Reflections on the worst of man — and the best.
I have take the liberty of quoting extensively. Please go read this essay by C. R. Hardy on Nationalreview.com. After the last post, I found this to be very appropriate.
I can imagine those young students in Blacksburg getting up on Monday morning, probably hitting the snooze button a few times before dragging themselves out of bed...It’s not hard to imagine it. A regular, ordinary Monday morning. None of the students thought it would be their last.
Death disguised as an ordinary Monday morning in an ordinary classroom on an ordinary American campus. Hell in Blacksburg — hell on earth.
It reminds me of another hell that took Americans by surprise nearly six years ago. Another ordinary morning. Men and women going to work on a sunny, blue-skies morning. Airplanes rendered as giant homicidal missiles.
Pope Benedict surprised audiences recently with some short — very short — comments on hell. Just three weeks ago, addressing a small Filipino parish in Rome, Benedict reminded us gently that hell “exists and is eternal.” He said that Christ wants us to go to heaven; but if we choose to shut God out of our lives, hell is a very real possibility. He wanted us to remember that hell after death is a product of human choices and not the evil invention of a sadistic God.
Four years before 9/11, the summer after my junior year in college, I had my own encounter with hell on earth. I was sitting in the back of an ugly, old tour-bus when the girl I was traveling with, a friend of just two weeks, asked me out of nowhere (it seemed to me), Do you believe that hell exists? I was somewhat annoyed, once the question had registered. We had just visited Auschwitz-Birkenau.....The question pressed me for an answer, and one that would belittle my pride: “Do you believe in hell?”
Of course I believed in hell. Obviously. After visiting Auschwitz, who doesn’t?
Finally the word came into my mouth — “Yes.” And my friend said the same — yes, she believed it, too. And then, neither of us looking at the other, she said the following — slowly and deliberately, as if she had been formulating the thought all afternoon: “I also believe that hell exists. But I just realized that I don’t live as if I believed that hell exists. And Auschwitz, that’s just what man can do. But what can God do?”
Those thoughts made me reflect on my comfortable existence and the choices I was making.
But four years later, when a lone airplane buried itself into the earth, and a rural cornfield in Pennsylvania was fertilized with the blood of heroes — a different thought came to my mind. I came to understand hell as a great lesson for the drama of human freedom. Dostoevsky had the right conclusion: everything is permitted — but not because God is dead. Everything is permitted because we are free. We are free to ravage other men, to reap misery and destruction. But we are also free to be heroes, to make choices that correspond to the greatest capacities within us, to give our lives for others, to find meaning even when — precisely when — evil has its moment, to turn tragedy into triumph.
I can also imagine how Professor Liviu Librescu began his day. I doubt he hit the snooze button several times and barely made it to class, unkempt and groggy. He was probably up before dawn and working at his research hours before he had to lecture. He surely did not expect to encounter hell on earth once more, not on an April day at Virginia Tech. Yet when he heard the clang of gun shots, he knew what he was hearing, as he had heard it before — the shots of Nazi executioners when, as a young boy, he survived a concentration camp. Librescu ran to the door, blocked it, and told his students to escape.
While one man, with his freedom, was showing us a picture of hell, another was testifying with that same freedom to freedom’s source and purpose.
I can imagine those young students in Blacksburg getting up on Monday morning, probably hitting the snooze button a few times before dragging themselves out of bed...It’s not hard to imagine it. A regular, ordinary Monday morning. None of the students thought it would be their last.
Death disguised as an ordinary Monday morning in an ordinary classroom on an ordinary American campus. Hell in Blacksburg — hell on earth.
It reminds me of another hell that took Americans by surprise nearly six years ago. Another ordinary morning. Men and women going to work on a sunny, blue-skies morning. Airplanes rendered as giant homicidal missiles.
Pope Benedict surprised audiences recently with some short — very short — comments on hell. Just three weeks ago, addressing a small Filipino parish in Rome, Benedict reminded us gently that hell “exists and is eternal.” He said that Christ wants us to go to heaven; but if we choose to shut God out of our lives, hell is a very real possibility. He wanted us to remember that hell after death is a product of human choices and not the evil invention of a sadistic God.
Four years before 9/11, the summer after my junior year in college, I had my own encounter with hell on earth. I was sitting in the back of an ugly, old tour-bus when the girl I was traveling with, a friend of just two weeks, asked me out of nowhere (it seemed to me), Do you believe that hell exists? I was somewhat annoyed, once the question had registered. We had just visited Auschwitz-Birkenau.....The question pressed me for an answer, and one that would belittle my pride: “Do you believe in hell?”
Of course I believed in hell. Obviously. After visiting Auschwitz, who doesn’t?
Finally the word came into my mouth — “Yes.” And my friend said the same — yes, she believed it, too. And then, neither of us looking at the other, she said the following — slowly and deliberately, as if she had been formulating the thought all afternoon: “I also believe that hell exists. But I just realized that I don’t live as if I believed that hell exists. And Auschwitz, that’s just what man can do. But what can God do?”
Those thoughts made me reflect on my comfortable existence and the choices I was making.
But four years later, when a lone airplane buried itself into the earth, and a rural cornfield in Pennsylvania was fertilized with the blood of heroes — a different thought came to my mind. I came to understand hell as a great lesson for the drama of human freedom. Dostoevsky had the right conclusion: everything is permitted — but not because God is dead. Everything is permitted because we are free. We are free to ravage other men, to reap misery and destruction. But we are also free to be heroes, to make choices that correspond to the greatest capacities within us, to give our lives for others, to find meaning even when — precisely when — evil has its moment, to turn tragedy into triumph.
I can also imagine how Professor Liviu Librescu began his day. I doubt he hit the snooze button several times and barely made it to class, unkempt and groggy. He was probably up before dawn and working at his research hours before he had to lecture. He surely did not expect to encounter hell on earth once more, not on an April day at Virginia Tech. Yet when he heard the clang of gun shots, he knew what he was hearing, as he had heard it before — the shots of Nazi executioners when, as a young boy, he survived a concentration camp. Librescu ran to the door, blocked it, and told his students to escape.
While one man, with his freedom, was showing us a picture of hell, another was testifying with that same freedom to freedom’s source and purpose.
Labels: nature of evil
posted by Cargosquid at 9:03 AM
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