ÜBER DIESE EPISODE
Nearly every day, I am absolutely awestruck by the grandeur, complexity, and spectacle that is the world we live in. Without exaggeration, there is more to experience and more to learn than could be done in at least 8 billion lifetimes. Everything from the mundane drop of a pebble, falling towards the Earth, to the orchestra that is a car engine, humming in time to never-ending internal combustion. It’s all fascinating. How come the pebble always falls towards the Earth? Why is it always along the same path? Would different pebbles fall differently? Why? Why not? How does the engine keep from exploding? How can the same mechanism be used in so many different designs? What makes one design different from another? What makes them the same? On and on my wonder wanders from the briefest of moments to the vast expanse of space and time.
It’s quite easy to be wrapped up in it all, and it’s a testament to our intelligence as humans that we’ve managed to define, measure, or understand any of it. But even as crafty and as clever as we are, there’s still so many questions left unanswered. Every answer generates new questions, and it’s likely that some questions will ultimately be left unanswered. Maybe some questions we’ll never get to even attempt an answer. Maybe some questions will simply be too uninteresting. Maybe some questions will require more people to describe than will ever exist. And still others might defy any attempt to answer. Again, it’s easy to be wrapped up in it all. And while it would be easier still to admit defeat, to look at the relatively short amount of time each of us has and feel hopeless, I choose to be happy that I live in this time where we know so much but also have so much to still be curious about.
Having said all that, it would be understandable to think there is some grand design that we just cannot see or some divine will that our intellect just cannot comprehend. Maybe that’s true, but I don’t think we should give up the ghost just yet.
As a young man, I was confirmed Catholic but raised Protestant with two technically-oriented parents in a family that proudly included both Jews and Muslims. All of that to say, my relationship with religion is complex and my relationship with God is more complicated still. Who am I to say which is right and which is wrong? Is there even such a thing as absolute morality? What of science? How does that fit in?
“…Comforting each other, we would say ‘This was an act of God’.” The pastor continued, “But if we examine this more closely, this is an act of man”.
It was in this backdrop when I was 16 or 17 that I found myself listening to a sermon one Sunday morning. In my church at the time, the now disbanded Columbia United Christian Church, we would sometimes have guest pastors. Many of those pastors were long-time members of the church with full-time jobs as industry professionals or as government employees or contractors. On that Sunday morning, the guest pastor just happened to have experience with both. He gave a somewhat unusual sermon given his god-worshiping church-going audience.
It started with a fictional but nonetheless relevant story of a person driving their car through a mountain pass. Anyone who has had the experience will have seen how the road will sometimes cut directly through the mountainside, carving walls of bare rock. He continued his story as though from memory and paced across the front of the room. He described how this car might be struck by debris, rock falling from the walls perhaps. The car might be damaged, or the driver might be fatally injured. The guest pastor would finally reveal his thesis. “Discussing this event afterwards, we might consider the chance that one pebble might hit another, causing a catastrophic cascade that ultimately took the driver’s life. Comforting each other, we would say ‘This was an act of God’.” The pastor continued, “But if we examine this more closely, this is an act of man”.
I was intrigued. How would he make this case? He went on to describe how these mountain passes are built. I can’t say for sure looking back, but he spoke with such authority that I have to assume some intimate or practical knowledge of the process.
The path that a roadway takes isn’t random. Surveys and studies are done to determine the best possible location considering a variety of factors. Cost and environment are some factors, but also the risk to drivers. Now, having learned much as a kind of hobbyist Civil Engineer, I understand what he was referring to. Risks such as flooding, landslides, collisions, etc. are typically considered. While it might not be known exactly when an event such as falling debris might occur or when that debris might cause a fatality, the question of “if” is almost always answered in the affirmative. That is, road designers and Civil Engineers, know that the path cut by a mountainside roadway will, eventually, cause an accident. Many times they can even get down to the point of knowing how much rain, wind, temperature, etc. will produce just the right conditions. Looking at precipitation and weather trends, they might be able to narrow it down even further to a particular season.
At one point, there was a flurry of activity outside the store I was in. We were told that ICE was suspected of being outside, casing the many stores in the shopping center, and that the lookouts were monitoring.
One can see how, with enough data, we might be able to predict the very fatality my guest pastor presented with some precision. While this argument didn’t quite bridge the gap, no pun intended, to god-like omniscience, it was nonetheless compelling and I took the point. We, as individuals, often fail to recognize how very smart we’ve become. Our decisions, as a society, are frequently informed with enough precision that we can plan for our own failures.
I recalled that sermon during a visit to Minnesota in January of this year. I was only there for a short time, long enough to do some IT work and hop on a plane back home. All told, about 36 hours. I arrived only a week or so after Renee Good was killed and I was immediately struck by the great sense of urgency that existed everywhere I went. I messaged back home “This place is about to pop”. Lookouts were outside every shopping center, ready to report whenever ICE was suspected of being nearby.
I recall feeling especially exposed as someone who was there to perform on-site IT work in a number of Latin grocery stores. For sure, if ICE had decided to raid a store while I was there, I would be detained (and yes, I’m aware of the distinction between being detained and being arrested). With a short explanation, I would likely be released pretty quickly, but who wants to worry about that? And who wants to worry about what an agitated officer might do while they’re being scouted and harassed by a crowd? Who wants to worry about what a crowd might do having been called into action by a lookout who hastily relayed conditions? I certainly didn’t and I could tell the employees I saw in the various backrooms didn’t want to worry about that either.
As I quickly moved from room to room, I saw the momentary fear flash across each employee’s face before recognizing who I was and that I wasn’t there for them. At one point, there was a flurry of activity outside the store I was in. We were told that ICE was suspected of being outside, casing the many stores in the shopping center, and that the lookouts were monitoring.
As a result of all the activity, I was told by my coworker that the stores I was in were basically void of customers and many employees had chosen to stay home. These businesses and the community by extension were suffering. Almost certainly, this would result in patients procrastinating on healthcare, students missing lessons, neighbors avoiding one another, and local governments limiting services as tax revenue dwindled. Immigrant or not, no one wants to worry about that.
Amidst all the chaos, it’s easy to feel like so much is an act of god. The killing of Renee Good was a truly catastrophic failure. If any one thing had changed- the position of the gunman, the position of Renee Good’s car, the temperature of the roadway- Renee Good might still be alive today. But a calculated risk was taken to put a spotlight on Minnesota, on ICE, on law enforcement, on immigrants, and on a community. This was an act of man.
Not much in the way of corrections as most of this episode is about processing current events through a spiritual lens.
The faint siren during the article Julius had written was not added in. The microphones were picking up emergency vehicles as Julius was talking about the moment that ICE was suspected of being outside. Not planned. Just coincidence.
The source wiki used to cite John Adams using the phrase “crapulous mass” in the article about Thomas Paine doesn’t reveal the phrase.
Pierre Delecto was the handle of the Twitter Account Mitt Romney used to lurk on Social Media and comment as a common person. Here is an NPR article about it.
Captain Tuttle was an imaginary M*A*S*H character that Alan Alda’s Captain Peirce came up with. S1 E15
A wiki article on Hanlon’s Razor
No real good source on this one. Here is a message from the President of Santa Clara University citing this African Proverb.
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