Today marks the fifth anniversary of an event that made our divergence from God's wishes was so undeniable. September 11 was a day when we witnessed the deaths of thousands, and reconsidered our world view. The mass destruction of life was followed by a beautiful exhibition of human kindness and compassion, but also resulted in further deaths, expressions of hatred, and at times hopelessness. I'm always struck by how humans and life are simultaneously the most ugly and beautiful things of all. Our capacity for love is so incredibly wonderful, while our tendency towards selfishness and ignorance is quite sickening at times. Everyone remembers how they learned about the events of 9/11, and how they reacted to them; that's just how impactful they were. Jess and I watched the images on CNN while we listened to choked voices on CBC as everyone came to grips with whatever was going on. We watched in class at school, and I watched friends tear up and feel a little bit less safe and invincible. My favourite teacher ever, Mr. Wallace, discussed with our class the ramifications of such an event. He speculated that Americans would respond perhaps melodramatically to the attacks, and the cause of the attacks would be misconstrued. We gasped as we saw people flinging themselves out of windows in unimaginable desperation, and observed people coming together in the face of extreme difficulty. The contrasts between the juxtaposed good and evil in the situation were so easy to make, and I experienced such a tumultuous mix of emotions on that day.
I felt so grateful to live in Canada, a nation where we rarely feel driven to act out of frustration in violence, and where we weren't vulnerable to attack because of our antagonistic foreign policy. I knew I was blessed to live on a continent where 2,996 deaths was shocking and horrific; in a continent like Africa, 3,000 children die every day just because of malaria. I thanked God for the fact that He loved each one of the victims of the attacks, and each one of the terrorists, and that I didn't need to feel spiteful towards either of these groups. This morning, I was watching CBC's coverage of Condoleezza Rice's visit to Gander, and was so heartened to hear the stories of those who took refuge in Canadians' homes after their planes were grounded; the generosity and warmth of Atlantic Canadians happifies me immensely. However, through the wonders of CBC television, my parents and I also watched a couple of specials relevant to this week's remembrance, and the benightedness and astuciousness with which the attacks were dealt with continues to appall me. I remain shocked by the audacity of Cheney and Bush in conversations they had with Richard Clarke, suggesting to him that they attack Iraq in responce to 9/11 simply because "it had more targets" than Afghanistan. Ultimately, the Bush team was forced to enact an "Afghanistan First" plan, waiting for a time when they'd be able to invade the more appealing scapegoat of Iraq.
For obvious reasons, I am disturbed by the 46,150 that have died thus far in a war that was ostensibly conducted because of Hussein's possession of numerous WMDs. 46,150 is a lot more than 2996, and it's a lot more than the number of innocents that Hussein would have killed. But what really gets me as we mark this moment in history today is the fact that September 11 was exploited as a rationalization to go to war when it's mainly a huge tragedy. When Nicole and I visited Ground Zero this summer, I found the manipulation game going on in front of the wreckage just as saddening as the sparse remains of the World Trade Centre itself. There were conspiracy theorists, politicians, photo-happy tourists, and proselytizing Christians all capitalizing on the fear, vulnerability, and awe generated by this site. Rather than contemplating what they were witnessing, these people were using the carcass of a misfortune to advance their own agendas. It reminded me of the soldiers casting lots for Jesus' clothing, and made me think of how we continue to exploit even in this time of prosperity and enlightenment. Corporations use defenceless workers in sweatshops and kill those who want to form unions. Parents place duct tape over their childrens' mouths to exemplify their beliefs. Countries recruit moneyless, ill-educated citizens to do their dirty work in other continents (I'll avoid referencing scenes from Michael Moore films). I pray, and hope, and strive for a world where we won't need to push our own agendas, a world where the helpless will be helped rather than used. In my cheesy idyllic world that probably sounds like its out of a beauty pageant contestant's answer to the interview segment following the swimsuit runway, we wouldn't need, or want, to go to war, and any differences we had would be resolved peacefully. Individuals wouldn't see an opportunity in others' pain, but would instead empathize and understand that pain themselves.
I realize that I am "using" this anniversary of September 11 to ponder my political and spiritual beliefs as they pertain to this event, but I find that it's nearly impossible not to. I feel quite strongly that one of the saddest things about 9/11 is that we commemorate it so willingly, and yet we so willingly ignore greater hardships that go on each and every day on this planet of ours. Life sucks, and not just a bit or just some of the time. Life sucks a lot. I don't really feel like skirting around this issue; life sucks because we suck. God loves us so dearly, but we messed things up big time, and we can't live as God intended us to live until we've passed from this place, and it's hard to be OK with that. It's awfully tempting to deny the suffering that surrounds us, and that we ourselves face, but it's a fact of life that can allow us to lean on God in dependency. God's the only real hope for us; if there were true, lasting hope in democracy, capitalism, communism, war, technology, or the accumulation of knowledge, things would be much different. I'm pretty certain that this blog entry has devolved to a completely juvenile and meanigless level, so I'll leave it at that for my after-school thoughts on this anniversary. When I think about most things for a long period of time, I usually end up coming to the conclusion that people are rather abominable and awful, and that God is transcendentally wise and good, which is ultimately true but also pretty simplistic. I'm sure I'll think of more things to discuss after watching a few more CBC documentaries, but I'll talk about those with God or my family perhaps and not subject blog readers to any more nonsense.
As for slightly less depressing things in my life, I'm back at the books and quite delighted with this semester so far. My courses are decent, campus remains as strange and fun as ever, and Rutherford continues to be the source of many discoveries and time-wasters. As I was walking home with a bunch of heavy-ish textbooks last week, I considered how light the summer months are, not in a Newtonian gravitational sense of course. Those fluffy white seeds floated past my head, sunlight weaved through swaying branches above me, and I wore only a t-shirt, some jeans, and sandals. Everything can be completed with such ease in the summer; I can easily walk anywhere I need to go (unless it's my grandparents' houses) without swathing myself in layers of winter clothing, and the lack of forced reading allows me to ponder and peruse whatever I fancy. I listen to songs about cocoons and ocean waves, and imagine flying through clouds and having Rapunzel-length hair. My greatest concerns over the summer months were whether or not I would able to board a plane on my own and if I should go to a Jason Collett or James Keelaghan concert. I watched a few completely infantile films, read inane novels, and acted like a lunatic a great deal of the time, which made for lots of fun times and good memories. However, fall brings with it a weight that I hope to savour just as much as I enjoy the laid back moments of summer. Learning, while stressful at times, is tremendously rewarding, and makes me feel nurtured and satisfied in some strange academic way. I love, love, love crunching fallen leaves on walks around the neighbourhood, and there's nothing quite as fun as jumping into piles of leaves or dressing up at Halloween (that kind of rhymed, just so you know). Courses bring along assignments and midterms, but knowing a bit more about God and His creation makes me feel a smidge closer to Him, and as though I have a slightly more intimate relationship with the things and people around me. Now that my family's all home from vacations, missions, etcetera, and we're more or less in our school year rhythm, which is comforting in a familiar kind of way. I was listening to The Byrds' take on the Scripture passage about seasons (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8), and it just rings so true at this time of year when there are so many transitions and new experiences/people to be welcomed. Life is not static, and its dynamic nature is to be embraced. If summer lasted another couple of months, I might get bored of lazing around, and if school lasted another couple of months, I might die. Change, I must admit, is good. It pushes me to mature, and challenges me to discard pieces of myself that aren't glorifying to God. I'm just glad I have some cool people around me to talk through, enjoy, and make the most of the ebbing and flowing journey that we're all on. Thanks guys.
Reasons Why I Don't Need to Date and I Shouldn't Be "Set-Up" with Boys
- I am extremely, super, enormously happy and content and satisfied
- my life is quite rich and blessed as it is (thanks God)
- Albertan Christian boys are generally very different from me and like very different things
- I don't feel lonely (at all)
- my relationship with God is waaaaay more important than a relationship with a boy (infinitely so)
- I love a lot of things/people, and I'm not ready to sacrifice my enjoyment of them for another person
- it's true that there are a lot of incredibly smart, well-tasted, tight-pants wearing boys, but they're pretty much all non-Christians
- I don't hear God calling me to go out and date someone right now
- relationships apparently take things called time and energy
- I am extremely, super, enormously happy and content and satisfied
Artists I've Enjoyed Recently
- Red House Painters
- Tiger Saw
- Jeff Hanson
- Kevin Devine
- East River Pipe
- Bishop Allen
- Morning Recordings
- Six Organs of Admittance
- The Devil Makes Three
- Kelley Stoltz
Things I'll Miss About Summer
- eating ice cream outside
- river valley sunrise walks
- New York
- napping on the lawn
- not sleeping ever ever ever
- festivals and football
- a complete lack of stress
- winning races in City Hall pools
- being a full-time gangsta (it's just PT now, sadly)
- realizing that I don't like hipsters very much at all
- watching a zillion movies
- accidentally stealing Crystal's things
- plotting pranks but never enacting them
- riding the LRT
- airplane stewardesses
- wearing PJs outside
- eating brownies for supper
- using Darwin until he ran out of batteries
- lazing around and having fun while doing nothing
- good talks with friends and family (hopefully these will continue!)
Turn! Turn! Turn!
To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep
To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven
A time to build up,a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together
To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven
A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing
To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time to love, a time to hate
A time for peace, I swear its not too late
P.S. The last picture is of this really neat insect I discovered while walking back from school last week. It looks like a dull-coloured grasshopper while sitting around, but when it flies it turns into what looks exactly like a black butterfly with gorgeous white stripes. It just made me think of our capacity to change, and to be both beautiful and ugly at the same time (note blog title...). It also challenged me to look for the good when I see ugly, because there's always some good in everyone, even the terrorists who took down the World Trade Centre. I had to run around trying to get the insect to stay still to get the photo, and unfortunately no matter how many times I scared it into flying around, I couldn't get a good picture of how it looked in flight. I'll leave it to your imagination to see how lovely it looked.
9 comments:
So... I got a comment from someone who cleary disagrees with me (shocker, I know; I disagree with some Americans!), but there was some language in it that I didn't really want in my blog, so here's what they said with some Cait-censorship put in (very un-NDP-like, I realize!).
Expletive stay the expletive in Canada. To think that there are fine, brave Canadians such as the men of the Princess Pats protecting your expletive is beyond understanding.
"There is some good in terrorists"? Sure, now go try and sell that bullshit to the people they slaughtered.
So, do you pay the jihadist so he will behead you last, or do you send him a cheque?
Great Post Cait; but with that said I do so very strongly disagree with one point.
You mentioned: I knew I was blessed to live on a continent where 2,996 deaths was shocking and horrific; in a continent like Africa, 3,000 children die every day just because of malaria.
I don't that this is a good thing at all. I had to take a taxi on the 11th [yesterday], and I got talking to my cab driver who was from africa. He mentioned how the lives of him, his family, and his countrymen are not as valued as the lives here in North America. I don't see mass amounts of Americans [Canadians included] caring enough to do anything for the continent of Africa. Sure there are a few people here, and a few people there; but on the by and large we care more that two-thousand nine-hundred and ninety-six people died on September 11th. Whereas in one year 2 million Africans died of AIDs. This left 12 million orphaned children behind. That is over 650% times as many deaths!
So I do so very well think that our western culture needs to re-evaluate our value system; because I am going to break it to you, we are not any more important than Africans .
God Bless!
Andrew.
Alright, I'm endeavouring to respond to these comments between classes, so hopefully this will suffice.
To my first commenter, who is seemingly an American who thinks I'm slightly out of my mind, I've already laid down most of the reasons that I would beg to differ with your idea that North Americans need to keep themselves safe from jihadists by killing people in other countries. I don't generally believe in war as a solution to international conflicts. I can see the rationale behind World War II, and even Canada's involvement in Afghanistan, but pretending that Iraq was invaded for the purpose of fighting terrorism is absolutely laughable. I really don't have time to elaborate on the vast volume of evidence suggesting that the States went into Iraq for selfish motives, but it exists, and I'd invite you to read some of Gwynne Dyer's writing, perhaps Future: Tense: The Coming World Order?. Dyer, a journalist, writes a frank account of events that led up to the Iraq war, and examines the American government's thirst for war.
As for my statement that there is some good in terrorists, I sincerely believe that. To view the world as black and white, good and evil, strikes me as horribly simplistic and errant. It may be easy, and tempting, to consider terrorists as purely evil, but they care about a certain group of people quite passionately, so much so that they're willing to die for their cause (please refrain from making sarcastic comments about them receiving X-number of virgins when they die; I find these statements tedious). I'm assuming that my commenter, Chris I believe his name is, is not a Christian, but as a Christian myself, I firmly believe that God loves terrorists. He loves them just as much as He loves George Bush, Mother Teresa, and Jack Layton; this is a Biblical truth. The fact that the Bush administration would have its military kill people in God's name for concealed reasons disconcerts me greatly. It's a massive tragedy that people were, and continue to be, killed in acts of terrorism. That doesn't always justify the murder of thousands more; in fact, it seems absurd that an eye for an eye policy would be enacted against a nation that had no substantial connections to September 11. What's more, Bush's argument that Iraq was harbouring WMDs has now turned out to be entirely ludicrous. Thus, I continue to oppose the idea of the war in Iraq, and am disturbed by the casualties that continue to mount in that country.
Finally, I do not bribe jihadists to not kill me. I don't see that they have a particularly strong desire to kill me, since Canada has rarely come under attack from terrorists. There was a plot this summer that was discovered, involving such horrors as beheading my dear Stephen Harper, but we dealt with this through peaceful means. We did not go to war with anyone, and yet we managed to keep these terrorists from carrying out malevolent plans. I won't go so far as to say that it is solely American foreign policy that has resulted in its problems with terrorists, but I do not see that its foreign policy has really helped in any way, shape, or form. I cannot recall any beheadings in the recent past in North America, so I am not really fearful that I will be beheaded anytime soon. The possibility that I will die in a car crash is incredibly more likely than the chance that I will even be injured in a terrorist attack, and I don't see this changing that much anytime soon. I'd like to write more, but I really don't have time to (class awaits!). Feel free to bring up more points, but please limit the profanity; it makes your argument a bit less credible, and it's harder to take it seriously.
Cait
P.S. Thanks Allan for the heads up!
P.P.S. I totally agree Andrew! I used the numbers of children who die of malaria daily because it's essentially the same number (difference of 4), but there are way more deaths that happen on a daily basis. Every day on that continent, people die of AIDs, starvation, and civil war; far more than died in the events of September 11, 2001. Not that this takes away from the monstrosity of what happened; it just makes our effective denial of problems in other parts of the world particularly incomprehensible.
Oooh, I also forgot to mention the Princess Pats. They're mostly based in my city, and I fully respect the job that they do. A family that's a friend of my family's from our old church was a military family, and the girls' dad was in Afghanistan for a great chunk of the time that we went to church together. I saw how incredibly hard it was for the girls without their dad, and how much it scared their mom to not know what the next day would bring for her husband. I fully respect the help that he was bringing to Afghanis, and the Canadian Forces' presence there. As I said, I don't have a problem with Canadians helping the new government in that country. It was not a war that I felt was initiated for inadequate reasons. The Princess Pats are not in Iraq; our government did not want to send our soldiers into such a war. There may be some soldiers (or many; I'm not sure what the stats are) who wish we went into Iraq, but we didn't send them there, so I don't fee that that's really an issue. And as aforementioned, I do not feel especially vulnerable to a terrorist attack. At all.
As a very seldom blog reader, and a much more seldom blog commenter, I hope I am shocking you with this wee note. That's right cait, I read the entire book of a blog!! Seriously, I deserve a reward, perhaps a gold star or something for my amazing concentration abilities.The purpose of this comment, however, is unfortunately not to assert my greatness, perhaps I will dedicate one of my own blogs for that. Anyhoo, I just had to comment on the reason's not to date section. Seriously cait, that part made me laugh out loud (no pun intended). It reminded me of our numerous discussions about that sort of thing and how so many christians become preoccupied with dating and marriage. It's creepy really how much pressure there is for us to hurry up and settle down. I mean really, there is absolutely nothing wrong or unhealthy about being single, and people who are single can live insanely full and happy healthy lives too! Really this is one of the aspects in which I prefer non-christians enormously a lot of the time, they aren't half as stupid about it.
I agree with you and andrew about Africa. It really is sickening how we as a society seem to largely ignore the preventable suffering and deaths that occur there daily and pay such rapt attention to smaller scale sufferings such as 9/11. I of course do not mean that 9/11 was not a big deal (so if a certain chris is reading, please do not begin adamantly cursing in my direction), I just think it is smaller scale in comparison. In my history course, we are learning about the emergence of the Atlantic world, which is largely tied to Africa, mostly in that we stole slaves from there. So far, we've learned that Africa was actually doing quite well in the 1400's. It wasn't all hunter gathering societies as you might expect. Many of the kingdoms were incredibly wealthy for back then, and created urban farming communities, some of which were quite large. It's just been a bit weird to think of Africa as a place that was doing well, that was wealthy and in some areas, quite powerful, when today quite a different view of africa comes to mind. I think of aids, starvation, malnutrition, and warfare, its quite a change. Really the fact that things can change this much for the worse is quite disheartening. The anniversary of 9/11 is a memory of a tragic day, but it seems to me that life is simply full of constant tragedies,its just that some of them we pay less attention to than others.
I can't really remember where I wanted to go with this, but I feel as though I've written a blog on your blog...I hope you don't mind!
-Crystal
Consider me a dating gal that agrees with the notion that singleness is not a curse or a disease or a state of misfortune.
peace
If you like the Red House Painters, you should check out some albums by the lead singer, both solo and under the band name Sun Kil Moon. He does a whole disk of acoustic AC/DC tracks that are just beautiful (seriously!!). Blackbyrd on whyte usually has them in stock so you can listen to them before deciding.
Oops. His name (singer for RHP) is Mark Kozelek....I guess that would help, eh?
Thanks for the music info; I LOVE Sun Kil Moon, and somehow totally missed that it's the same singer as in Red House Painters (although listening again, it's blatantly obvious). I'll definitely look up Kozelek at Blackbyrd; his voice is so incredibly gorgeous. My favourite intro to a song EVER is Sun Kil Moon's "Last Tide" (such a delectable song). Thank goodness there's more of his voice to snap up!
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