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September 13, 2001
Dear Friends,
Something is changing in my country, probably forever, and here
I am in Brazil when things are happening in the U.S. For me, this
is one of the few times when it is genuinely hard to be overseas.
Social isolation is not my problem. On Tuesday at 11:00 a.m.
our time (9:00 a.m. in New York) I finished teaching a class at
the Methodist University and returned to the Religious Studies
offices. A friend stopped me in the hallway in front of the office
I share with three other professors: "Do you know what is
going on in the United States?" Well, I didn’t know
anything special. He told me about an airplane hitting the World
Trade Center and said that somebody had turned on a television
in a room at the other end of the hall.
There followed long minutes with a group of Brazilians, watching
images from CNN, re-transmitted by the Globo network, the people
running to get out from under the first tower’s fall, the
second plane, the second tower falling as if imploded by São
Paulo engineers, the Pentagon, loose talk on TV about war, the
worst thing since Pearl Harbor, Palestinians, something happening
near Pittsburgh, a defenseless America. Our group was talking
about how many Brazilians live in New York: Is it 100,000 or 300,000?
It turns out that a
number of Brazilians at the Methodist University had visited the
World Trade Center, which made the whole thing real to them. I
don’t know if the terrorists had thought of the effect on
the countless people from many countries who have visited there.
On the screen, replay after replay, horror and more horror, and
not a sensible word about what it meant. I want to know what people
are going to do, and the replays aren’t helping me with that.
I want good old-fashioned print journalism, a few hours from now
when it appears. I leave
the room.
About "helpless America," I did comment that the U.S.
military certainly has command centers well away from the Pentagon,
and would not be seriously compromised. Actually, no thinking
person here thought otherwise.
I’m the kind of person who is cool at first and pays later.
If I wasn’t always that way, I certainly was after being
a pastor and having responsibility for funerals.
In the hallway, I ran into one of my students, who was genuinely
shocked and sympathetic. She is a Japanese-Brazilian. Then another
student comes up, genuinely broken up. She is German, a missionary
in Brazil for many years. I was comforted by both the Japanese
and the German. I hold my afternoon class, considering that to
go on with our work is the most hopeful thing to do. It was a
graduate class, and one of my very best students gave an excellent
seminar report. My time still isn’t my own. We have overnight
guests. They are
Aymara people (indigenous, "Indians"), one from Bolivia
and one from Peru, on their way home from Durban, South Africa.
(Remember Durban? Before the terrorism interrupted, we were talking
about racism.) These Aymara are Evangelical Friends, staying with
us thanks to Linnis’ Quaker contacts. The two of them, Diego
and Anastacio, are delightful people. They are also praying people.
They prayed for the victims of terrorism in the United States,
and I prayed for racial justice in the world.
Speaking of racial justice: because of Durban, Brazilian politicians
and journalists are now talking about affirmative action for the
first time.
The local news also tells us that security is tighter than ever
before at Jewish institutions. It was already tight, and has been
ever since a Jewish building was blown up in Buenos Aires, several
years ago.
Wednesday morning, I am up an hour too early, getting breakfast
for the guests, getting the guests to the São Paulo airport,
then getting myself to the university and obtaining my first post-tragedy
newspaper. No sooner have I sat down in a café with the
newspaper and coffee than my least sensitive student joins me
at the table and wants to interrogate me about what I think about
the tragedy. There isn’t much privacy around here, and the
expressions of solidarity are important for me. I will work all
day, and then insist on a little time and space for myself.
Part of that day’s work is a long meeting. At one moment
in the meeting somebody comments, "And we had been talking
about including Islamic Studies in our Religious Studies program"
as though of course that wouldn’t be happening now. I thought
it was more important than ever and said so.
Now it’s Thursday morning, and now I know that I’m
numb. My newspaper, the Folha de São Paulo, has been as
informative as a paper can be at this time. In a few minutes I
will try to buy a day-old Herald Tribune, my first one in months.
(It turned out that the U.S. newspapers available were too old
to be helpful.)
A Uruguayan theologian who made a great contribution in Brazil,
Julio de Santa Ana, was leading a study group of professors at
the Independent Presbyterian Seminary some years ago when he remarked
that the Crusades, which took place after intensive contact between
Christians and Muslims in Spain, were conceived as a Christian
jihad. I don’t know what the "war of good against evil"
means in my country when I am in another country trying to think
about it. We’re learning a lot from these terrorists, of
course. And we’re angry about what they did to us. Of course
we’re going after them, with no plans to be gentle. And now
I wonder what is happening to our spirit in the process: are we
going to have our jihad too?
In studying the Bible some years ago, I had to look at the "peace
of God which passeth all understanding" in Philippians 4:7.
John Calvin, of all people, was the exegete who suggested a line
of reflection that has stayed with me. The word translated "understanding"
(nous) refers to our minds and what we do with them: intentions,
plans, dreams, fantasies, loves, hates, cold reflection and fevered
imagination, to all that is going on (or isn’t going on)
in our hearts while we numbly watch the images of an outrageous
action and its
horrible consequences. But—and here Calvin’s observation
comes it—the word translated surpasseth can mean is stronger
than. Also, the word translated keep means guard or watch over.
There’s something there that is stronger than our feelings
of helplessness and anger, something more important, something
greater. God. And the peace of God, which, I pray, will (since
it is strong) guard our hearts and minds, so that we may opt for
those things that are true, dignified, just, pure, lovable and
that the rest of the world will understand.
Arch Woodruff
The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 258
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