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Senseless Acts

Sadly it seems, too many days the leading news is about some senseless act being committed against other people.  And sometimes, the senseless acts are against animals or, even, nature herself.  The kind of senseless acts, about which I am thinking, are the willful, intentional acts.  They are not the whoops---accidental kind.  I am not sure I have any answers, except the most general kind of answers that are not unique to me.  But I do have a need to lament.           

In the first place I need to be clear that what I consider a senseless act might very well be considered completely sensible by the perpetrator who commits these acts.  For example, I think of the terrorists who regularly make the news.  I don’t know whether I ever heard or used the word, terrorist, before 9-ll.  Perhaps, I did, but after that heinous act of bringing down the Twin Towers in New York City, the word, terrorist, become part of everyone’s lexicon.          

Unfortunately, Americans can recount too many other instances of terrorism.  The Boston Marathon incident is seared into the memory of most of us.  And of course, we should not think it happens only in this country to us.  Paris, France, is a more recent example of the kind of terroristic mayhem that kills and frightens a whole city, nation and world.  It leaves millions of people living more anxiously---more afraid.  Whatever the good life is, surely it is not a life lived in agitated fear.           

Less we take solace in some flimsy assumption that terrorism is some evil act wrought upon us by some foreign group, we need to include in the same terroristic category the school bombings and murders that happen, often, in some American backyard.  While these may not be politically driven in the same way that 9-ll was, terrorism does not have to have solely a political motivation. Whether I want to kill you for political reasons, religious reasons, or just because I am crazy does not matter to the bottom line---a death.           

So why rehearse all this in an inspirational reflection that is supposed to be spiritually uplifting?  The easy answer is because it is part of the real world in which each of us live.  Whatever else spiritual means, I contend it has to be realistic.  To be spiritual is not to live in some other world.  Until I am dead at least, to be spiritual is to be in this world.  As the early church father said, I might be “of another world,” but that does not take me out of this world.           

So when I ponder all the senseless acts, I have to begin with some recipe for change.  That seems so obvious, it is easy to overlook.  However, if we do not talk about the possibility of change, then we will have resigned ourselves to the world-as-it-is.  And we already know what the world-as-it-is has in store for us---more senseless acts.  Without some sense of the possibility for change, then the latest senseless act will simply be that---the latest.  It will be the latest, not the last.           

What does it mean to talk about change?  To talk about change is to begin the plan for hope.  Ultimately, I think there are only two possible ways to face the future: hope or hopeless (despair).  I opt for hope.  I don’t opt for hope based solely on what I know, because I don’t know any more than most Americans know.  I opt for hope because I am spiritual.  To be spiritual is to be hopeful.          

And I do think hope can be planned.  It is not like city planning, where you figure out where to build a street and then bring in the bulldozers.  Planning for hope will be much more opaque, general and diffuse.  Having said that, let me offer a couple examples that come straight from the biblical tradition---which means they have been around for a long time!  But I would contend that they still would work, if tried.           

The first plan for eradicating senseless acts is to work for justice.  There is no doubt; some of the terrorism in the world is driven by an outraged sense of injustice.  Here is where the first level of care needs to be exercised.  When some injustice is claimed, often someone else feels accused and, then, becomes defensive.  If you tell me that I am not fair, I tend to fire back, saying, “Yes I am!”             

Justice is needed at three levels: individual, group (and country) and global.  The one level that is the easiest to change, obviously, is the individual.  Do I live a just life?  Do I work for justice in my community and my country?  This can be the beginning point for all of us.           

The other plan for eradicating senseless acts is to love.  Again, that is so obvious as to be laughable.  But I would argue in every senseless act, there is a radical lack of love.  Senseless acts tend to be fueled by hate, not love.  Terrorism is never an act of love.  Death is the fruit of hate; life is love’s fruit.  So once more, we issue a call for all human beings---all seven billion---to learn and live love.  It is never too late. 
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