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More Like Gratitude... with Sadness
When I first read the question, my immediate response was, "Yes, sure..." I was thinking of my beloved wife and sons, the friends and colleagues whom I admire and from whom I learn, the students with whom I feel privileged to interact. For those individuals, for my being able to live with and among them, I feel unreservedly grateful.
But there's a wider context to one's life, isn't there? And somehow the word satisfied just doesn't really work there. For one thing, you can't reach middle-age without coming to a certain realism about how the world works. Not when you've had friends die, both from "natural" causes and by means to which we would never apply that adjective. Not after illness has struck very close within one's family.
And there's more. All my life, I've loved the idea of the United States. Not at the expense of the rest of the world. But America as a place where certain propositions could be set forth, where--to borrow a phrase from Albert Camus (and yes I am quoting a French existentialist)--"words are more powerful than munitions." I mean Madison arguing for religious liberty, Lincoln at Gettysburg, Roosevelt explaining the "Four Freedoms," King writing from the Birmingham Jail and speaking on the Mall.
But it's 2007 now, isn't it? And the day this question about satisfaction was offered, my local newspaper ran a front-page story about four soldiers from a military base two hours north of here who have just gone missing in Iraq. Here's how it begins: "The families of four Fort Drum soldiers are stuck in a hellish limbo. They don't know if the men are dead or alive." There's an accompanying photo of one of the men's wives hugging her mother; they look frightened.
I have no words of my own to use in response. So I look elsewhere, in this case, to W.H. Auden, who wrote in his poem September 1, 1939:
"Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame."
Amen.
By
Gustav Niebuhr
|
May 21, 2007; 9:00 AM ET
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Posted by: Martiniano | May 22, 2007 10:30 PM
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Anonymous,
You wrote:
"Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide."
Or, as Otto von Bismarck said in 1862:
"Not through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decided - but by iron and blood."
Posted by: Norrie Hoyt | May 22, 2007 1:01 PM
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Mr. Niebuhr,
I am struck that the Auden poem you quote is dated September 1, 1939.
It makes Auden's words all the more moving to realize that as he wrote about the human spirit pushing back despair with its 'affirming flame', Hitler's Wehrmacht was bringing on the pain, darkness and death of the Second World War by launching its invasion of Poland.
I think knowing the context of this poem may give us perspective that we will find strength and wisdom to overcome the pain of the Iraq War and the failure of our leaders. We will reclaim the affirming flame of what Americans love about our country, and be proud again of our individual selves and our collective identity.
DC
Posted by: Dan C. | May 21, 2007 10:48 PM
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Would never dream of paraphrasing such lucid and valuable thoughts...but this. Are some/many of us brokenhearted not to be proud of our country? Our own self esteem so closely bound up in it?
Perhaps olsters, mostly, because we remember it so clearly otherwise...a rogue here or there, but not like now. Problem, the rest of the world moves so fast that catching up with morality, education, healthcare, ethics...being tippy top, is a daunting and perhaps unachieveable task...
Posted by: carylizmarrow | May 21, 2007 7:06 PM
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The poetry is so nice it makes me want to hug a tree. The statement that words are more powerful than munitions is a ridiculous statement. Lincoln and Roosevelt backed their words with munitions. And Lincoln was happy when he finally found a general who would fight, US Grant. Saying that words are more powerful is like saying words are more important than actions. You need them both. However, actions really are the points of light that tell us what the true intentions of people are. 911 basically says it all. It is time for munitions.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 21, 2007 4:04 PM
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Shine, Perishing Republic -great title.
But I prefer Contemplation of the Sword for its complexity and because most Americans don't really know what a republic is anymore.
"Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide."
Posted by: Anonymous | May 20, 2007 2:05 PM
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Professur Niebuhr,
"May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame."
Unfortunately the Bush Administration has devised some pretty effective fire extinguishers to snuff out those affirming flames.
More appropriate to our present situation might be Robinson Jeffers' 1926 poem about America:
SHINE, PERISHING REPUBLIC
Posted by: Norrie Hoyt | May 20, 2007 12:57 PM
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"I have no words of my own to use in response."
From: Francis Scott Key
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation,
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our Trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Posted by: Anonymous | May 18, 2007 3:28 PM
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Dr. Niebuhr, you elucidate the thoughts that plague me - is it moral to be personally happy when unnatural horror is present in the world. My small and immediate world is beautiful and fulfilling and I sit atop Maslow's pyramid. But the thought that I am hiding from a bigger purpose, that I've built walls to hide what is still wild eats slowly at my conscience.