Creeping Invulnerability My good fortune ran out the other day and I got another one. I was shocked. How could this happen to me? Over the five years since my last speeding ticket, something had gradually crept undetected into my mind and reshaped my perspective on life. Throughout these years I had exceeded the speed limit on many occasions but had not been caught. In retrospect, I can see that I had imperceptibly developed a sense of being "bulletproof." This "creeping invulnerability" had carved such a crease in my conscience that I began to unconsciously think that I was entitled to speed and get away with it. After all, I must travel quite a bit and have schedules to keep, airplanes to catch and clients to satisfy. There is often not enough time to get from here to there without doing so swiftly. Mentally, I was possessed of some metaphysical mandate that ennobled me to make exceptions to the rules of the road in my pursuit of making a living in doing good for others. It may not be an overstatement to say that I was beginning to feel exempt from at least some of the laws that govern vehicular transportation in this country. When we consistently transgress laws with impunity there soon evolves an inferred belief that we are entitled to transgress these laws because of some special nature, position or circumstance that excuses our transgression. We reason that there must be good reasons why we don't get caught: perhaps it's because our mission in life is so important that this end is justified by any means. Whatever our subjective reasoning and rationalizations, the sense of invulnerability exists because we feel entitled to be above and beyond ordinary reality. The longer the world refrains from issuing a corrective experience to challenge this sub-sentient sentiment of entitlement, the more time this sense of invulnerability has to steal into personal and collective unconsciousness and become an assumed and comfortable way of living. American culture has had almost three decades to be shaped by "creeping invulnerability." The generations that grew up during this period have believed that most of the world is a reasonably safe place and that their future was attractive and secure. There was no perceived significant sense of risk or threat to the American way of life - or to life itself for that matter. Not much to worry about. During this time, Americans have had a multitude of opportunities to pursue life, liberty and happiness without much impediment. According to the proverbial American Dream, our lives can be just about anything we want. More than anything else, what we want is life - and more life. We have taken vitamin and mineral supplements, learned how to slow, if not actually prevent or reverse, aging; we've had the luxury of exploring and pushing the limits of life and have delved into the possibilities and technologies of not only extending it by many years but also creating it in our own image by means of cloning and genetic engineering. Our creeping invulnerability implies immortality: we feel entitled not only to the opportunities to live our lives in the ways we want, but entitled to possess the lives we live in perpetuity. Of course, human yearning for invulnerability and immortality is nothing new. It has existed since the first human beings. My mother recently asked if I had thought of the Tower of Babel when the World Trade Center Towers tumbled into a mass of destruction and death. I told her that, indeed, the Tower of Babel had come to mind but in a different sense. It wasn't the tower itself that was the problem to God but rather what human beings were trying to do by building it. Like Adam and Eve and others in their history, the builders were attempting to reach the status of God and, in so doing, become their own gods complete with a sense of invulnerability and immortality in the face of their future. Endeavors in this regard are contributions to a culture of defiance of divine dominion over creation. Americans have grown accustom to thinking of their futures as full of life with better opportunities, possessions, events and feelings. As a culture we have been successful in psychologically delaying death into an indefinite future. As a result, there has grown a perceived sense of safety in the present and security in the future. If all doesn't go as desired today, there will always be tomorrow to make it right - another opportunity to grow richer, better, more self-assured and to gain greater understanding of the meaning of one's life. What Has Changed What happened on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 has brought into sharp focus for each of us in this country the ever-present reality and capriciousness of death. No longer can Baby Boomers or anyone else put off dealing with it psychologically or spiritually. On September 10th we could blithely dismiss death as a daily possibility; through our sense of invulnerability and entitlement, we had managed to sublimate it as some mystical and even comfortable event far into a secured and safe future. Since September 11th we must now always know that death could come to us today or tomorrow and that if it does, it might be far from mystical, meaningful or comfortable - it might be senseless, agonizing and horrifying. The ubiquitous and free-floating anxiety that has resulted from this human tragedy stems not just from the awareness that we really can die sooner than later; it also arises from a dawning realization that we probably aren't ready to die. At this point, I need to ask a pertinent question. What is the purpose of religion? Much time and many books have been devoted to answering this question. My answer is simple: the purpose of religion is to help you live and to help you die. The two are inextricably interwoven. Life and death are two sides of the same coin. Only when you are prepared to die can you begin to live unfettered by fear and unmoved by cultural and psychological efforts to forego finitude. The terrorists that killed so many people on September 11th died in the commission of their evil acts. They evidently were not afraid to die for their cause. We hear that their perverted brand of fanaticism actually encourages believers to die while killing as many others as they can. They die and kill believing that their reward will be a special place in heaven and in the hearts of those who share their beliefs. They have a distorted form of religion that helps them live and die. I thoroughly understand that what is going on is more than just religious fervor. It is actually political ideology with religion merely serving as a means to motivate and justify otherwise unholy beliefs and actions. For those of us in this country, especially for those of us who are Christian, the question is, are we prepared to die at any moment? This is what we will have to deal with from now on. This is the source of our national anxiety as we look toward the future. The pervading question being asked in the United States today is, "are we safe and secure in this country?" But the unspoken question being posed simultaneously is, "are we going to die soon?" Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld described a disturbing future for the American people: "One has to know that a terrorist can attack at any time and any place and there is no sure defense. It could be ships, it could be subways, it could be any number of things, including chemical or germ weapons, missiles or the Internet. It's a new kind of war." (September 17th USA Today). The possibility of dying sooner than later has never been more real in our country. The Christian religion proclaims the triumph of Jesus' death over our deaths. St. Paul was explicit in his proclamation that those who were baptized into Christ Jesus were already dead! "Don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." (Romans 6:3-4). What happens after being buried in death with Christ through baptism is life after death. We, having already died to the realities of the earthly world, are living in the resurrected reality of Christ in the created world. While living in this world, we are actually embodied manifestations of Christ's eternal life. This is not to say that death is unreal or that it is to be sought out. It is to say that death, being ever-present, is not to be feared or shunned. There has been much talk concerning the terrorist threat to our freedoms. The freedom from fear of death is the only one nobody can threaten to take away. Are we prepared to die today or tomorrow or soon? Would it be a terrible thing to die if we were prepared? Being prepared means to know that you have already died in Christ and that physical death is the means of transformation into life without death. To paraphrase Eleanor Roosevelt, you must do the thing you fear in order to have the thing you're afraid of losing by doing it. It is one of God's ironies that you must die in order to have the life you're afraid of losing by dying. But God's promise is clear: what you receive by dying in faith is far greater than what you can ever hope to experience in an earthly form. What you do in your life matters. As Christians, having already died with and been raised to new life in Christ, we have the freedom to boldly serve others while proclaiming our first-hand experience of God's gift of salvation from sin and death. Although God's judgment is beyond my full comprehension, I believe that those who serve others, regardless of religious affiliation, are responding to God's still, small voice. The brave and dedicated people of the fire and police departments and others of New York City who died in the service of others died in responding to that inner call. What you do matters to others and to God. As We Recover Many in America today had never been directly exposed to the transcendent and immanent evils that perpetrate and perpetuate war. On Tuesday, September 11, 2001 they and the world were confronted with a diabolical manifestation of evil. The world is a different place, but not a place that cannot become better than it has ever been. The United States is now truly a part of the global community, not just economically, but emotionally. All of creation groans laboring in pain and suffering as we continue to come to terms with this savage sacrilege of life and its future on this planet. But the hope of the world is not threatened by death or evil. It is this hope, a hope against hope in these days of despondency that we need to experience and proclaim more clearly than ever. God will not leave us uncomforted nor without hope for a renewed life as a nation in Him. On that shocking day of horror, all six of our children called. They knew that it was not a day to be alone with their fears and tears. They reached out to touch something loving and normal in their lives. They needed to be touched by love and comfort and hear a hopeful word that the future of a now uncertain and fearful world could be better than it had just become. In our worship service the following Sunday, a woman my mother's age and whom I have known since I was a child, reached back across the pew to take my hand. She whispered, "I wanted to touch your hand because I can't touch the hands of my sons today." It will help immeasurably as we recover from our loss of innocence and invulnerability if we intentionally reach out to touch others with a comforting word of hope and to serve those whom we can as we can. Perhaps more importantly, it will greatly help in the national recovery process if we allow ourselves to be touched by others in ways that speak the words of eternal peace and hope: "Listen, I tell you a mystery: we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet . . . 'Death has been swallowed up in victory.' 'Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?'" (I Corinthians 15:5152a; 15:54b-55). Americans will more than merely survive this tragedy; we will surmount it and surround it with our commitment to build up an even greater nation under God with liberty and justice for all. |
