In his reflections on the Cumbrian shootings, The Heresiarch sums his assessment up with what he describes as the apparently callous statement 'shit happens'. Callous, but it makes more sense than most of the woeful commentary which deluged the media after the event. I was pleased that the Cumbrian clergy interviewed on the radio also came up with what amounted to politer versions of the same statement, and refrained from trying to cash in by drawing dubious conclusions. I doubt every pulpit in the country will be as realistic this Sunday.
It was my day off on Thursday and I went for a haircut, did various things around the village, and overheard people's conversations. Nobody mentioned events in Cumbria except a member of the congregation I happened to talk to, and that was because she was born up there and felt a sense of connection. This isn't callousness: it's entirely appropriate. There's no wider lesson, and nothing to be said beyond the otiose 'Isn't it terrible?'. Whatever thoughts we have here, they are low-level and private.
Instead, on Wednesday a local lady from a different church, well-known in the area for voluntary work in a variety of capacities, was knocked down and killed while cycling along the main road through the parish. I didn't know her, but feel a far greater sense of connection with that one random tragic event because I know people who do and can see their distress, and am familiar with where it happened: I also cycle along there quite often.
Were we as God-like as we were intended to be, we would feel the pain of distant others as keenly as those close by. 'All mankind is of one author, and one volume', mused that great Anglican John Donne, 'Any man's death diminisheth me, because I am involved in mankind'. But across the sad globe thousands of tragic deaths usher out of earthly sight souls every bit as worthwhile as us, whose loss to the world is as great, from violence, injustice, or disease. And we don't, can't, pay too much attention to them. It's enough to keep in mind the dead we know something of.
The age-long task of God has been to break down the distinctions we build between one another, to remind us of our common need and childhood. And I see that in the most sane reaction to what happened in Cumbria, not to draw doubtful conclusions, but to think calmly and with regret of those who have died, as the newspapers did with biographies and accounts of their daily lives - worthy ordinary people not far different from the people of Swanvale Halt, or anywhere else. Beyond that, there's not really much to say. Silence is right.
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Thank you for this post. I was immediately reminded of something that I read about a similar incident:
ReplyDelete"I heard a leader of the Christian Church here in Scotland speaking on the radio shortly after the Dunblane massacre. The interviewer asked, "How do you *explain* this massacre? You're a religious leader and many people feel they need an explanation". We all suffer from the painful longing for explanations - it is one of our most immediate tendencies. But the man who was questioned responed profoundly: "To try to explain this event is not the way; this is not the time for trying to explain something of this order." Understanding might emerge; but the way to understanding in this case is to hold the pain with those who have suffered so much. The function of compassion is the holding of the pain. It is that faculty or dimension within ourselves that is able to hold pain without judgement, even without being able to explain anything at all".
That was by a Buddhist monk called Munindo, who is based in Northumberland.
The "painful longing for explanations" is often actually worse in cases of accidents, which is why your example of the cyclist is so resonant. People often talk about "senseless" killings, meaning that they are inexplicable and beyond our capacity to engage the rational intellect. But they are not, usually. If we are honest with ourselves, most of us have felt rage and despair so fierce that it is only our "moral luck" in not having a weapon to hand that saved all concerned from catastrophe. But trying to piece together the "why" in cases of accident - the picking through a web of intention, inattention, and the laws of physics - this is often the hard one.