Osama 1.
Years ago I walked up to the Carmelite monastery door in Carmel, California with endless reverence for St. Theresa, their founder, and a burning question for the sister who opened to me - - what was the difference, I asked, between the paranoid schizophrenic who slapped me semi conscious for telling him his view of the world was not entirely true, and St. Theresa? They both had visions... they both believed God was their inspiration...
Without a nanosecond of hesitation she responded, "The love of God and man."
When the media ran tapes of Osama bin Laden immediately after 9/11, I was puzzled. This man, who, we were told, spends his mornings communing with his deity; whose face sometimes seems animated with a spiritual glow; who radiated loving care when bending his tall frame toward some child; who even when demonstrating the use of a machine gun did not look like a man animated by hatred or revenge, how could this man be the instigator of the murder of more than three thousand people of all nations and innocent of any intent to harm him or his? He looked nothing at all, as a matter of fact, like the fruit of his endeavors, the 9/11 terrorist he had personally chosen whose spiritually dead face sent chills up and down the spine of the border guard admitting him.
Come to think of it, he looks nothing at all like Mother Teresa either. I can easily imagine her, with that sad, careworn face and downcast eyes as a woman in whose heart of hearts there was a struggle - an anger against the rest of the world's callousness about the cost of war, the plight of the poorest of the poor, an anger over which she would never completely triumph - an anger she refused to express, substituting acts of love and kindness, words of understanding, even to the richest of the rich, as they came to get their trophy snapshots beside her.
The truth is, that in front of the camera, Osama, a man whose life has been dedicated to inspiring hundreds of thousands of his fellow Islamists to sacrifice their lives in acts of hatred and revenge looks more compassionate than Mother Teresa, the woman who picked up the dying on the streets of Calcutta and refused to leave a hospital until they were cared for, whose life and example bridged an impossible gap - inspiring Brahamans to minister to untouchables.
Both have had broad influence in the world, both have been deeply embedded in the teachings and traditions of their religious traditions as well as faithful to their individual religious inspiration. So what's the difference? One of them cherishes and worked to preserve every single individual the creator ever called forth to life, the other despises the lives of adherents and strangers alike, forfeiting them all, indiscriminately, to the service of hatred and revenge.
The sisters words help me now, clearly the difference is love...
Years ago I walked up to the Carmelite monastery door in Carmel, California with endless reverence for St. Theresa, their founder, and a burning question for the sister who opened to me - - what was the difference, I asked, between the paranoid schizophrenic who slapped me semi conscious for telling him his view of the world was not entirely true, and St. Theresa? They both had visions... they both believed God was their inspiration...
Without a nanosecond of hesitation she responded, "The love of God and man."
When the media ran tapes of Osama bin Laden immediately after 9/11, I was puzzled. This man, who, we were told, spends his mornings communing with his deity; whose face sometimes seems animated with a spiritual glow; who radiated loving care when bending his tall frame toward some child; who even when demonstrating the use of a machine gun did not look like a man animated by hatred or revenge, how could this man be the instigator of the murder of more than three thousand people of all nations and innocent of any intent to harm him or his? He looked nothing at all, as a matter of fact, like the fruit of his endeavors, the 9/11 terrorist he had personally chosen whose spiritually dead face sent chills up and down the spine of the border guard admitting him.
Come to think of it, he looks nothing at all like Mother Teresa either. I can easily imagine her, with that sad, careworn face and downcast eyes as a woman in whose heart of hearts there was a struggle - an anger against the rest of the world's callousness about the cost of war, the plight of the poorest of the poor, an anger over which she would never completely triumph - an anger she refused to express, substituting acts of love and kindness, words of understanding, even to the richest of the rich, as they came to get their trophy snapshots beside her.
The truth is, that in front of the camera, Osama, a man whose life has been dedicated to inspiring hundreds of thousands of his fellow Islamists to sacrifice their lives in acts of hatred and revenge looks more compassionate than Mother Teresa, the woman who picked up the dying on the streets of Calcutta and refused to leave a hospital until they were cared for, whose life and example bridged an impossible gap - inspiring Brahamans to minister to untouchables.
Both have had broad influence in the world, both have been deeply embedded in the teachings and traditions of their religious traditions as well as faithful to their individual religious inspiration. So what's the difference? One of them cherishes and worked to preserve every single individual the creator ever called forth to life, the other despises the lives of adherents and strangers alike, forfeiting them all, indiscriminately, to the service of hatred and revenge.
The sisters words help me now, clearly the difference is love...
posted by Peggy | 7:59 PM
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