Theological Journal - March 28: America the Vulnerable

We didn’t get far into the 21^st century before America joined the rest of the world. Almost before the confetti stopped falling on our new cente4nnial parades and parties 9/11/01 happened. For the for time we were attacked by foreign hostiles on our own land. They used jet planes to do it and attacked chief symbols of our power and strength. Americans have been afraid and wary ever since that day. We can no longer afford to think it can’t or won’t happen here. It has and continues to do so on smaller scales. We now know how the rest of the world lives, fearful and vulnerable to assaults and attacks from ana untold number of directions. America is not invulnerable any longer!

Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005 with horrific force devastating the Golf Coast and overwhelming our best (and not so good) efforts to deal with it. Parts of the area have still not and may not ever recover. A Superdome filled with sick and scared peoples unsure what tragedy would next befall them is an enduring image of that horrible time. Though we have had many bad storms in our history the increasing number of savage and severe storms we have been subject to in this still young century stagger us. America is not invulnerable to nature’s worst ravages and now knows in ways new to us many other people have known for centuries – fear of the elements!

That tragedy not yet quite in the rearview mirror the great recession of 2008 hit and came close to taking us and the rest of the world down with it. This crisis was a human generated fiasco of some of the worst instincts that possess us and drive to prey of others for pour own benefit. The inevitable overreach of such hubris and greed brought the house down around it and much else as well. We have no taken lessons from this blow to heart as very few perpetrators of this financial savagery have been jailed and inadequate legal barriers to such things recurring put in place. It’s still pretty much business as usual for financial wheelers and dealers. America is no invulnerable to financial collapse and ruin!

The middle of the 20-teens and beyond has seen the unthinkable rise of authoritarian right-wing political forces rising off the pages of history books and dystopian thrillers to win elections and build movements we thought vanquished long ago, threatening freedoms we considered inviolable and secure. This century has also seen an ugly resurgence of violent racism as America’s unresolved “original sin,” pushed underground in the last century, has risen from our subterranean nightmares to surface again on our streets and neighborhoods. We are not invulnerable from ourselves!

Coronavirus has most recently afflicted us and the world. It’s way too early to know or assess what damages we face from this disaster. Except that pandemic has touched us here too and not just “other” people. And it has brought our lives to a grinding halt. America is not invulnerable to disease!

And that’s not the end of our vulnerabilities. This catalogue is hardly exhaustive. I’ve not mentioned the election of Donald Trump in 2016, climate change, the disappearance of the middle class and the gross wealth inequality here and on and on we could go.

In two short decades America has been brought to its knees by a cluster of tragedies and crises, some natural (if there is any such thing any longer) and some of our doing. In the middle of last century we were a Colossus bestride the world. Today were more a comic book giant fumbling and bumbling around making a bigger mess than usual. And though giantish we possess none of the invulnerability we believed once ours by right. We are victims as much as victors on the world stage and in our own minds and hearts.

All this “stuff” is but a sad and painful lesson we have been too long in learning – we are not invulnerable. What we do with that gnawing realization as it churns away in our individual and corporate guts, no one knows. But that we know what it is that’s eating at us is a good start.