent, sometimes not. Alongside the seeds of control and oppression grew the tares of poverty, anger, frustration and agony. These are what sprang up like dragon's teeth and stopped us in our tracks on September 11th.The 9/11 event could be perceived as a wake up call from the Lord, and we must remember the Lord tenders judgement with mercy, but this is an unacceptably brutal interpretation in a politically correct society where no one must offend anyone else. But God is no respecter of persons. He doesn't forget those who died that day, but he also remembers that more than 3,000 a day die in other nations and continents all the time through poverty, disease and war, and few of us give them a second thought. This doesn't make 9/11 a 'so what?' event but puts it in a context that makes it even sadder.When God looks upon an HIV victim in Africa, a tsunami child from Banda Aceh or a 9/11 victim, he sees them all the same - his beloved. In the face of raw emotions, broken hearts and raging pain, we must hold on to this or we lose our plumbline of what is most important to us as human beings. What should hold us through in the face of an onslaught of violent Islam or Communism or Humanism, jihad or cold war, martyrdom or murder, empire or national pride, must be the love that the Father has for each unique individual on the planet - whatever choices they make, however they are brought up or whatever they believe. He wants them all to know him.Therefore, Christian reactions to such a collective trauma are even more important. Our immediate reaction of turning our eyes from a loving Father God and a wounded Jesus Christ onto our own problems and agendas (whether national or personal) is overwhelming. We choose to wallow in our pain, to try and 'get a handle on it' in a way that is fragilely and impossibly human. We think - God help us - that we can manage it. We believe we can solve it. How unreal can we be?Who are we, in the face of such trauma, to think we can handle anything? Our reactions are human and normal but we must face the fact that normal human reactions are inadequate and insufficient and will not solve these problems. We shout for something to be done, someone to be blamed and for it to 'go away'. It will not. Our reaction involves denial, blame, deferring, voting out, voting in, unreality, emotion, but never the examination of our own deceitful hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit. And, in these flawed reactions, we again cause pain, anger, frustration and finally death, for ourselves and for our nations.Our condition and our very existence is marred - as Jesus, perfect and blameless, was marred - beyond recognition. If we don't understand this, we are blind. All philosophy attempts to explain this - none can, because it is sin that mars us and sin alone. And there is only one resolution to sin. Repentance and forgiveness. If we as Christians were able to move the giant plank out of our eyes (Matt 7.3), we could take up our responsibility to express the truth of Christ crucified (1 Cor 1.23), to tease out the desperate threads of dread, to face them, to bring relief, to love and to help nations move on. With God's help, we must move beyond the events and our reactions to seek and find forgiveness, peace and restoration.
posted by Watcher Monday, March 06, 2006 links to this post