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Writing in the Dust
Rowan Williams
Hodder & Stoughton, 2002
Review
first published on fish.co.uk. in 2002.
It's odd that the attacks on America in 2001 have become known simply as 'September 11'. It's as if what happened was so traumatic that we'd rather just to refer to the date than the events themselves. In the week or two that followed, the media always called the tragedy 'recent events', and now the offical code for it is a calendar entry.
There is a lot about words in this little book of Rowan Williams's. The words we use to help us deal with tragedy, the words we use to help us do evil. The words that help us understand each other, and the ones we use to make sure we don't.
Try this for example, comparing the last minute phone messages sent by the victims with the spiritual advice given them by the terrorists:
The religious words are, in the cold light of day, the ones that murderers are saying to themselves to make a martyr's drama out of a crime. The non-religious words are a testimony to what religious language is suppose to be about - the triumph of pointless, gratuitous love, the affirming of faithfulness even when there is nothing to be done or salvaged.
It is a very short book. You could read it in one sitting, depending on how long you have to sit. But it is full of wisdom.
It does not make sense of the tragedy, but then neither does it try to. It is itself only a bunch of words, after all. It does not try to 'justify the ways of God to man', to set things right, to make religious capital from the event, or show all things working together for good.
Rather the Archbishop offers his personal reflections on what happened, in a way that helps you think things through, examine your own feelings, learn something and get a better idea of how you should respond. He proves that religious words can do some good after all.
