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©2001 The Society of
Archbishop Justus, Ltd

Hallo again to all.

This week the world is full of reflections on the meaning, if any, of 11 September. All of us have run out of adrenaline. The rent is due. The initial emotions have subsided, to be replaced by various mixtures of thinking and acting. We can't remember who it is who said 'never confuse motion with action' but this is a good time to be able to discern the difference.

Here at Anglicans Online we often try to find themes or patterns in things, and write about them. In the past three weeks we have gotten more irritable (occasionally angry) reader feedback than ever before; many of you did not like our suggestion that we pray for the families of the terrorists or that we were uncomfortable with the assertion that only we Christians are doing God's work. We may lose a few more readers this week, but, well, so goes the world. We shall lead you on a tour through some of what we have been reading lately; we use the magic of the internet to link you to what has been written rather than trying to write something fresh ourselves. We fulfil our role as editors.

Of all that we have seen and read in the last week, one of the most compelling things was the release by the FBI of the faces of the terrorists. Most newspapers have printed these pictures, but the image quality of the FBI originals is better than we've seen in any newspaper, and we entreat you to go have a look.

Having done this, with those faces fresh in your mind, we next entreat you to read an article from today's News Centre about an exhibit at the Tate gallery in London on the destruction of icons, the smashing of statues, the fear of faces. We are certain that the terrorists chose the targets that they did because those targets were symbols. Finally, we ask you to read 'Seeing Ourselves', an essay in Killing the Buddha.

Two weeks ago we felt safe because we thought we could discern the face of a terrorist from the face of someone who wasn't. But seeing those faces, of people who have actual mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and are wearing actual shirts bought at the Gap, we realize that the iconic face of evil is not what it appears. And in Nigeria, where Christians and Moslems have been fighting with votes, sticks, and guns for a long time, the face of evil is everywhere and nowhere.

Now go read Timothy Nakayama's essay on what it was like to be placed into an internment camp after Pearl Harbor because he was Japanese. So many people thought that his was the face of a terrorist. End your tour by reading 'Adagio: Ground Zero', by the Reverend Dorsey McConnell, one of the most gifted writers we know.

Take a lot of time to think. We did.

See you next week.

Cynthia McFarland cmcf@anglicansonline.org	Brian Reid reid@anglicansonline.org

Last updated: 30 September 2001
URL: http://anglicansonline.org/