This past week, during The Ministry of Conflict Resolution course, Sister Carmen, a nun who spent twenty years in Chile working with poor indigenous people, told a heart-rending story that imparts a lesson for our nation.
Sister Carmen told how, one day, the villagers living high in the mountains where she served began complaining that the “trees were crying.” This sadness went on for days with the people becoming increasingly upset. They had never before heard the trees cry with this intensity: something terrible was about to happen. Depression spread as the villagers waited in anticipation of a dire event.
A week later the local Bishop paid an unexpected visit. He wore a grave demeanor and searched for Sister Carmen. It was obvious he was the bearer of bad news. He took Sister aside: “Your country has been attacked and wounded.” The trees had shed tears in anticipation of 9/11.
Later when Sister Carmen prepared to visit her home in the U.S. the poverty-stricken villagers presented her with the entirety of their savings—they handed her twelve dollars to aid her wounded country.
A parallel story was told by one of my peacemaking mentors. During a reconciliation and peacemaking seminar officials from Syria expressed sympathy and offered apologies on behalf of Muslims for 9/11. The expression of regret and apology was frowned upon by the official government; nonetheless, it arose naturally from the hearts of individuals gathered.
Might these anecdotal events and others like them impart a lesson? These stories raise the possibility the U.S. overlooked the outpouring of love that came our way after 9/11. These events taking place in many places around the globe were expressions of love: natural, intuitive, Holy Spirit-driven expressions of Jesus’ commandment: “Love one another.”
When we, as a nation, pay insufficient attention to these expressions we miss a huge opportunity to humbly receive the love of others. Consider your personal experience; I’m certain you will find some of your most upsetting moments have been times when your love and/or help has been rejected or under-acknowledged.
No doubt we were justified in feeling hurt and wounded after 9/11; no doubt rage was an appropriate response. However, when we pay too little attention to those who love us when we hurt most, we miss opportunities for creating unity that can overcome evil. The opportunity for a robust discussion about evil in the world and a dialogue about the power of love to conquer that evil was squandered. We missed an opportunity to address the hearts and minds that would be needed to carry us beyond the conflict, beyond the burden of our resentment.
We have a need to protect ourselves against madmen who fly planes into buildings; we certainly need not be apologetic about our passion to root out the source of such insanity. And we need not adopt a policy of weakness. But “eye for eye” approaches are short term and limited: they do not bear the best fruit.
In the final analysis, while we may need to set up a robust defense against madness, overcoming evil has more to do with the power of prayer and our ability to expand the love shared among “brothers and sisters” on this planet. Ultimately, our love–and–prayer–based offense will be more powerful than our guns and bombs: in the long run, it always is. When we fail to draw close to our hearts people who can hear the trees crying we risk losing the larger war.
‘God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.’ [1John 4:16] These words from the first letter of John express with remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of mankind and its destiny. In the same verse, Saint John also offers a kind of summary of the Christian life: ‘We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us.’” — Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI
