CEREMONY OF INNOCENCE
by Galen Guengerich
September 19, 2004
This has been a stormy season for our nation and our world. Tempests spawned by human hostility and by the forces of nature have left broad swaths of death and destruction in their wake. In times like these, we wonder when calm and compassion will begin to heal our brokenness.
Earlier this week, I was on the subway headed to an appointment in midtown, when my eye caught a snippet of Poetry in Motion on one of the placards. The lines were familiar ones, penned by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.Yeats published these lines shortly after the end of what we now call the First World War. Yeats and his contemporaries rightly called it The Great War. The war lasted from 1914 to 1918, and it embroiled most of the nations of Europe, along with Russia, the United States, and the Middle East. All told, more than 65 million soldiers were involved in the war. The dead soldiers and civilians numbered more than 20 million.
After surveying the carnage and destruction of the war, Yeats' poem continues on a note of desperation: "Surely some revelation is at hand; surely the Second Coming is at hand." In Yeats' view, the war-ravaged world could only be saved by the return of a messiah—not Jesus of Nazareth this time (Yeats had mostly given up on Christianity), but by the rebirth of what he called a Spiritus Mundi: a spirit of the world.
Like many of you, I have read this poem often, and I know it well. For some reason, however, the poem caught me off-guard this time, and I began thinking about what insights it has to offer us. When I read the lines about the circling falcon, a fiercely beautiful bird of prey, I immediately thought of the image, omni-present in recent days, of a hurricane turning on an animated weather map. I once watched a peregrine falcon circle high over the East River, waiting patiently until a hapless pigeon flew into its gyre. Then the falcon dove—they reach hurricane-like speeds of 120 miles an hour on attack—until it struck the pigeon, which perished in an explosion of feathers.
A hurricane too is a whirling maelstrom of terrible beauty. When it strikes, anarchy is loosed upon our homes and our world. Ask the storm-weary residents of Florida, Mississippi and Alabama, not to mention Grenada and the Dominican Republic. Hurricanes are one of the most imposing reminders that there are forces in the universe that human beings simply cannot control.
Blood-dimmed tides are not difficult to find these days either. Three hundred and thirty-eight people are dead, many of them children, in the bloody aftermath of the standoff between Chechen rebels and Russian troops in Beslan. Shamil Basayev, the Chechen guerilla commander, did express regret that so many children died, but he also vows that such violence will continue.
In the Sudan, fifty thousand Darfuris have died from disease, violence and malnutrition in the past eighteen months. The pro-government militia known as the Janjaweed has been on a genocidal rampage against ethnic Africans, attacking villages and killing and raping residents. For eighteen months, this has been happening. Fifty thousand dead and 1.2 million displaced. The Economist put the situation succinctly: "While the Sudanese government and the rebels have made excuse after excuse, and the world powers on the Security Council have bickered over each last comma in the proposed resolution, the plight of Darfur's people has barely improved. Up to 10,000 Darfuris are dying each month in the squalid refugee camps where they have fled to escape attacks from the government-backed janjaweed militia." As Yeats' presciently noted, "The best lack all convictions, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
The parallels between Yeats' world and ours are both obvious and unsettling. What strikes me most about his poem, however, is not the part about things falling apart or anarchy being loosed or even the blood-dimmed tide. The line that persists in my mind is the next line: "And everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned." I somehow never noticed this line before. What is a ceremony of innocence? Clearly, Yeats believes that bad things happen when the ceremony of innocence is drowned. This raises the question of what would happen if the ceremony of innocence were not missing. Whatever it is, Yeats seems to suggest that a ceremony of innocence helps create order and structure in the world. So, what is the ceremony of innocence?
The term innocent has several related meanings, the first of which is theological in nature. It means "free from moral wrong" or "sinless." The Psalmist petitions God, for example, saying, "Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression." The term innocent also means "not guilty" in the legal sense, as well as "simple" or "na•ve" in the sense of being childlike. My own guess, however, is that when Yeats used the term ceremony of innocence he did not have in mind either an acquittal or a baby dedication. We must dig deeper.
There is a phrase in Latin used by physicians to describe their sworn duty under the Hippocratic Oath. It has come to symbolize the healing profession in the same way as the Star of David symbolizes Judaism or the cross Christianity. The phrase reads, "Primum Non Nocere," which is usually translated as "First, do no harm." Nocere is a Latin verb that means to harm or injure. The English word "innocent" is constructed of that verb plus the prefix "in-" meaning not (inarticulate, incompetent). Innocent means not harmed or injured—that is, healthy or whole. A ceremony of innocence, therefore, would be something like a ceremony of wholeness. But why is it a ceremony?
When things are falling apart, we need to express our faith that death and destruction will not have the final word. When times are bad, we may have little evidence that our faith is well founded; sometimes we do not have the courage to believe it ourselves. Then the ceremony of innocence becomes crucial. The role of any ceremony is to keep us from forgetting what must not be forgotten. It reminds us who we are, where we come from, and what we believe. In this case, despite ample evidence of life's brokenness, and despite a flood of feelings that all may be lost, we choose, if only for a moment, to live as though the world is whole and healthy. We embrace what we can find of the truth, cherish what we can see of beauty, and respond with what we know of love. I do not suggest that we give up the fight against forces that injure and destroy, only that we remember to give the values we are fighting for a place in our lives.
Simply put, the ceremony of innocence is what brings us here to All Souls. In a world where many things are falling apart, we are here to testify that some things are not. We gather among friendly faces, listen to heavenly music, lift up acts of courage and reflect on psalms of hope. We strengthen each other, so that we can, in the words of the prophet Micah, "do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God." A ceremony of innocence is a statement of faith and an act of hope.
Several days ago, I visited a woman named Monica in the hospital, and I tell you about her with her permission. Monica has been attending All Souls for the past year with her twelve-year-old daughter Jordan. Monica came to this country from Malaysia before Jordan was born and has raised her as a single parent, without the benefit of extended family. Sometime in the next few weeks or months, Monica will likely die of a relatively rare and extremely persistent cancer. We talked about the challenges she has faced in her life, and especially her frustration that the cancer was not diagnosed earlier. Hers was a story I hear too often, especially from women: her doctors (some of whom are also women) brushed off her early intimations of trouble. By the time someone started paying attention, it was too late.
Mostly, we talked about her daughter—about the arrangements she has made for Jordan to remain in this country and the hopes she has for her as a young woman. It was a difficult conversation for me, since Jordan is about the same age as my daughter Zoé.
Then Jordan walked into the room from one of her first days in school. I liked her immediately. She is strong, smart, and delightfully bold. We talked about the courses she was taking and her new teachers—which ones were on the most sought-after list and which ones not. We talked about whether her new hairstyle makes her face look square (my answer is no). We also discussed whether Ashlee Simpson is musically more talented than her older sister Jessica (my answer is yes).
It was during that conversation that I finally understood Yeats. My conversation with a dying woman and her daughter was, in its own way, a ceremony of innocence. The fact that Monica is dying does not mean Ashlee Simpson is irrelevant to her daughter, nor does Jordan's concern about how her hair looks mean that her mother will not die. The lesson is this: no matter how difficult the circumstances or how dire the situation, seize the opportunity to celebrate whatever wholeness you can find. Heed what is true, cherish what is beautiful, and embrace what is loving. From this ceremony will come strength for the journey that lies ahead.
When I was a child, we had family worship in the living room most nights after supper. Mom would read from our book of Bible stories, we would sing a song or two, and then we would all kneel and Dad would pray. His prayers always seemed long to me, but then he had a lot of ground to cover: our family, the church, our nation's leaders, and often a continent or two of the world and its troubles. The tradition Holly, Zoé and I have developed is quite different—it is certainly a lot shorter—but I have come to understand that it plays a similar role. When we sit down to dinner, we hold hands and take turns saying what we are grateful for. On some evenings, the ample blessings of the day come tumbling out. Other evenings find us less ebullient and more thoughtful. The evening after I visited the dying mother and her daughter, I simply said to Zoé, "I'm grateful I could make you a peanut butter sandwich this morning." Some days, moments like that are gift enough.
Our world is continually roiled by people and forces that are not innocent in any sense of the word. Their purpose is to injure and destroy. Our purpose is to bring about wholeness in all its forms: beauty, truth, compassion, and love. This involves standing firm against the forces of evil and making a place for the presence of good. I have a few suggestions for how we can do this. The first is to figure out what in the world you can get angry about. If you are drawn to the suffering of Africa, watch the Bruce Willis movie Tears of the Sun or read the book Escape from Slavery, the story of Francis Bok, a seven-year-old boy from Southern Sudan. Learn more about why assault weapons are legal in most states again, or why 43 million Americans do not have health insurance. Then get involved in some way that will make a difference. Engagement is the best antidote to despair.
At the same time—and this is the crux of the matter—remember to live the values you are fighting to defend. Become a high priest of wholeness. Conduct ceremonies of innocence everywhere. Hug your kids or partner or cat as though you mean it. Ask someone how he or she is doing and listen carefully to the answer. Invite a friend over for supper tonight. Send someone flowers. Evil and suffering can negate and pervert life, but they cannot fulfill it. Our purpose is to forge a world where, as Yeats might say, the worst lack all convictions, while the best are full of passionate intensity.