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| Tomorrow by Paul Emerson Marquart |
Every Tuesday
while we ‘re sojourning on the Mountain here in Sewanee, Tennessee, we go out
to St. Mary’s Convent for Morning Prayer and Eucharist, and this morning I was
glad to enter the convent chapel to meditate and pray after viewing scenes of
yesterday’s bombing at the site of the Boston Marathon. Like so many shocked
Americans, I was mesmerized by scenes that flashed on the television screen all
day. The scene that keeps replaying in my mind is that of first responders,
members of medical teams, and other “helping” groups rushing toward those
wounded, tearing down fences that had held back those who had come to view the
winners at the finish line to get to victims maimed in the blasts. Those
helpers ran forward without thinking about the possibility of encountering more
bombs that could have exploded and taken their lives. Their action was an
amazing show of courage and caring in the face of a horrifying act of terrorism --coincidentally,
or perhaps not so coincidentally, we read Psalm 31 at Morning Prayer, and I was
struck by the appropriateness of the verse: “Blessed be the Lord! For he has
shown me the wonders of his love in a besieged city…”
I also thought
about a comic strip that I frequently use in my sermons–Peanuts. The particular strip that came to mind was that in which
Lucy, accompanied by Linus, is pointing to an outline of a heart imprinted on a
fence. She says, “This, Linus, is a picture of the human heart.” And in the next
frame, she explains to vulnerable Linus, “One side is filled with hate, and the
other side is filled with love. These are the two forces, constantly at war
with each other.” Linus looks away from Lucy who is, of course, staring
intently at him, and says: “I think I know what you mean. I can feel them
fighting.”
Most of us today
are probably experiencing that same kind of battle going on within us, for how
else could we feel in the face of the killing field in Boston that flashed on our
television screens endlessly yesterday? I don’t think any of us could honestly
say that anger didn't well up in us as an initial reaction when we watched
people falling down in a street overshadowed by the smoke from two bombs. Most
of us harbored a lively hostility for the unknown perpetrator(s) who dared to
invade the city that could be called our birthplace of freedom.
I think that we
struggle daily with this dichotomy of Linus love/hate. But we go on. We go on
mostly because we’re a faithful people….and a loving people. After 9-11, I
remember President Bush quoting at a service in the National Cathedral in
Washington: “Adversity introduces us to ourselves. This is true of our nation
as well.” We were introduced to this notion that Americans are models for the
world immediately around us…and those in the world who are farthest from us. That
awful time taught us that we’re often observed, with great scrutiny, under
circumstances of acute distress and horror, to see how we’ll react. And what
those who looked at us yesterday saw was that with grace working in the hearts
of those “helpers,” evil was broken down and destroyed. I’m sure there were many
stories of generosity and goodness being lived out in Boston yesterday, and
some scribe should write them down so that other generations can read them and
be inspired.
Most of us who
are Christian believe in peace and in an inward and invisible grace we receive
at baptism. One writer has said that the grace that God gives us works like
salt–it preserves every grain of goodness it can find and heightens its flavor.
We have that salt because we have something called the theology of hope. And
although we often groan inwardly, we wait and work in hope. That wonderful
theology of hope stands against destruction, conflagrations, and the madness of
terrorism. Through our faith… hope… and God’s grace, we’re always being given a
transforming gift–something called the gift of love.
Anger is a human
and normal emotion and I think we have it, sometimes, to arouse us from deadly
lethargy. Psychologists remind us we have anger to protect ourselves, and yet
we’re called, if we are people of God, to move through that anger to arrive at
transforming love. A tall order, but those first responders yesterday certainly
gave us an authentic example of sacrificial love. Proverbs tells us: “Above all
else, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life.” And Teilhard de
Chardin wrote in a haiku: “At the heart of matter/a world heart/the heart of a
God.”
I sat in the
hushed chapel of the Sisters of St. Mary this morning and meditated on these quotes
from Proverbs and Teilhard de Chardin, especially praying for the helpers who
rushed forward in one great swell of caring, to help the victims of the Boston
massacre. What we witnessed moving through the smoke of a horrific crime in the
city streets of Boston were rescuers who had “guarded their hearts.”
Painting at beginning of blog is entitled “Tomorrow” by my brother Paul
Marquart.
1 comment:
very well said
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