Still More To Learn

In 2007, I had a life-changing experience when I traveled across the country to interview monks, nuns, and retreat leaders. I wanted to hear their wisdom about what we as a country might have learned from 9/11. They did not disappoint me.

It was my students who prompted me to take this journey and conduct those interviews. For several years before that, I offered a course at Franklin College on “religion and violence.” With Al-Qaeda still flourishing, ISIS just beginning, and violence against Sikhs, Jews, and Muslims in our own country, there was plenty of material for us to read, view, and discuss.

Toward the end of those classes it was common for students to ask me, “Well, Dr. Carlson, what’s the solution?” I would respond with something like, “Almost every country is struggling with this problem, and while we have a better understanding of the soil in which religiously-inspired hatred grows, we don’t yet have a solution. We’re still trying to understand it.”

More than once, a student asked, “Are you saying there is no hope? Does this mean we’re always going to be dealing with religious violence?” I then realized that I needed to hear the perspectives that monks and nuns would have on the topic.

It might seem strange that I chose to interview monks and nuns instead of government officials and religious scholars. By 2007, the varying views of conservatives and liberals on the subject were well-known. The problem was that conservatives and liberals routinely repeated the same views as others in their camps.

From going on previous retreats to monasteries and visiting convents and religious retreat centers I knew that monks and nuns break the stereotypes that many people have of them. One of the common stereotypes is that because monks and nuns focus on spiritual matters, they ignore global and societal issues. The truth is that most of the monks and nuns I interviewed had seen 9/11 on TV but also had listened to the fear and sorrow of monastery visitors.

A second stereotype of monks and nuns is that their common life—eating, working, and worshipping together—would lead them to have similar views about 9/11. My experience was the opposite. Of the nearly forty interviews that I conducted, I heard only one monk repeat a another monks perspective.

Yes, monks and nuns live a life in common, and yes, monks and nuns watched the same horrible images that we all did. But what was strikingly different was that the monks and nuns whom I interviewed didn’t listen to political pundits, nor did they debate with one another about the tragedy. Instead, they took the tragedy into their prayer and contemplative life, pondering what wisdom their way of life might offer.

Not only were the perspectives of the monks and nuns different from one another, their perspectives were also more thoughtful than what I heard in the media. One example might explain what I mean. Post-9/11, no religious leader in our country whom I was aware of had the courage to raise the taboo F-word—forgiveness. To raise the topic of forgiveness after 9/11 was to appear naïve, weak, and demeaning to those who died.

However, the monks and nuns who spoke with me had thought a lot about forgiveness, and their thoughts were deep and challenging. There was nothing weak or naïve in their reflections. They knew that true forgiveness has nothing to do with forgetting, condoning, or dismissing what happened on that horrible day. Among other insights that monks and nuns shared, one that I will never forget is that forgiveness is the hardest task, the most arduous path to healing.

Every year on September 11, we feel the pain and sorrow of that day in 2001. The media will show again the horrifying images of the towers, and we will remember where we were that sunny morning when we first heard the news. But is there not more to do?

If we believe that we still have much to learn from that tragedy, then monks and nuns might be the teachers we need to listen to.