c. 2005 Religion News Service
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. _ One swimmer in Durham’s summer league championships was legally blind. Another had mental handicaps. Another had a cast on one arm.
Then came an 11-year-old boy who was slow even for the slowest heat in breaststroke. He zigzagged 25 yards, set up to make his turn, and banged his head hard against the metal wall. Even though he seemed dazed, he completed his turn, stayed in stroke, and started the final lap.
“As if he didn’t have enough problems,” said a distraught coach who rushed up. I sensed her preparing to jump in. But her swimmer pushed on and eventually reached the other end. She ran to him. Teammates congratulated him.
As I continue to reflect on last week’s bombings in London and the resolve of Londoners to get on with life, I think of how an open society has countless inviting targets like this 1,000-swimmer meet at the University of North Carolina’s natatorium. Shopping malls, schools, athletic events, office buildings, subways, buses, tunnels, ferries _ every one can be turned against itself and its essential openness made a battlefield. Such is the nature of openness: it can be exploited.
We see the hazards of openness when trusted adults exploit the openness of children, people in helping professions prey on vulnerable clients, scammers take advantage of our worries and imperfections, politicians turn angst to blaming, and even legitimate enterprises chase profit by pouncing on our vulnerability.
Some think the answer to living in a dangerous world is to end openness. Stop the free flow of people, stop the free expression of ideas, stop the changes that any dynamic society churns out, stop dissent within the political arena, stop diversity in lifestyles. Do it by official action or by religious pressure or by informal norms _ whatever will make people feel exposed to random danger. If nothing else, stay inside and lock the doors.
Yet where would we be without openness? A viable free-market economy depends on the free flow of invention, capital and trade. Democracy depends on freedom of the press, freedom of speech and freedom of movement. A meaningful faith depends on open inquiry and creative response. So does education. In living into our national heritage, we go to baseball games, walk down crowded streets, ride public transportation and trust the water we drink.
Despite periodic efforts to stifle dissent and to enforce lifestyle norms, it is difficult to imagine American life without radical openness.
The same is true elsewhere. In my travels to Asia and the Persian Gulf, and in using the very stations bombed last week in London, I have found societies that depend, no less than ours, on openness. They, too, value freedom of movement, riding trains, strolling through crowded parks, and attending athletic events.
In the end, there is no “security” in any homeland. Any breath of life can be exploited, any smile or routine made a target. In the end, the point is to live.
Like the swimmer who bumped his head but kept on trying, we must dig deep for resolve and bravery, and go about our lives.
MO/JL END RNS
(Tom Ehrich is a writer, consultant and leader of workshops. His forthcoming book, “Just Wondering, Jesus: 100 Questions People Want to Ask,” will be published by Morehouse Publishing. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. His Web site is http://www.onajourney.org.)
