The Chair’s Corner

Seeing What We Don’t Want to See
by Gary Commins

In The Lord of the Rings trilogy, “seeing stones” called palantirs enable two powerful leaders to see things going on miles off or years away. Presumably, this information should help them to act with greater insight. But the two leaders who use the seeing stones are ruined. One is turned to evil; the other to despair.

As the evil Sauron in The Lord of the Rings manipulates the seeing stones, so our government has censored, cut and pasted what Americans see of the war in Iraq. Government control has airbrushed away the caskets, the blood, and the horror. Fox News gives its “fair and balanced” presentation of truth; other media shift their point of view as if it was tacked to a makeshift parachute blown by any breeze of opinion. The documentary No End in Sight chronicles a litany of stupidity in the occupation of Iraq. The film’s strength is that it can appeal to people across the ideological spectrum. Its weakness is that it critiques the war only as a problem of arrogance and mismanagement, of attitude and technique.
The Bush Administration saw what it wanted to see, and sold this war to people ready to see what they wanted to see. The Administration was obscenely obtuse, but not unique in their blindness. All of us need to be careful that we do not simply see what we want to see—another excuse for liberal self-righteousness, or another reason to rush headlong into the self-absolution of powerlessness.

Those of us who oppose the war may still see what we want to see. As we look at the war, we need to make sure that we are not turned to despair or to evil, or to the liberal practice of damning and demonizing the Bush Administration instead of getting at the primary issues: that war cannot create peace; domination cannot create democracy; violence cannot redeem, cleanse, or restore life.

We need to help each other to see what we don’t want to see—which is what God needs us to see—the complexity of the world and the intricacy of our souls. What God would have us see in the world and in our hearts may furrow our brows and even wound our spirits, but ultimately it will turn us toward goodness, prayer, action, and hope.

Gary Commins is the Chair of the National Executive Council, Rector of St. Luke’s Church in Long Beach, California, Deputy to General Convention, and author of Becoming Bridges: The Spirit and Practice of Diversity.