In the picture I was receiving a copy of the book about ground zero from my fire chief when I was chaplain in Whitman. I became a fire chaplain when I was rector at All Saints in Whitman and had the honor of going to ground zero the first week of October in 2001 to work with the FDNY. I stood with family members of missing fire fighters in the middle of the rubble at ground zero trying to help them find closure and a chance to say goodbye. I remember thinking that you could not be there without recognizing that evil exists in the world. At the same time I was living in a free hotel in midtown Manhattan and I was surrounded by emergency response personnel from all over the United States, even Alaska. It was clear by the spirit of giving exhibited by the response teams that you also could not miss the existence of good in the world. We live in that dual arena all the time, but moments like 9/11 and the murderous events at Ft. Hood last week make us ever more aware. For centuries many thought that humanity can perfect itself, that it only a matter of time before human society shows that humanity is truly good. Secular humanism is that religion which believes we do not need a God to become a perfected society, but during those same generations we had the Holocaust, 9/11 and other evidence that evil is present as well. Part of life is to figure out how we explain and deal with the realities we see, and the experiences we live. You see the battle between good and evil is both global and personal is it not?
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Good and Evil
In the picture I was receiving a copy of the book about ground zero from my fire chief when I was chaplain in Whitman. I became a fire chaplain when I was rector at All Saints in Whitman and had the honor of going to ground zero the first week of October in 2001 to work with the FDNY. I stood with family members of missing fire fighters in the middle of the rubble at ground zero trying to help them find closure and a chance to say goodbye. I remember thinking that you could not be there without recognizing that evil exists in the world. At the same time I was living in a free hotel in midtown Manhattan and I was surrounded by emergency response personnel from all over the United States, even Alaska. It was clear by the spirit of giving exhibited by the response teams that you also could not miss the existence of good in the world. We live in that dual arena all the time, but moments like 9/11 and the murderous events at Ft. Hood last week make us ever more aware. For centuries many thought that humanity can perfect itself, that it only a matter of time before human society shows that humanity is truly good. Secular humanism is that religion which believes we do not need a God to become a perfected society, but during those same generations we had the Holocaust, 9/11 and other evidence that evil is present as well. Part of life is to figure out how we explain and deal with the realities we see, and the experiences we live. You see the battle between good and evil is both global and personal is it not?
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