What to Do When Our Values Aren’t Working for Us!

“Blue skies up above, everyone’s in love…..”  These idyllic words from the light jazz song “Up a Lazy River” seems to be the antithesis of what is the reality for Americans when the date 9/11 arrives on the calendar.   9/11/01 – Hatred raises its ugly head in the heinous atrocity at the World Trade Center.  9/11/12 – Hatred leaves four Americans dead at the American Embassy in Libya and diplomats under siege in Cairo!  There were blues skies up above and not everyone was in love.  And one major catalyst for the loveless tragedies of 9/11/12 is our American values.  We hold as a beacon for all to see our “freedom of speech and assembly!” - even for American-Israeli nuts who use the internet for broadcasting  a hate filled - religion degrading film that could be construed as attack on the faith of a significant faith group in the world.  If the reaction to the gone viral film vignette were not such a tragedy some Americans might possibly say:  “I don’t agree with his opinion but he has a right to say it!  That’s freedom of speech!  That’s what democracy is all about! “  And then we have democracy Arab Spring style.  We sympathize with “those longing to be free” until we realize that those whom we expected to govern rather turn out to be those that we did not expect to govern.  And what is even more disquieting is that some zealous nuts – a miniscule minority – feel  their right to free speech and assembly  includes climbing walls, burning flags, and killing good people.  Freedom of speech, the internet, a nut and a group of nuts – that’s a formula for disaster.

What do we do when our values aren’t working for us?  What do we do when democracy rears its head in the ugliest of forms?  We can theorize about what is happening is not what true democracy is all about!  We can condemn the nuts for their misinterpretation of democracy.  But then they retaliate by reminding us of the violence we have been a party to throughout our history.  Or we can further cast a wider net in demonizing all people who have a similar racial, cultural, or religious hue to the few nuts who perpetrated these acts of hatred and violence.  Or we can go angry and speak and post vindictive tirades that make us look as inhuman and nutty as those who have proven themselves insane by the atrocities they have committed. 

Then again as Americans and people of faith maybe all we can do is:

·         Model out love through praying for those who persecute us

·         Model out responsible democracy by praying for those who lead realizing there are no easy answers to the complexities of getting this thing called democracy right

·         Accept the fact that human sin – even in us – will sometimes rear its ugly head and we are almost helpless to do anything to halt it

·         Live out the basic principles of our faith – justice led by and tempered by love / non-violence in word and deed

·         Remember that our small actions can cause collateral damage – so pray and think about the larger good before acting

·         Avoid defining the many by the actions of a few

·         Respond to hatred with words that unite us as a nation and not divide us

·         But in the end all we can do is pray for those whose lives are impacted by the tragedies brought on by nuts who fail to understand that with democracy comes personal responsibility

Our values got the best of us this time, but let us not give up on them!

Bob Naylor (9/12/2012)