It was just four days before the 10th anniversary of 9/11 that terrorists struck once again at the gate No. 5 of the Delhi high court, killing 13 people and injuring more than 70. As in the past, the church, along with some citizens of Delhi, took the initiative to organise an inter-faith memorial service, a routine after such sad occasions and natural calamities. Last year when I was organising a similar service and invited a religious leader, he said, “What’s the use of gathering for prayers like this?” and continued, “If you want to have a meeting to plan ‘practical steps’ to fight terrorism, I will come.”
In moments like these it is not just that the media only gets busy with the blame game but common folk also start looking for those “practical steps” that can prevent such incidents in future. The most agonising time is for those people who would never be able to hear the voices and see the smiling faces of their beloved ones ever again. God too disappears from the scene.
When things settle down a bit and anger, to an extent, reduces and when God has been questioned sufficiently, broader implications of our faith, humanity, good and evil in relations to such dastardly incidents begin to emerge.
One is then led to remember that the celebrations of Holi, Dusehra and Diwali, Good Friday followed by Easter, all point to victory of good over evil. In these and many other incidents, as also in the plots of many Bollywood films, it appears as if evil has won, or just about, when everything changes, making good ultimately victorious.
This is a reality that believers or non-believers cannot deny. The Bible says, “There is time to weep and time to laugh, time for war and time for peace,” or as the Zen masters keep reminding us, “There is nothing permanent in the world and that this too will pass away.” Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. Besides, in moments like this, forces of goodness, which are all around and which hold us together, come to the forefront, like the lawyers at the high court, who instead of escaping from the crime scene, generously extended their helping hands to the injured.
And for the rest, such moments offer an opportunity to reflect on the need to resist the temptation to hate or be aggressive towards those who are different from us. For, they too are children of the same loving God. Let us then try and practise what John Wesley advised, “Do all the good you can; by all the means you can; in all the ways you can; in all the places you can; to all the people you can; as long as ever you can.”
Links:
[1] http://103.241.136.51/father-dominic-emmanuel-614
