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New York Times reports that Americans have returned to their
pre-911 cultural habits, tuning into the same television shows,
renting lots of movies, and otherwise acting as if the massacres
never happened. Experts disagree as to what this means: The most
compelling argument is that people hold to past habits because they
impose some degree of order and certainty on the future. That may
also explain the national gallop in the direction of Nostradamus
and fellow soothsayers, who have allegedly peeked beneath Time's
skirts and in so doing have rendered Time incapable of rendering
another surprise attack (at least if one can correctly interpret
their gibberish).
Most people,
however, believe the future has sharp teeth. The CIA and FBI have
all but promised further attacks: One official says there's a 100
percent chance of one if we strike Afghanistan, and it's safe to
say there's a 100 percent chance we will do exactly that. Seventy-five
percent of Americans expect we'll be hit again, the other 25 percent
apparently believing that our aircraft carriers and Special Forces
will nip this problem in the bud. When the second shoe drops, the
veil of disbelief that still surrounds September 11 will evaporate
and we will truly know we are in a war. Death will have fully entered
the room, and what remains of our carefree lives will end.
Down my way,
the general mood seems to be increasingly that of a person whose
doctor has phoned up with news about an ominous shade on the left
lung. There's a sorting out of what is worthwhile from what is cheap.
I see this in many acquaintances, including in a group of musicians
with whom I spend most Sunday evenings.
C. S. Lewis
had a great line about what the proper role of authority: to maintain
an environment in which friends can gather for beers and darts and
converse about the things they desire to converse about in the way
that they wish to converse about them. In our case, the gathering
place is a brewpub, where we drink beer and play acoustic music,
often on a large, wooden deck. Since the attacks, toe tapping has
been interrupted by some degree of finger drumming. We still scan
the skies for constellations, but for crop dusters as well.
Some of the
pickers, typically those with younger children, agree we are all
targets now but don't like to talk about future attacks. They would
rather talk about the security measures imposed on them at work,
or the manic nature of the stock market. Those of us who are older
are a bit more fatalistic turn to other concerns. With a son in
college in Boston, the possibility of having to run an extraction
mission requires various calculations: How much gas should be carted
along, in case none is available on the Garden State Parkway, and
how does one best bribe a Boston cop, should that be necessary to
enter the city. Posing as a cleric might do the trick, especially
when said cleric can pass along, as a love offering, a decent bottle
of whiskey.
At other time
we spin theories as to why our enemies would take such extremes
to kill us. Early on, a popular line had it that they are envious
of our way of life: they too would like to spend Sunday evenings
drinking beer, checking out the chicks, and singing songs on those
and related subjects. But those assumptions have given way to the
belief that our enemy is an entirely different breed of human. Indeed,
these guys might as well be from outer space. Such impressions gained
power when the will of the hijacker Atta made the news. He didn't
even want women at his funeral. These are the same fellows lured
to their deaths, in part, by the promise of 70 virgins. What on
earth would be the nature of such encounters? One would suggest
beaming up some Arabic sex manuals, but if the virgins were raised
according to Taliban rules they would be incapable of reading them.
All agree that this type of religion is not for us.
Yet God is
certainly spoken of much more freely. Prior to the attacks, those
who ridiculed traditional Western religious belief had the wind
at their backs. That wind has died. Now, the fragility of life sends
even scoffers searching for a foothold in infinity. With a few Brown
Ales down the hatch, one easily reflects that our zone of life is
breathtakingly thin. Dig a few feet beneath the garden and you strike
rock. Drive up a mountain and experience how quickly the air grows
thin. Beyond the clouds are the heavens — beautiful to contemplate
and completely hostile to human life. All of which provides some
dissent to the popular view that man holds no special place in the
universe. These days, it seems very special indeed.
As we wait for the dropping of the other shoe, there is the realization
that any given Sunday may be the last one spent this way —
not necessarily because we will perish in a cloud of anthrax spores,
but because the next attack will put us fully at war, and that will
keep us close to home on Sunday evenings. What will we do with our
time? Some will patch broken relationships. Some will read. Some
will sharpen their knives. Some will impart wisdom to their children.
Some will even watch television. But viewers will, one guesses,
be more discerning. Anything that cheapens life — including
obsession with violence and sex, or cars for that matter —
won't fare so well.
There are countless
areas of solace, most quite mundane. The simple act of sitting in
a favorite room — books on the shelves, dust on the table,
a fish on the wall — while running scales on the guitar suddenly
takes on a lightly magical nature. So, for that matter, does the
act of tuning into a game of college football. Who knows how long
these options will be available?
Horrible things
are afoot in our thin zone of life. But there is much to comfort
and cheer us, even as we await the other shoe. Death has entered
the room, and suddenly the life we have taken for granted is taken
for granted no more. The patient with the shade in his lung sees
the world afresh.
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