I prefer to reserve much of my own comment on the article below, from the Austin American Statesman, to which a friend alerted me, and simply give you the story to muse over and perhaps comment on. It's a good article, which moves me away from the controversy of politics to yet another kind of controversy--the theologically controversial position of demanding an answer, an apology, from God.
A few minutes into our conversation about how efforts to make peace between Jews and Muslims help honor his slain son, Judea Pearl stopped me in my tracks by announcing that he believed God owed him a personal apology.
Let me back up. I had called Pearl, father of murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, to discuss Sunday's Abraham Walk at the Dell Jewish Community Campus. Pearl will speak at the annual interfaith event that brings together Jews, Christians and Muslims to retrace the journey made by their common ancestor, Abraham.
Our phone interview came hours before the sunset ushered in Yom Kippur, when Jews around the world gathered in synagogues to stand before God and atone for their sins. A local Jewish scholar had suggested I raise the question of how Pearl deals with his son's murder by a militant Muslim group in Pakistan almost seven years ago when Daniel Pearl was on assignment there. What better time than Yom Kippur to talk about forgiveness?
Pearl's answer was swift and raw.
"I am Jewish. I don't buy the Christian notion of forgiveness. I don't think there's any inherent mystical power in the act of forgiving. You forgive when the person who did a certain crime acknowledges regret and change of behavior. Until that happens, in the Jewish tradition, forgiveness doesn't catch."
Then Pearl said evenly, "God owes me a personal apology, not only to me but to all decent people in the world for betraying their expectation of what good and evil is in this world."
He includes most Muslims in that aggrieved group, but there's no denying that Pearl is at war with radical Muslims, the ones who beheaded his son. It seems to me that interfaith dialogue becomes harder and harder as the world's religious conflicts intensify.
Yes, Jews, Christians and Muslims share a common ancestor in Abraham, but can they call each other brother and sister at a time when radicalism and resentment build globally? When government and faith are perceived as interwoven, making Christians and Jews afraid of Iranian Muslims and Muslims angry at Israeli Jews and American Christians?
People such as Pearl, a computer scientist who runs the Daniel Pearl Foundation, and Tom Spencer, CEO of the Austin Area Interreligious Ministries, live and work with the hope that it's possible to overcome those challenges.
Pearl's way of doing this is by rejecting what he calls the "nicey-nicey" atmosphere of many interfaith meetings in favor of encouraging people to lay bare their fears, assumptions and darkest thoughts.
He does it by example. Pearl works with a Muslim friend, Akbar Ahmed, the former high commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain. The two, Pearl said, have managed to reach beyond the "professional interfaithers" by confronting hot topics in public discussions with Jews, Muslims and others. No issue is taboo.
"The trouble with interfaith meetings ... is that people enjoy the music and they enjoy the cookies, but they hate to spoil the party by discussing the hard issues," Pearl said. "And we went the other way around. We come with the expectation that their pains will be discussed, will be expressed honestly and faithfully and will be treated and responded to with respect."
He doesn't shy away from the fact that many Muslims are angry at the Israeli government, and many Jews are upset that Muslims use anti-Israel rhetoric that sometimes comes across as anti-Semitic.
But he also sees the value of celebrations of unity through events such as the Abraham Walk where he believes his son's spirit shines through.
It seems fitting, Spencer said, that the Jewish Community Association of Austin would host the walk, which re-creates on a small scale the journey the prophet Abraham made through the desert, and that the international event coincides with the festival of Sukkot, when Jews build a sukkah, or booth, similar to the shelters their spiritual ancestors used while wandering the desert. During the festival, Jews eat and sometimes sleep in their sukkah.
Also inspiring to Spencer is the idea that this year's event would be driven by the youths who will perform skits depicting three Abrahamic virtues. Christians will demonstrate unity, Muslims faith and Jews hospitality. The Jewish booth will be an actual sukkah.
In addition, Pearl's talk will be bookmarked by musical performances as part of World Music Days, another project created to preserve Daniel Pearl's legacy as an avid musician.
"You think about these three traditions and their long, tangled and often bloody history together," Spencer said. "These are the world traditions that are most in need of healing. This is one of the most critical issues of the 21st century: How can we resolve the painful histories of these three faith traditions?"
For years, we have seen interfaith leaders attempt these conversations and events in Austin. Spencer acknowledges that sometimes, conversation leads nowhere. Sometimes, the breakthrough happens when people from the city's various faiths don't talk at all but take up hammers and paint brushes and repair the home of a poor elderly woman in East Austin.
The descendants of Abraham have not had an easy time sharing space. Pearl says his job is to make his small contribution with the hope it will benefit future generations.
And that is how a man who rejects the idea of forgiveness for its own sake, a father who feels betrayed by God, can find the possibility of redemption. Through these small contributions he's made with his brothers and sisters in Abraham, Pearl says he might have heard God whisper that apology, not to him personally but to all of humanity.
"Perhaps he already made this step in the form of World Music Days, in the form of this kind of gathering of people of all denominations recognizing their oneness, in the form of the legacy of Daniel Pearl," he said. "On a collective basis, perhaps God has made this step here that can be viewed as a positive step toward peace. So many people now have a face to relate to. Peace means Daniel Pearl. ... Perhaps this was God's way of advancing peace on the collective level."
I will try to remember this grieving, angry, deluded man in my prayers.
Posted by: Carol | October 17, 2008 at 11:04 PM
When I went to the Holy Land in '98 with my dad, son and husband, we were awestruck to see what it really means to live in a war-torn area. My son was only 13 at the time and he was pretty quiet during the whole trip. I remember that, back in those days, kids used to collect telephone cards, so he would be daring, and would use his English to ask Israelis and Palestinians alike, if they would give him their card to add to his collection - and most of them did, some even if they still had money in them.
As we were flying home, our pastor asked him to show him his cards. Since he'd promised his nephew to bring him some, he said, "Hey Max, thanks for giving me these cards" - and he pocketed them. Now, he was joking (a joke taken to sick proportions, really) but my son didn't take the joke well.
His anger festered during the whole flight and was expressed in a few startling and very pointed statements he made to a few people. When we got home, the pastor gave him the cards back, but ever since then my son has never been the same towards priests and religious...what does a few phone cards swiped by a weird priest have to do with faith? It just happened to be the wrong thing to do to a 13 year old who'd come face to face with what it means to be at war, and at war for religious reasons. It seemed to catalize the effects of the things he'd seen and heard (he was most negatively impressed by hearing that whenever something happens, Israel shuts off the water and electrical supply to the Palestinians). He saw how practically every home has a water tank and a power generator on their rooftops so they can live even if there is a cut off. He saw how poor and scruffy the Palistinian kids looked compared to the Israeli children. On the other hand, he could practically touch the Israeli's fear of terrorism, with all the guards and soldiers armed to the hilt, the control points, etc.
In the months following that trip, he began opting out of Mass, and finally, one day he told me that it was better not to believe in anything because all religion does is create war and anguish.
He still holds his own on this point, and has even elaborated on his thinking regarding the Church ("from the moment money entered into the scene, the Church has lost the true sense of its Mission, and the real reason for existing.")
So where's the hope in this dismal scenario? The only hope I have lights up when I pass by his room early in the morning and I see that he still sleeps with his rosary in his hand.
As for forgiveness, it's a long, hard process and the meaning of "men of goodwill" announced by the angels is those people who try to be honest about the tough issues, but at the same time, are willing to listen and consider each other's pain with respect and creativity.
Posted by: pia | October 18, 2008 at 02:37 AM
Well, my cousin's husband molested their daughter more than once, and he never admitted it. The rest of us had no choice but to believe her -- there were details none could disregard. It was horrendous to run into him on the street after their separation. It was as if all was just the same --except that she was in counseling, and he was dating and creating new lives. But his parents had died early in life, he'd ended up in foster care and was always a special student along with his twin sister who was much slower, and when his older brother had killed himself, it was he who had found him and carried him out - wouldn't let anyone else touch him for a while. Might all that have had an impact on his persisting juvenile sexuality? Well, how could it not? In retrospect, he was nowhere near ready for any huge life change. I wouldn't damn him to hell, tho' my cousin wanted desperately to kill him, if only she could get away with it and not end up in prison thereby leaving the child motherless as well as fatherless. But I couldn't welcome the sight of him and learned to recognize his hairstyle from a long distance so I could veer off. I gagged when I prayed for him.
However, the point is, none of us blamed GOD, God did not betray any of us -- we all have free will. Mr. Pearl, on the other hand, blames God and insists that God (the One Who arranged for mankind's salvation) owes him an apology.
God, not man, will bring some good out of that, too --but good luck getting the credit for that, God.
Posted by: Carol | October 18, 2008 at 10:05 AM
That's a beautiful story Pia.
Posted by: Deacon DW | October 18, 2008 at 10:09 AM
Carol, I don't think that Pearl is blaming God. He still blames the evil people who perpetuated the crime against his son, Daniel Pearl. It's just that God didn't meet his expectations...God is supposed to reward the good and punish evil, but strangely it didn't work out that way. Pearl has become deeply aware of a current of absurdity that tends to run in life, and, angrily, he demands an answer from God.
What a lot of people might do in Pearl's situation, and in situations like your cousin experienced, is to stop believing in God altogether. However, I find it rather refreshing that Pearl still believes, and there's a certain healthiness in being able to express anger--even toward God. At least the man still has a relationship with God. Indeed it's a very human relationship and echoes something as old as time.
I have long considered Christ to be God's answer to Job, but it's not an easy answer...it's one in which we still must somehow take in the pain, loss, and perplexing absurdity of evil being inflicted upon the good. Could Pearl's grief and pain be similar to the feelings of the real-life Mary standing before her murdered child, or standing before him while he cries out "why?" It's pure speculation, but I'm willing to bet that her feelings were not too different.
Posted by: Deacon DW | October 18, 2008 at 10:37 AM
My son was only 13 at the time, and being the sensitive soul he is, all of these fragments of painful reality left their mark. He's now 22 years old, popular, good looking, respected at work and school...and sleeps with a rosary in his hands. He doesn't go to church but tries very hard to be a good Christian. And as long as he has the humility to hang on to those beads, he'll be ok because they are his connection with God.
People who go through hell often blame God, at least at some moment of their path in life. It's a process, and I think God, being Patient and Good, is willing to let us wrestle with Him. I think Pearl's attitude is one of great intimacy with the Lord and paradoxically is proof of a deep confidence and faith. The fruit of this is there for all eyes to see. I believe God is working in him and through him, 100%. God works in mysterious ways, really He does.
As an aside, I read in the paper yesterday about a State representative in the midwest who has cited God in a court of law for all the horrors of this world. The judge threw the case out... It was impossible to notify the defendant...
Posted by: Pia | October 18, 2008 at 11:29 AM
Huh. The non serviam is the new fiat, now? Must be --it's spreading, just as on Golgotha. One day it was Hosannas with great joy; the next, it was "Crucify Him!" No thanks.
Peace to you both (God's kind).
Posted by: Carol | October 18, 2008 at 01:02 PM
It sounds to me like Pearl has been pushed to his limits - but not beyond them. And he is, as Pia says, understandably wrestling with God, but God understands our incomprehension better than we do, and through the Holy Spirit great things can be done.
With all those prayers too deep for words, that pain too deep for tears the Spirit is there, bringing our deepest wishes, exasperations,frustrations and anger to God, so we can be transformed through His grace and His mercy and we can find consolation and hope in Him.
As Deacon Dan says Pearl's relationship with God is a very human one and his words echo those of the Psalms when souls were desperate for answers and for release from torment of one sort or another.
Posted by: Ann | October 19, 2008 at 10:49 AM
Perhaps I am mistaken, but I think the Psalmist basically asked God to hurry up the Messiah, and the Psalms are with us (as is the tale of Job) for exactly the Mr. (and Mrs.) Pearls.
He wants to bring some good out of his son's death-- this I understand. However, if it happens, it is God's doing, not man's; and there is a world of difference between thinking God owes one an apology, and stating it publicly. God has taken enough blame for satan's actions via man's weaknesses.
Posted by: Carol | November 04, 2008 at 02:12 PM
Perhaps I am mistaken, but I think the Psalmist basically asked God to hurry up the Messiah, and the Psalms are with us (as is the tale of Job) for exactly the Mr. (and Mrs.) Pearls.
He wants to bring some good out of his son's death-- this I understand. However, if it happens, it is God's doing, not man's; and there is a world of difference between thinking God owes one an apology, and stating it publicly. God has taken enough blame for satan's actions via man's weaknesses.
Posted by: Carol | November 04, 2008 at 02:13 PM