The blessing of terror-free routine

Looking out the window of the morning commuter train as we pulled toward Jamaica Station in Queens, N.Y., I watched, as I often do, the streets slowly coming alive with human movement. Tired people walking to their jobs, running errands, or keeping an appointment. In the shadow of Thanksgiving and of the monstrous and altogether surprising massacre in San Bernardino, the simple scene was heavy with significance. The fact that nothing unusual was happening moved me to quiet rejoicing. No chaos. No blood in the streets. Several years after 9/11, I would still look with tense anticipation at any plane flying overhead and would thank God every time I arrived safely at Penn Station.

And here we are again. But now the terror—the general anticipation of unexpected and random violent evil—has broadened. GOP presidential candidate and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told the Republican Jewish Coalition, “If a center for the developmentally disabled in San Bernardino, Calif., can be a target for a terrorist attack, then every place in America is a target for a terrorist attack.”

He didn’t mention the other side of that new breadth of possibility, but many have it in mind even if they don’t speak it. If this apparently ordinary, American-born, Muslim environmental health specialist, recently married with a 6-month-old baby, can gun down dozens of his co-workers at a staff meeting, then people are bound to be wary of just about anyone who is or appears to be Muslim. Because of Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, almost all Muslims in this country will suffer the injustice of this apprehension.

President Obama had this in mind as he delivered his Oval Office speech last night. But in calling us to reject that fear conscientiously, he did not address Farook’s apparent ordinariness or the liberal bad conscience that made Farook’s neighbors unwilling to report suspicious activity around his house. It’s complicated.

The Apostle Paul told us to pray for all those in authority to the end that we may lead peaceful and quiet lives in all dignity and godliness (1 Timothy 2:2). Much of life is a dull blessing, a blessing in its dullness. A short drive through familiar streets. A long red light. Buying coffee. Taking out the trash. A quiet evening watching home renovation TV shows. At the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, a gathering of unremarkable people expected another dull, semiannual meeting with speeches and pastries.

The New York Daily News raised a howl of objection to political leaders offering prayer in place of stricter gun control laws. “God Isn’t Fixing This,” read the headlines that filled the front page last Thursday morning. “As latest batch of innocent Americans are left lying in pools of blood, cowards who could truly end gun scourge continue to hide behind meaningless platitudes.” They had in mind such as Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who tweeted:

We all are thinking about what happened in California today. Please keep the victims & their families in your prayers.

— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) December 2, 2015

The connection between gun control and lowering criminal gun violence is controversial. But when you scorn prayer for peace to the God of peace, you scorn much. So we pray once more for the ordinary to be uneventful. And we thank God, as we should, when our ordinary days end with sleepy regularity.