Early this morning I was listening to a podcast of an interview by Krista Tippett on On Being with the physicist and author, Dr. Lisa Randall. Prior to listening to that podcast a friend had forwarded a link to a video about an experience of a teenager in Israel who was technically dead for 15 minutes. When this teenager returned to life he reported being in heaven and given the knowledge about a prophetic revelation of the future. Still later I was reading the November 24, 2015 St. Petersburg edition of the Tampa Tribune. On page 10 there was an Associated Press article by Raf Casert entitled “Belgians bring out the cats to baffle terrorists.” The article reports that “Later Sunday, police asked people to stop commenting on ongoing raids in social medial to avoid tipping off suspects. … The hashtag #BrusselsLockdown suddenly shifted from serious to humorous, tweeting a flood of pictures of all-too-innocent cats in all kinds of situations –holding their paws up as if captured, posing as police snipers with automatic weapons, and ignoring police warnings to stay away from windows….Police joined the party on Monday, posting a picture of a dish over-flowing with dry cat food ‘For the cats that came to our aid last evening. Serve yourself $BrusselsLockdown’ .”
The recurring thought, which kept popping into my mind, was, “On one level, ISIS is irrelevant.” What they do or do not do long term both matters a lot and, on another level, does not matter at all. On the one hand, all the killing and torture which has been done in the name of the God of their understanding by some radical/extremist Muslims who have this acute desire to leave their mark and thus, in their minds, please the God of their understanding/Allah, is horrific. Any time we humans torture and kill each other, at some level, we are all diminished. At the same time, as the work of Dr. Randall and other reminds us, the universe of which we are a tiny, tiny part has been in a constant state of flux and change for a very long time. We humans are both the observers and the actors in this drama. We may or may not be the only observers.
No matter what we individual humans do or do not do. the universe will continue to unfold its story, which we will, as long as we are part of the story, learn to appreciate. No matter how much we study the nature of this universe, what we experience and what we can and cannot experience but “know” is there, we “know” very little. On an appearance on the NPR radio show, “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me,” Dr. Randall talks with the host, Peter Segal:
RANDALL: (Laughter) First of all, I'm not creating the universe. I'm creating a model of the universe, which may or may not be true.
SAGAL: Right.
RANDALL: But it is the possibility that in addition to the three dimensions we're familiar with...
SAGAL: Right.
RANDALL: ...Forward-backward, left-right, up-down - maybe there is an additional dimension that we don't experience directly that we call warped.
SAGAL: Right.
RANDALL: And warping has to do with the anti-de Sitter space. And by warping, it means that basically things get rescaled as you go into another dimension...
If the reader is interested he/she can read Dr. Randall’s books or download podcasts of her appearance on Wait Wait Don’t Tell me or On Being among others. My point is that, on the one hand, I do not want to downplay the pain which the actions of radical extremists are causing. As a friend, father, son, brother, uncle I cannot imagine what folks whose families are dealing with the aftermath of the carnage are experiencing. Neither can I imagine what folks whose families are dealing with leaving their homes, jobs, and possessions for an unknown future, are feeling. Certainly everyone who has experienced the results of just one of the bombs being dropped in Syria is suffering as much as the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings or the recent bombings in France.
I do not want to downplay or minimize the pain. On the other hand, I appreciate the response of those who tweeted the cats in Brussels. The alleged masters of the cats who made cameo appearances on Twitter were both helping the law enforcement folks and giving everyone some much needed relief and perspective.
When we think about it, there is a level at which our very active, serious, response to ISIS helps them to retain a level of power, which the Brussels cats for a brief time took from them.
I certainly do not pretend to have any answers, and I do not want to be critical of those responding to any of we humans perpetuating violence. Still, I am reminded of other situations in which my goal is to not allow myself to be drawn into an irrational conversation or engagement. If any of my readers has ever attempted to have a “logical” conversation with someone who is drunk or someone who is currently experiencing a delusional experience, one knows that nothing one says or does will make any difference. Any parent whose young children are having an emotional argument with each other knows that time out – frequently in their room by themselves if possible – is the only “logical” response.
By allowing the cats to poke fun at the terrorists and the entire situation the tension was reduced while the concerns of the law enforcement people and the ridiculousness of the situation was highlighted.
As the perspective of scientists such as Dr. Randall’s will remind us, the actions of a 1000 or 2000 or a million years ago both matters and does not matter. The actions of we humans now will both matter and not matter in 100,000 years. At that time the planet, which we currently inhabit, may or may not exist.
Yet, at another level, the death and return experience of the Jewish teenager is a poignant reminder that what does matter is what the teenager called or reported as holiness which embodies the concepts of redemption and repentance. Repentance – reviewing our behavior and freely becoming contrite/sorry so that we can commit to different behavior will allow for redemption – buying back (a connection with our better self, each other and the universe/God(s) of our understanding).
The behavior of the Brussels cats neither denied nor elevated the behavior of those challenged (bless them) extremists. Let’s put the cats in charge! Of course, the cats have always known they should be in charge. Any cat owner/servant will validate that truth that the ISIS extremists are irrelevant.
Written November 24, 2015
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