Editorial: Irresistible Forces, Unmovable Objects

Friday, January 28, 2005

By Richard Anderson

In Europe, where countries are beginning to outlaw symbols of religious affiliation - Jewish yarmulkes, Christian crosses, Islamic head scarves - people are beginning to acquiesce to the new rule. But at what price?

The BBC World News reported on a Muslim woman in Belgium who said she finally left her head scarf at home - working in food service, she must wear a hair net, so, she figured, her head was covered - but the decision was physically painful, the radio program reported. She cried for days. She felt like a part of her was missing.

Around the Christian world, millions of believers say their faith has given them strength, has enabled them to accomplish great things, from kicking drugs or booze to working every-day miracles in their communities. We don't need to understand the specifics or grasp the mechanics of the relationship in any rational way; all that is required of us an effort to empathize, to sense the deep connections, and most of us ought to be willing and able to recognize this phenomenon. And what reasonable person would want to take that away from someone else? Not me, I assure you. Here are another couple examples to try on:

Many faiths abominate homosexuality. Devotees believe gays can and should just stop being gay. But how many stories have you heard about some soul who never felt comfortable with herself, never understood the feelings he felt, never fit in to the rest of the world until they realized or accepted their sexuality? Some might say it's heretical to compare one person's homosexuality to another's religion, but in terms of one's psyche and personality, it is just as fundamental. What reasonable person would want to rob another person of the key that allows them to be whole and well? Or let's look to our own backyard. Around the world, including throughout the West, the forces of development assault us on every side and on every day. Jackson Hole as a community perpetually struggles with the issue on a half dozen fronts, from SRA at Teton Village to oil and gas companies ogling our national forests. There's construction going on in my backyard as I write this. Now, many of us came to Jackson Hole to satisfy or feed a hunger we might not have even identified before we arrived. Once here, we found a deep spiritual connection to wilderness and nature that gave us peace of mind. Traveling into an undeveloped tract of forest gives us a chance to commune with a Higher Power and nurture a sense of love, respect and caring for all living things and living systems. If we were denied that, surely we would be spiritually bereft, less human, perhaps even half way to dead.

But people need fossil fuels the energy industry says, and people need lumber the timber companies say, and people need new houses to live in and you can't stop progress or completely halt growth anyway. I suppose there's something to that. But, as I've been reminded many times after one of my science-versus-religion rants, science is not capable of filling that place in our souls where faith abides any more than "progress" can slake our thirst for contact with higher ideals. And what reasonable person would demand that it should?

- klobnak@planetjh.com

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Editorial: Irresistible Forces, Unmovable Objects | Planet JH News Article: Left Wing Local

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