wfn.org | [ENS] Friday Forum: God is in the remembering

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

Daybook, from Episcopal News Service

August 5, 2005 -- Friday Forum

God is in the remembering

By Clarke Oler
  Reprinted from 'Saints Alive' Newsletter - All Saints Episcopal
Church,
Pasadena, CA

[Episcopal News Service]  Sixty years ago, American atomic bombs
destroyed
two Japanese cities and more than 200,000 innocent civilians. It is a
catastrophe God calls us to remember clearly. Remembering is essential
to
our hope for the future. We must look again at the horror of what we
did--not to bestir our guilt, but to see beyond that tragedy to the
vision
of life on this planet as God envisions it.

The people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have embodied that vision as they
have
rebuilt their shattered world. Their gift to us has been their ability
to
rise above their suffering and national pride to reach out to us in the
name
of peace, to remind us of the terrible price that war and the threat
nuclear
weapons poses to the survival of humanity. They have given us their
courage,
their hope, and their incredible good will instead of hatred; their
commitment to reconciliation instead of revenge. They ask us to join
them to
rid the world of atomic weapons because they know the dreadful truth
much
better than we do.

Today we face not only the threat of a war between nuclear powers, but
of
nuclear accidents or terrorist attacks. America must take the lead in
eliminating atomic weapons. That is not a simple thing to do. We cannot
dis-invent the bomb. But the enormous creativity and intense effort that
went into the making of the bomb must be turned toward the un-making of
the
nuclear threat. We must do all in our power through patient negotiation,
treaties and increasingly effective verification to reduce and
eventually
eliminate nuclear weapons. Strong, visible, dedicated leadership is the
key.
Can we do that?

Einstein said, "We are like infants playing with dynamite...and thus we
drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." The possession of atomic weapons
presupposes leaders of superhuman wisdom and self-control. Democracy
accepts
that our leaders are fallible human beings who, all too often, like the
people who elect them, know not what they do. But they can be held to
account, can have second thoughts, can right their mistakes. But no one
can
put to right mass death and the contamination of the earth.

In our national proclivity for optimism and happy endings, we do not
like to
look into the heart of darkness. But we dare not succumb to collective
denial. We need to wake up to the dreadful power of annihilation that
these
weapons possess. There are some clouds that do not have a silver lining!
On
this anniversary, we must let the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki --
dead
and living -- be our teachers. With humility and with God's help, we
must
let them lead us. For we, too, are the children of the atomic bomb.