Raima Larter response to the 9/11 Futurists
We, as individuals and as a nation, were being called to make a decisive Response. We were being nudged toward new paths.
This clue came from Dr. Raima Larter, professor and Chair of the Chemistry Department at Indiana-Purdue University. In an article she wrote for the March-May 2002 issue of IONS Noetic Science Review, she provided a radically different interpretation of 9/11.
The title of the article was “Lessons from the Newest Science.” The lessons, unlike anything else I had read concerning the tragedy of 9/11, were wonderfully informative and warmly personal. They were more than speculation about what historical factors led to the tragedy and what would be the consequences.
I had studied dozens of such authoritative analyses by experts with opposing views. Each explained how he/or/she believed the terrorist attack on America would impact the future of democracy and freedom. Immediately following the terrorist attack, world-class futurists responded to an urgent request. Future Survey magazine asked them to put into a bigger context the events of 9/11 and the likely consequences. I downloaded many of their responses on TurnTheTide.info where they can be read.
The newest science Raima referred to was non-linear dynamics. From the perspective of non-linear dynamics, a bigger context for understanding the terrorist attacks on America had to do with deeper dimensions of reality. The event could be given a name that would help explain the deeper implications of what happened on 9/11/01; why our interior world and exterior world seemed no longer to match—and what we could learn from the experience. Raima wrote:
“On September 11, 2001, events occurred that left everybody in the United States, and many around the world as well, deeply shaken and unsure how to react or even what to do next; in short, our nation – indeed, the whole world – encountered a bifurcation that day.”
In non-linear science the word bifurcation means a fork in the road. One path ends, and a choice must be made. Bifurcations happen frequently in nature. The choice may require something radical like a mutation into a better fitting species. Or it might be a routine metamorphic state many creatures experience.
A caterpillar comes to the end of its caterpillar life. Its genetic Instruction Book tells it to build a cocoon. Inside the cocoon, genes program cells to dissolve into a soupy substance. Extract a bit of the substance and analyze it under a microscope. The well organized cells of a caterpillar will have lost their bearings. Disorder and chaos will seem to reign. If you do not know in advance what is coming next, the cells in their in-between stage are pure mystery. Wait a bit longer and a butterfly emerges on a new path. From outward appearances the butterfly’s path and the caterpillar’s path are as different as night and day. Seen in a larger context of a deeper reality, the two paths merge into one. The mystery makes sense.
Hilda Bernstein Silverman encountered a bifurcation when her interior world and exterior world didn’t match. She came to a fork in the road where she had to make a difficult choice. Unlike other species, the choice was not dictated by instinct; she was free to choose.
In “Lessons from the Newest Science,” Raima tells of her own personal encounter with a bifurcation. She experienced a time of depression when her interior world and exterior world no longer matched. A path she had taken for granted was ending. She had always assumed, as a scientist, that once she understood everything there was to know about some process, she could learn to control that process. Then she entered a time when her own life seemed out of control.
She said that she found comfort in a concept from non-linear dynamics called the strange attractor. The attractor is a mathematical phenomenon that seems to be embedded in nature, and which triggers a “process of self-organization in which order spontaneously arises out of disorder.”
During her bout with depression, she read the words of a medieval mystic that resonated for her with the “same assurance of stability as that provided by non-linear science through notions of an eternal, unshakable attractor…the attractor is always present, regardless of how many wrenching bifurcations we go through or whether these bifurcations throw us into chaos.”
The words of the mystic expressed a belief in a similar phenomenon from a spiritual perspective: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
Larter wrote: “Without a sense of the benevolence of the underlying attractor, I am quite sure I would never have chosen the path that led to this very happy life. After all, to take those first steps along the new path required the acceptance of spiritual realities that challenged all I believed as a scientist.
Some scientists, Larter said, accept the depressing view of the molecular biologist Jacques Monod who said, “We are alone in the universe’s unfeeling immensity, out of which we emerged only by chance.”
“There are other scientists who do not agree with this widely quoted but depressing view of a cold, unfeeling universe; from the study of both living and nonliving systems, (data) indicate that there is a direction to the flow of time that indicates a rise in order and complexity and a movement toward more diversity.”
She concluded: “The universe is far from a cold and unfeeling place; in fact, the universe seems to be vibrantly alive, moving toward something bigger and better, urging us as part of this universe toward higher degrees of complexity. In short, there seems to be a purpose to the universe—if we pay attention, we can feel the urgings toward this purpose in very personal ways.”
Following are eight lessons drawn from Raima’s personal experience of bifurcation and of her analysis of the events of September 11, 2001:
· First is the understanding that there is value in thinking of 9/11 as a bifurcation, in giving it a name with explanatory power; rather than remembering it only as that awful day when “enemy terrorists attacked America.” In a bigger context, it is reasonable to believe our nation and our civilization have come to fork in the road. We are at a point in our journey where a decision must be made. We must choose: will we turn left or will we turn right?
· Second is the idea that, while upsetting and disturbing, bifurcation experiences are natural. They are typical of the way growth and changes occur in nature. And because we are part of nature, this is the way growth and changes occur in us. Bifurcations are wrenching and far-reaching experiences and not at all pleasant while we are going through them. But they may be the only way real transformational growth can occur – disorienting growth that results in new life.
· Third is the realization that the old life that existed before bifurcation will be largely irrelevant in the future. As in metamorphosis (or mutation), the old forms and driving force will be gone. These will be replaced by a new purpose. What governed our lives before will be replaced by new forms and a new driving force that will not be immediately apparent.
· Fourth is the understanding that, more often that not, we won’t see we have reached a point in our journey where a decision must be made. We will be tempted to close our eyes to the fact that the path we were traveling is ending. That we are being forced to make a choice about a new path. Our insistence on keeping things the way they were and sticking to the original path will leave us far from any path at all.
· Fifth is the realization that by trying to keep things as they were, we may end up unable to find our way back to either the old life (the original path) or to locate our new life. And even if we are able to make our way back to the old path, we will find it has disappeared. We can remain stuck at the bifurcation point, forever in confusion, not knowing how to move forward.
· Sixth is the insight that if we do refuse to “bifurcate,” to choose a new path, then it is likely that life will move forward through the fork in the road without us. Decisions will be made for us, by others, or by life itself.
· Seventh is the reminder that immediately following September 11, leaders advised the nation to get back to business as usual. The same thing happens in times of personal crisis when individuals are advised to snap out of it, and get on with your life. Yet, this advice may seem impossible and not even right – and it will be impossible and not right in times of bifurcation.
· Eighth is the understanding that the confusion felt following a bifurcation, such as the events of “9/11”, results from deep-seated knowledge that our world really has changed. If we rush back to our previous activities we may close our eyes and ears to clues about just what it is we should be doing now. What we should be doing may be something very different from what we were doing before. The clues may be very personal. They may apply to us as individuals, urging us forward toward necessary changes in our individual lives. The clues also may be telling us what we, as members of society, should do now – now that we live in a different world.
On September 11, 2002, a Palestinian priest from Israel gave me another way of understanding the path that ended a year earlier on September 11, 2001.
The path that ended had been viable for tens of thousands of years when suddenly it came to a fork in the road. That path that ended was the reign of the angry Tribal Gods of Retaliation.
This clue came from Father Elias Chacour, a Palestinian Melkite Catholic priest and an Israeli citizen. Chacour is the founding director of five educational institutions in Israel, all of which teach a curriculum of peace. Students include Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Classes extend from kindergarten through college. Special training is provided to teachers from other Israeli schools. The last government rating of Israeli schools gave Chacour’s institutions 97%, one of the highest in the nation.
At the invitation of Dr. Evelyn Laycock, Father Chacour came to Lake Junaluska, North Carolina September 11, 2002 to lead a three-day conference and a commemorative service on the first anniversary of the terrorist attack on America.
The 9/11 service and the conference were sponsored by the United Methodist Lay Ministry. The title of the conference was “Love’s Response to Violence.”
Participants in the conference posed two questions for the Palestinian priest from Israel to answer:
· Is Christian love still a choice after 9/11?
· How practical is it to love a terrorist?
CHACOUR’S CHOICE
Chacour addressed the practicality issue directly. In doing so, he provided a very personal clue I would have to deal with as a Christian.
“Love,” Chacour declared is the only authentic Spirit of religion. It is the only practical response to terrorism. Not just for Christians but for all people.
“I was not born a Christian,” he said. “I was born a baby. I was born a baby with an identity, born in the image and likeness of God, like every one of my Jewish brothers, my Muslim brothers—Americans, Brazilians, Chinese, all human beings…
“Have you remembered that God is not a Christian? No religion has a monopoly on the authentic spirit of religion.
“Please don’t belittle and impoverish God to make him a Christian,” Chacour said. “Try to enrich yourself, enrich the church, and enrich Christianity to become God-like. This is our vocation…our responsibility: to love God, to love one another, and to love even our enemies…
“God is neither a tribal God nor a regional God.”
To illustrate his point, Chacour told the biblical story of Naaman. Naaman was a wealthy Syrian who was healed from leprosy by the prophet Elijah. After he was healed, he asked permission to take two mule loads of dirt from Israel to Damascus.
Chacour explained: “Naaman wanted to spread the dirt on one of the corners of his palace. Whenever he wanted to worship the God of Israel he would jump on that dirt, worship the God Israel, and them jump back to Syria.
“Nonsense…the message from God is that from now on the true worshipers will no more need to go to Jerusalem or to go up to Mount Garazen in Samaria…they will worship God in spirit and truth.
“We are all called to become adopted children of God, even you Methodists. Let us take that seriously, even with a kind of humor. Yes, this is a kind of atomic bomb to destroy the old conception that divided humanity into the race of lords, the Romans, and the race of slaves, the Arab, and the Jew, and the Gentile…”
“Love is the atomic bomb of the authentic spirit of religion.”
For Chacour, the practicality of loving terrorists was never in question. He had witnessed the impracticality of not loving terrorists almost every day of his life. You can oppose those you perceive as terrorists, but it is totally impractical not to love them. In a war on terrorism the more you hate your terrorist enemy, the more terrorists you create. The more you love your terrorist enemy, the harder it is for your enemy to hate you. Terrorism will disappear only when hate disappears.
“Loving your enemies does not mean you do not speak out against violence used against you and others. It is their spiritual sickness you are up against. The cure for spiritual sickness is the atomic bomb of the authentic spirit of religion: love. The work of authentic religion, no matter what its institutional label, is to “change hearts.”
In his book, Blood Brothers, Chacour recounts examples of “changed hearts” from his lifelong campaign to teach a curriculum of peace to young Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Drews in the Holy Land.
Only when hearts are changed can peace breakthrough. That requires breaking barriers of fear instilled by institutions. To get beyond institutional barriers, Chacour encourages Palestinian student to visit an Israeli kibbutzim, and Jewish students to live short periods of time in a Palestinian village. He urges his Jewish and Palestinian teachers to face each other in frank, head-to-head and heart-to-heart dialogue.
Six lessons for choosing between two atomic bombs
Here are six lessons I took home from “Love’s Response to Violence,” and from reading two books and many articles by Father Elias Chacour following the conference:
· First is the understanding that there are two kinds of atomic bombs loose in the world. One atomic bomb is the weapon of the angry tribal God of Retaliation. It is the bomb that divides and destroys. The other atomic bomb is the weapon of the loving God of Reconciliation in whose image every human is born. It is the bomb that breaks down barriers—that unites and reconciles. Both Gods, with their respective bombs, are waiting for humans to decide which path they will choose.
· Second is the idea that since Abraham’s bifurcation experience with a different God, humans have been in a time of preparation. All the turning points in the universe story were preparation. We now live in the time for which everything was being prepared. It is a time when we can no longer straddle the fence between two Gods. We must come down off the fence on one side or the other. The question for every Jew, Christian, and Muslim is: which path will we choose? Which God’s atomic bomb will we put our trust in?
· Third is the idea that the only viable option for Christians, Jews, and Muslims today is to love terrorists. Just as Chacour’s only viable option, as a baby born in the image of God, was to love the Zionists who evicted his family and neighbors and demolished their ancestral village. The more we hate terrorists, the more terrorists we will create. The more we love our terrorist enemy, the harder it will be for our terrorist enemy to hate us.
· Fourth is the understanding that to get unstuck from the pain and confusion caused by the bifurcation of 9/11, we must go deep within ourselves. We must not rush back to business as usual. We must refuse, like the Israeli and Palestinian “peaceniks,” to treat people of some nations as friends and of other nations as enemies. When we try to go back to a path that no longer exists, we join in an unholy alliance of nations whose leaders talk much about God, but whose real motives are political, economic, and military. When we go deep within ourselves, we will find clues as to what alternatives we have to business as usual.
· Fifth is the idea that the root cause of our crisis of terror is an “old way of thinking” about reality and about God. It is a way of thinking that worked for tens of thousands of years. It is an obsolete religious belief system that once served as glue to hold societies together. A belief system in which sacred violence, ordained by tribal Gods, was used to maintain social order. Give life meaning. Provide scapegoats to shift blame away from leaders. Simplify complex realities. Eliminate paradox and ambiguities. Spell out rewards and punishments unequivocally in black and white.
· Sixth is the idea that this obsolete old way of thinking has become a spiritual sickness. A sickness that some powerful leaders claim serves the national interest. For these leaders, the old way of thinking provides their last hope for keeping power. These leaders use God in the same way leaders used God for thousands of years. For their own agenda. To kill and enslave other people whom they define as “less human.” To declare holy war. To perpetuate the illusion that their side is righteous. Their use of violence is sacred. The enemy’s use of violence is evil.
· Seventh is the most enlightening. It came out of Chacour’s discussion of America’s role in curing the spiritual sickness. In the past America has served as a beacon of light and hope for people everywhere in the world. America still offers hope for many. But Chacour warned:
o America leads when its light emanates from its spiritual center.
o America blinds when its light emanates from its military and economic center.
o America increases the world’s spiritual sickness when it trusts in the greater power of weapons of mass destruction. When it trusts in the lure of material possessions and success in the competitive game of free enterprise. When it trusts that when America is “in charge,” the world will be a better place in which to live.