Awaking to horror – and a new way to see ourselves?
by Edmond L. Browning

The roller coaster of emotions I have ridden since the September 11 bombing of the World Trade Center is, I am sure, a close cousin of the one everyone else is on. Like everyone else, I find myself waking up at night for no reason, unable to concentrate sometimes. I have wept. I awaken in the morning to the sound of birds singing and the feel of fresh air, to the smell of pine, to the sight of majestic Mt. Hood, and I feel the blessing of being here in our beautiful state of Oregon. And then I remember what has happened and it hollows out my stomach, as it has every morning, and I reach out and touch Patti lightly, so I won’t wake her. She is still there. Thank God.

All this beauty. In the years since retirement, I have never regretted moving out here. Who could? It’s wonderful. But, since the bombing, I have longed to be in New York, with New Yorkers. I miss my colleagues always, but never more than now. I miss the city’s life in so many ways – nothing momentous, just the way it feels walking on the sidewalks, the energy, the mosaic of people, the enormity of it. I think of it all the time these days and its memory is precious. I had forgotten, I guess, how much I love the place. Who would have thought that the destruction of tall buildings would break our hearts? But it does.

When I am not feeling these things, with the heightened awareness of how sweet ordinary life is that we all seem to have these days, I am thinking ahead. Thinking ahead, and looking into the past as well. I remember the beginning of the Second World War very well. The sinking feeling, the hollowed-out stomach – we all felt those things, too, just like now. I remember the internment of the Japanese. I remember how sensible it seemed to people at the time, how prudent. I was young: I thought it was unfair, but I know that my elders thought I was idealistic and naive.

Our family spent many years in the Far East.Two of our children were born in Okinawa. We travelled throughout the world a great deal. Parents and children, we learned a lot. One of the things we learned, though, was that, in many places, America and Americans are perceived very differently from the way we perceive ourselves. This could be a painful thing, and it made a deep impression. I remember a time when we had returned to the U.S. and one of our sons didn’t want to go to school. "Why not?" we asked. He was crying. "The other kids’ll be mean to us because we’re Japanese." I should mention that this boy had the blondest hair and the bluest eyes you were likely to find in a human being. But he knew enough about the strength of prejudice, and had heard enough fearful things about life in an America of which he had no memory, that his Asian cultural heritage seemed to him a huge divide between him and his future schoolmates. He felt it must somehow show, that they would somehow know him, not as one of them, but as an Other.

I reminded Peter, our fourth son, of this moment just the other day, when he called me from his parish in Los Angeles. This parish has a day school attached to it and he has been spending a fair amount of time ministering to the children there. One child from a Muslim Indian family came up to him in tears. "Are they going to put me in a camp?" he asked in a terrified whisper. It is these memories, mixed with these current events, that continue to bring tears to my eyes. It is how little we have learned over the decades, how little we learn from our mistakes, how pervasive bigotry is and how easily fear brings it out. As Presiding Bishop, I spent a great deal of time in Palestine and became close to the situation there. So did Patti, and we have remained close to it since I left office. Our hearts break every time an act of violence is reported, every time the U.S. misses a chance to show an even-handed regard for the legitimate concerns of both parties with a claim to the land we call Holy. As preparations mount for war, I mourn the missed opportunities for peace. We have let too many of them slip by.

But there are still things we could do in the Middle East to bring healing. Humanitarian aid always costs less than cruise missiles. We could drop the failed boycott of Iraq and "bomb" Afghanistan – with food, medical supplies. We could assist Pakistan at its borders, supplying money for the care of refugees that Pakistan’s economy cannot supply. We could return to the bargaining table with the Israelis and the Palestinians with a more realistic vision of what is possible there, and stop being party to the death and destruction caused by the current Israeli version of Manifest Destiny.

Before September 11, I feared that our country was moving into the same isolationism that I remember before the Second World War. Is it really the case that the only thing we can work with Muslim nations on is the declaration of war on another Muslim nation? What about taking some notice of their reality before thousands die in another terrible event?

Make no mistake: The people who ploughed fully-fueled airplanes into two buildings full of innocent people committed a moral atrocity. They will answer for it before the judgment of God, and so will those who encouraged and supported them. But it may be that this horror will provide for us a new way to see ourselves, as citizens of the world rather than as a class apart.

Edmond L. Browning served as Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, headquartered in New York, from 1986 through 1997. He now lives in Hood River, Ore.