This is site lead on Beliefnet today, under a heading of "Can any good come
out of this? Perhaps, if it makes us..."
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"...Repent, and demand better of Hollywood too."
Here's a checklist for post 9-11: Rescue survivors. Comfort the bereaved.
Execute strategic response. Revise security protocols. Repent.
That last one clangs like a cymbal in a flute solo. We're Americans; when
slapped by suffering, we get practical. We move ahead soberly and briskly,
confident with resolve. Introspection isn't our style. A call to repentance
may even seem cruel, as if it implied that this disaster was our own making.
When we can see hard-faced mugshots of killers on TV, we're not confused
about who the bad guys are.
Yet there's good spiritual precedent for taking a moment for reflection and
assessment in any time of sorrow. The Hebrew scriptures show a consistent
pattern: a devastating loss was a signal to repent, turn, and change. That
didn't mean that the enemy was "right" or that God liked them better, just
that it was time for learning a hard lesson.
A lesson, that is–the Bible wasn't talking about mere punishment. The goal
was renewal. As Ezekiel wrote, Jerusalem would fall to forces of sacrilege
and terror, but the plan went further. The beloved people of God would be
changed. "Thus says the LORD God: I will give them one heart, and put a new
spirit within them; I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and give
them a heart of flesh."
For us, some of this assessment began instantly and without too much
pondering. It was obvious that now was not the most tasteful time to release
a Schwartznegger flick about a man avenging the death of his family at the
hands of terrorists. Likewise pulled: a hip-hop CD cover that showed the
artist about to detonate the World Trade Center. In general, entertainment
violence took a sudden dive out of the category of general fun. We've had
decades of peace and plenty, and the persistent human need for thrills was
met by lots of spatter. When the real thing comes, it makes playacting look
stupid.
Since entertainment drives our culture, it's not surprising that this would
be the first noticeable arena of change. Let's push it further. Can we ditch
the "reality" TV shows now? As a friend of mine said, "I don't want to turn
on the TV and see real people being unhappy."
In fact, let's dump entertainment based on insult, loss, and ridicule.
Smart-mouthed sitcom kids and their potty-mouthed parents just aren't funny
any more, not when families have been ripped to shreds. There used to be
other kinds of humor–sheer silliness and absurdity, the Marx Brothers and
screwball comedies. Does anybody remember how to do that any more?
The same thing goes for the visual arts. How about this: no more rotting
carcasses encased in glass. No more stuff designed merely to shock. We've
seen the truly shocking now and it's not a game. Get over the idea that art
must be ugly in order to be true. Most generations before us have had the
idea that truth was connected to beauty. We're hungry for some beauty now.
And can we stop being ironic? Can we just say what we mean, instead of saying
it backwards for the sake of sarcasm? Wouldn't it be refreshing if people
were just genuine?
This attitude adjustment is broad, but not deep. Let's go further. Can we do
a better job of protecting the innocence of children? It's tragic that even
7-year-old girls are trained to think of themselves as tempting. They deserve
better than this. Can we see their purity as something beautiful and
precious, and protect it?
At what age do we want girls to start reveling in their sexual power
anyway–eight, ten, thirteen? In truth, is it ever a good idea? Can we somehow
fight our way back to an idea of bonding based on respect and love rather
than the seesaw of sexual games? We've run this free-sex experiment for
thirty years, and the results are in: disease, abortion, women and children
in poverty. If it's not fun we can stop doing it. We can help our girls say
no to cheap sex, which ends up costing them so much. We can teach our boys to
say yes to the noble role of husband and father, and to take it on as an
honor.
Most seriously, I was troubled to realize that the number of victims on
Tuesday is not far off from the toll for abortion–the toll, that is, every
day. Even those of us who championed legalized abortion never foresaw this.
We pictured a few cases of extreme necessity. Instead it's a stream of tiny
bodies, thousands of them, every day of the week, month after month, for a
couple of dozen years now. You don't have to agree that a fetus is a full
human life to be disturbed at this. Suddenly, the loss of any life is tragic.
If we learned that the buffalo population, for example, was miscarrying every
fourth pregnancy, we'd launch an emergency drive to find out what in their
environment was causing such toxic stress. Why can't we do the same for women?
At this point we reach touchy topics, things on which Americans have
disagreed for a long time. Perhaps we can agree, though, that something has
been out of order, something has been sick, with the way things stand. We'd
gotten complacent about it; we'd even taken sneaky pleasure in things ugly
and sick because our safe lives were so boring. Maybe this sudden battering
will wake us, to lay aside old feuds and work together for the kind of
society our nation deserves–something healthy, loving, and fine. If so, we
can glean good in the midst of tragedy and crush our enemies' hopes. We can
say to them the words of Joseph: "As for you, you meant evil against me, but
God meant it for good."
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Frederica Mathewes-Green
www.frederica.com
