There was something about tonight’s newscasts that caused my brain to dredge up images and experiences that provoked from me an unexpected response. What came to mind had little relevance to the actual significance of what I saw on and heard from the TV screen. My synapses were busy chasing little vignettes of memory.

     How could I possibly be identifying emotionally with the current newsworthy symbols (Mohammed cartoons), hunting accidents (Mr. Vice President with a loaded gun) and even ugly mud slides (Filipino disaster) and the still-rotting remnants of hurricane Katrina? Of course, with my radio constantly on during my day, I had already absorbed the headlines and their condensed elaborations. So, the stimuli did not come from surprise but rather, perhaps, from repetition.

     Islam does not have a monopoly on indignation from public cartoon smears and perceived sacrilege against the main prophet of their religion. I too have winced and felt hurt when the Jesus Christ I worship was depicted in an outrageous and vulgar way. I cried foul when a film being shown widely defamed the Savior. It happened then (years ago) that I had a radio show reviewing movies at the time and my remarks broadcast nationally were picked up and rapidly carried around the country and the world to news outlets by AP and UPI wire services. There were no demonstrations nor riots. No burning of embassies or skeaming partisans. While it was all rather modest and contained, to be sure, it reminded me of the anger that can erupt when the sacred is despoiled.

     It is cruel and often offensive (read sinful) to insult persons of other beliefs—religious, cultural or political. It is also intolerable to resort to destructive violence. I wonder what reaction might result if some Muslim, who truly appreciated Bach’s transcendent music, was visiting Bach Vespers this weekend at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Manhattan. Or even if a perceptive Roman Catholic was present, which is more likely. Unless the text had been edited diplomatically, the original German text includes a prayer that the “good Lord” protect us from the most cruel murder and oppression from “des Türken and des Papsts…” referring without any subtlety to the Moslems and Catholics! Bach followed Martin Luther in more ways than one. Luther’s hymn texts, until bowdlerized in the 20th Century, were similarly offensive with many aspersions cast vituperatively on both Pope and Turks.

     Some different images of violence came back to me as I watched the pitiful attempts to rescue children buried by mud on the Philippine island of Leyte. We veterans of World War II always associate that place with the famous naval battle in the Leyte Gulf and the dramatic return of General MacArthur. I was now, however, reminded of something else. A dozen years ago I was in the Philippines shooting a film among the mountain people. They lived in danger because of the wholesale rape of hillside vegetation practiced by these nomadic tribes. For their own livelihood they would cut down the forests for the wood and never give a thought to reforestation. And even the government was slow to produce any environmental remedy. I filmed an effort to help Filipinos learn terrace farming and in that way stop their long-standing “slash and burn” tactics that may well turn verdant mountain sides into rivers of mud and muck following torrential rains.

     And, finally, a very personal reaction to the accidental shooting of Chaney’s hunting partner with a shotgun. I am not a hunter and would find going out to kill animals for sport to be almost repulsive – although I did it once as a child with an older brother-in-law. But I have fired shot guns. The U. S. Navy (not the Army, oddly enough) had us out on the field attacking clay pigeons. So I know the power behind the pellets and felt the recoil experience and the deafening sound. But our learning to shoot had practical value, we were told. It taught us how to lead a moving target so that when we pulled the trigger (after being sure it was safe to fire) we aimed not where the target was but where it was going. Just in case, no doubt, that we flyers might have to man the aircraft’s guns in an emergency to attack the flying enemy target or defend ourselves from the target attacking us.

     Hunters might be asked on their return how many birds they bagged. In WWII the question to us flyboys might instead be, “How many Japs?”

     O Lord, have mercy! On us. On them.

February 17, 2006