Missiles Down; Packages Undelivered ...

He stands in a dusty field facing a barbed wire fence and he calls the name of his son out loud. Through his binoculars he can see people three kilometers away - a crowd of people facing him. They also look across the barbed wire, and they also call out the names of their sons. This is the scene at the border between Gaza and Israel. Jews and Palestinians, with packages in hand for their sons held in each others' prisons. The packages will go undelivered. These parents can see each other, and they wave to one another.

"I fell close to my son here," says one father. "Close in distance, but far away in time. It has been twelve hundred days and nights ..." The haunting sound across the barren landscape - echoing like the Muslim Athan, like the Christian Angelus, like the Jewish Shophar - each voice in its own way a call for peace, a yearning for their sons and daughters ... dare I suggest it... Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more ..."

President Barack Obama has made the call to the appropriate heads of state in the Czech Republic and Poland - The "Missile Defense System" is not going to happen. The news brings despair to some, delight to others. The Russians have won, but can they be trusted?

People peering across borders wondering if armies will invade. And nowadays the "army" can be mustered thousands of miles away and the attack delivered in a matter of minutes, seconds. But America's president wants to put the missiles down.

Perhaps the best way for "defense" to happen - our own and our neighbors - is for all of us to put the missiles down, and deliver the packages. This won't solve all the problems. We don't have to make sentimental pretensions that everything is just fine. We don't have to reduce the complexities of the world's problems, the people's suffering, the injustices heaped upon the poor into pious euphemisms. We can still do the hard work of diplomacy, tackle the political challenges of compromise, stand our moral ground.

But really, what good can possibly be compromised and how is national pride threatened by putting the missiles down and delivering the packages?

David Brooks on Humility ...

The remembrance in Poland of the first shots of World War II was in the news recently. All these years later people still have to come to grips with what "we" did or said, and some are more humble about it than others. How much of the past should we assume responsibility for? How much of our history is my history?

Columnist David Brooks wrote a wonderful article called "High Five Nation". After hearing an old radio broadcast he writes: On V-J Day, Frank Sinatra appeared, along with Marlene Dietrich, Jimmy Durante, Dinah Shore, Bette Davis, Lionel Barrymore, Cary Grant and many others. But the most striking feature of the show was its tone of self-effacement and humility. (Read the full column at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/opinion/15brooks.html?em). As one of the worst slaughters in human history came to its conclusion, with technology demonstrating its power in more gruesome ways than many had imagined possible, and racism expressed more hatefully than many would ever dared to have conceived, the sentiment of the "victor" is summed up, according to Brooks, by humility.

The talk shows are abuzz with the doings of Kanye West, the speech of Michael Jordan, the outburst of Joe Wilson, and Serena Williams losing it at the USA Open. Each of these situations may be specific people acting out what all of us would like to do, but something holds us back. Something checks us before we lose it, or before we say what is really on our mind.

I find myself in situations where my primary goal is to not do something I will have to apologize for later.

I know that sometimes it is easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission, but those are the times when we aren't really sorry for what we've done. That's different. But to be in a mindset where we are so convinced we are right that we toss sensibility to the wind, tread on people's character, threaten their physical safety, insinuate so as to destroy their reputation - that takes us beyond the "loss of civility". It takes us to the dissolution of democracy, to the brink of chaos, and to a place where all that is left is the shouting.

And then, there is President Jimmy Carter ... in his inimitable way offering a critique in a quiet voice, but with a prophetic spirit ... calling a spade a spade. Is it racism still running strong and deep within us that fuels much of the hateful rhetoric we are hearing? I think Carter's words are meant for all of us to hear.

Brooks assures us - This isn't the death of civilization. It's just the culture in which we live. He offers the glance back to that program, a day in which our greatest achievements were embraced with uncommon humility. He makes me think of another piece of my history - one that challenges me not to conform to the culture in which I live. Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but with sober judgment ... It says that pride and certainty can be inebriating, and invites me to live humbly, to love extravagantly. Some days it just seems easier to shout; but then ... there is the having to apologize later.

What We Fear ...

Here it is - one more time ... September 11. Today's NY Times has an article talking about all the things we feared would happen following the events of eight years ago. That New York would become a ghost town with soldiers in the streets and submarines in the harbor; that noone would want to live there; that people would never rent space in a sky scraper again.

In contrast to those fears, people are sitting under patio umbrellas enjoying Times Square. Security is enhanced, but the pedestrian traffic is higher in the Square now than before "9/11". And the Times article has an interesting title - Remembering A Future That Many Feared.

Those horrible days are almost overshadowed by other things ... well, in this country, by one other thing - health care reform. This week's Economist has an article called "The Politics of Death". The subtitle reads: Americans fear health reform because they fear the Reaper. The article then goes on to outline all the things people fear about "Obamacare" - death panels parceling out health care; impossible deficits; tax-payer funded abortions; life-saving treatments being denied.

With 15% of us being uninsured, most of us have health insurance. The 15% have the most to gain - potentially - from health care reform. The rest of us - most of whom have no idea what our insurance actually costs - we have something to lose. But here is the crux of the matter: No amount of health insurance would have made a difference to the 2,993 who died eight years ago today. Health care puts off the inevitable. But it does not lift the burden of our mortality.

Eight years ago today the world was reminded how fragile life is, how evil we can be, how generous many are - how frightened we can become. Sometimes we don't know what we fear until we face it. But if September 11 has taught us anything about human nature, it is this: We can live with sadness and grief, with tragic memories and crumbled dreams. We can live with the stress of economic uncertainty. We can push hard against our own mortality. We can learn to be more careful. But we can't live in fear.

There is a line from an ancient Christian Seer that is worth remembering: There is no fear in love. Eugene Peterson paraphrases the line: A fearful life - fear of death, fear of judgment - is one not yet fully formed in love. It is safe to say, I think, that we are not yet "fully formed" in love.

Maybe this is the work that must be done in this still young century - the work of alleviating fear - in our neighbors and in ourselves. Maybe today that's the best way to acknowledge and honor the memories swirling all about us. Face what we fear; deal with it; learn to love; and help others to do the same.

Laura Dekker Must Wait ...

The decision is in - 13 year old Laura Dekker will not be allowed to attempt her solo sail-around-the-world. So the Netherlands court has decided. She will be allowed to remain with her father, but a Social Services agency will be watching, pending another hearing in a couple of months.

There are several interesting ethical questions here. When is a person old enough to make decisions for her / himself? It depends on the nature of the decision ... but then, who has the authority to decide which decisions are "age-appropriate"? Is a parent in a better position to do that than a court?

In the case of Ms. Dekker, should the possible cost to society be included in the conversation? That is, should she embark on her quest to be the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe solo in a sailboat and run into trouble, needing to be rescued - is her father willing to bear the burden of the financial cost of the operation?

Along with the boundaries between adolescent pre-maturity and adult maturity (a nebulous boundary indeed), and the boundary between the authority of parents over against the courts in the life of a child, what about the boundary between adventure and foolishness? Where lies that line? Could Laura's project be put in the class of "Extreme Sport"?

As is often the case with ethical dilemmas, all the peripheral circumstances come to play to make this a most difficult situation. And, as is also true with dilemmas of this sort, there isn't a "right" answer. There is only "the best answer we can come up with for the moment".

Situations like this make me wonder: How many times do we make "right" or "wrong" judgments about circumstances that can only be given "the best we've got at the time"?

Two Challenging Situations ...

When Jesus gave the "keys of the kingdom of heaven" to Peter with the accompanying footnote that "whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven ...", it was an awesome moment. The text has various interpretations, one of which has to do with the very nature of the "authority of the church". With that interpretation in mind - that human beings are not always told what the right thing is to do, but that we have to decide - and assign - "rightness" to an action or decision, the news has given two opportunities in the past several weeks for serious ethical reflection.

The first is the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi by Scottish justice secretary, Kenny MacAskill. The second is the desire of a thirteen year old girl - Laura Dekker - from the Netherlands to circumnavigate the globe in a sailboat, solo.

Both of these situations are complicated by a number of significant factors in orbit around them - but that's what makes them so interesting. The possibilities of oil or compensation for vicitms' families that might accompany the release of the only person convicted in the bombing of Pan Am flight 303, and the fact of Laura's parent's divorce - Is she trying to win their admiration? - these are certainly important elements in the big picture of these issues.

In his book The Genesis of Ethics, Rabbi Burton L. Visotzky writes: "In communities that study together, their very conversation is a tool of moral development." Just talking about it makes a difference.

On the surface of it, in the first instance the conflict is between justice and mercy. In the second instance perhaps the conflict is between the individual and the community, and there is also some tension between immediate and long-term goals this young woman is setting for herself - is what she deems to be "good" for her today going to prove to be "good" for her in the long run?

Today we consider the first. In this week's The Economist, the point is made that any political concessions we might hope to gain from Libya from this act of mercy are already a reality - they no longer pursue nuclear weapons; they cooperate in the fight against al-Qaeda; they have "curtailed support for other terrorists". "Why make such a controversial concession for a prize that has already been won?" If allowing al-Megrahi the ability to die in his home surrounded by family and friends was intended to further these goals, it was misguided. If the motive was a more pure form of compassion, The Economist says: "It was misconceived."

Misconceived Mercy? If mercy is "conceived" with some alterior motive in mind, is it true mercy? Isn't the very nature of "mercy" that it is "misconceived" - that is, that it makes no sense in terms of the categories of justice? Isn't mercy simply a gift? Maybe that's what makes it so difficult to offer. As al-Megrahi was welcomed home he was treated more like a hero than a terrorist on the receiving end of compassion. Perhaps the mercy conferred upon him would be more palatable to the rest of us if he at least gave some indication that he was aware of what he had been given. But mercy is never a quid pro quo arrangement.

The real question here is not whether the Scottish justice secretary was "right" in granting al-Megrahi this "homecoming". The question is this: Do any of us have the "right" to confer mercy on another? According to the text from Matthew 16, the answer is "Yes". Now ... do we have the heart for it (or the stomach?) - that's another issue entirely.