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The War Within: Renewing America's Soul By Barbara Elliott Everything changed September 11. Jetliners, airborne Molotov cocktails, rendered to infernos the towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, in a cunning jiujitsu of our own powerful technology turned against us. The unspeakable anguish of office workers leaping from windows to plummet from one certain death to another, trapped victims with hair and clothes flaming, others gasping for oxygen as the hellfire around them sucked it from their lungs, and the sickening implosion that crushed thousands beyond recognition - these images have seared our souls. All Americans will now reckon time before and after this day of infamy. There was a loss of innocence that day. Our fortunate geography and the long absence of foreign wars on this soil had lulled us into feeling safe. Our wealth made us feel comfortable. No longer. But these horrors have also strengthened our resolve. Heroic firefighters rushing into the flames, a priest blessing the wounded until he too died, rescue workers scaling the Everest of wreckage, and hardy volunteers tearing the shirts off their backs to fashion makeshift masks and offering their veins to give their blood. Passengers on another hijacked plane facing their death valiantly, wresting the controls to save lives beyond their own. These acts of courage demonstrate the mettle of the American soul. In the face of this brazen evil, we were stunned into near wordlessness. "Oh, God" was all many could utter. These were words we had not heard on the lips of the nation for a long time, except as blasphemy, but now it was a prayer. And in a remarkable sea change, secular news programs were having serious discussions on the will of God. The Presidential call for a day of prayer spoke to an avalanche of people desperately sliding into fear and despair, who came to cling to the Rock. Something happened in the smoke and seared flesh that ripped through the complacency of normality. The explosion of the towers registered as a seismic disturbance across all of America. The aftershocks registered worldwide. For a jagged moment, thinking people looked at the fragility of a human life and remembered that their time, too, is fleeting. How do you live, if your life may end next Tuesday? The will of the nation has now been galvanized to wage what Augustine termed a "just war," although none of us knows how it will play out on the stage of history. Its consequences will certainly change the political realm, our civil liberties, and our economy. All these will result from waging the war on terrorism - the external war. But there is another war being waged as well, equally as important: the war within. This will determine our character as a nation. It will define our strength by our virtue. It will be lived out in our compassion and our self-control, or the lack thereof. It will demonstrate the fruits of our spirit, or our barrenness. These results will be produced by our prayer and our faith. Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Vaclav Havel wrote about the inner life of the subjects of communism, as they faced a different kind of terror. They claimed that there are not merely good and evil people, but that the dividing line runs through each person. The capacity for great good and great evil is in each person, and we determine day by day who we are in our thoughts and in our deeds, in what we do, and in what we do not do. Just as those who freed themselves from communism's terror did so first with a spiritual and moral revolution, we will participate in this showdown with terrorism by defining our own soul, as a nation. We are engaged in a battle on two fronts. The moral and spiritual battle of the invisible realm will affect that of the visible one. We are fighting a war without, and a war within. We are in a defining moment for the soul of America. How we respond now will determine whether we have the character for greatness, the fortitude to persevere, the diligence to work, the willingness to sacrifice comfort, the generosity to care for those in need, the piety to turn to God. Pietas, labor, fatum - these are the old high Roman virtues that once defined what it was to be civilized. It has been a long time since we have embraced virtue
as the highest good in America. Freedom, yes. Democracy, perhaps. But
not virtue. Our founders knew very well that our ability to survive
as a nation depended on the virtue of America's citizens. John Adams
wrote, "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious
people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
He went on to say, as did Lord Acton in similar words, "Freedom
is the power to do what one 'ought' to do." These thinkers understood
that freedom does not mean we can do whatever we want. It means we are
free to do what we ought, which necessitates moral differentiation.
Alexis de Tocqueville observed, "No free communities ever existed
without morals." We are now sending our nation's husbands and sons into war, and are asking them to be willing to give their lives. But can we articulate as a nation what it is they are defending? Unless we can, their bravery and their losses will be in vain. We have a remarkable heritage historically, culturally, morally, and spiritually. A vast organic order has grown over the past three thousand years, of which we are the fortunate heirs. As Russell Kirk teaches us in The Roots of American Order, we learned the order of the soul from the ancient Hebrews. From Athens and the ancient Greeks, we learned the order of the mind. From the ancient Romans, the order of the polity. From Jerusalem, we were given the hope of salvation. From the British, we inherited constitutional order and property rights. A marvelous growth of incremental and cumulative wisdom has been handed down over the years. These expressions of ordered liberty had a particular flowering as they were planted in American soil. And we have enjoyed all these fruits over the years since. But in recent times we have not attended to our tree of liberty. The fruits have been consumed, the branches broken, the roots parched and neglected. Only if we return to these roots, drawing nourishment from transcendent order, can we flourish as a nation. Something was still smoldering, deep in the American soul, which was re-ignited by the fiery explosions of September 11. Some of the resilient embers of civic engagement and greatness that Tocqueville had admired were lit again, igniting generosity and initiative to serve those suffering. The explosion and the hijackings called forth heroism to sacrifice one's own life for others. The fissure lines through our unity were galvanized. Ashes covered our faces, and we were no longer black or white or brown, but one gray. We prayed together in grief, and we were no longer competing denominations or faiths, but one people, crying out to God in a wail of incomprehension. Our political representatives stood shoulder to shoulder before the capitol, joining hands over their party divisions, and sang "God bless America" with one voice. Suddenly, we became one nation again. We have suffered an unspeakable act of cruelty and barbarism. It is worse than a tragedy - it is brazen and malicious evil of the most outrageous sort. We may never have a sufficient answer to the question "why," this side of eternity. The depth of evil is an impenetrable mystery. But what our enemies intended for evil may be turned to good. While we were not able to control the events of September 11, we can definitely decide how we respond. We have been given a great opportunity, both as individuals, and as a nation. We have an opportunity to turn to God, and seek his wisdom, and his forgiveness. What happens to the souls of the perpetrators is between them and God, and he will judge righteously. I am not suggesting that America brought this evil on herself. Nor am I questioning whether there should be military actions to defend the nation. I believe this is a just war, if unwanted: one of the first duties of the state is to protect its citizens from aggression. This is the external war, and we must win it decisively. We live in the City of Man and the City of God, and we are responsible for our actions in both. I am suggesting that an important part of our response as individuals, however, must be a settling of accounts in our own personal relationship with God. This is the war within, and it must be won as well, although with different means. We are responsible for the content of our soul. None of us is without culpability. We can turn to the same God we have ejected from our schools, whose commandments we have taken down from the walls of our courthouses, whose mention in the public square we had all but prohibited--the same God we have turned our back on in private. We can turn to the same God whose name is scarcely mentioned in our entertainment, or in our homes, except as sacrilege. We can turn to the author of young souls who never drew a first breath. We can turn to the same God whose laws to keep us from harm we have blatantly ignored. Suddenly the name of God is on the lips of believers and non-believers alike. And we are all in need. He is waiting patiently, like the father he is, hands outstretched to his prodigal sons and daughters. If we are serious about having a conversation with him, or better yet, a relationship, we had better get on with it. If we knew we had until next Tuesday to live, how would we live differently? What really matters? With whom will we spend time? If we have broken relationships around us, will we make amends? If there are things we intended to do, will we do them now? If our faith is lukewarm, will we seek the fire? If we have ignored a call on our heart to turn to God, who knows how many more opportunities we may have? We have an opportunity now, and how we respond to it matters very much, for us as individuals and as a culture. We are at war - the war within, and the war without. The real mettle of American character will be tested sorely in this protracted conflict. Do we have the fortitude and character to seek the deep transcendent truths? Or will we bounce back up to the superficiality that burbles in our popular culture? Are we willing to affirm our identity as "one nation under God"? Do we have the depth of spiritual conviction to remain in sustained, fervent prayer? Do we know what is worth dying for, and what is worth living for? The answers to these questions may well define our future as a nation, and our souls for all eternity. Barbara J. Elliott is the founder of the Center for Renewal in Houston, Texas. |
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