Catholic
Spirituality
Too
much information,
not enough meaning
Guest Columnist
Joan Forde
The
whole world spoke the same language, using the same words. While men
were migrating in the East, they came upon a valley in the land of Shinar
and settled there. … Then they said, “Come, let us build
ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and so make a
name for ourselves.”
Then the Lord said: “If now while they are one people, all speaking
the same language, they have started do this, nothing will later stop
them from doing whatever they presume to do … let us confuse their
language, so that one will not understand what another says.”
Thus the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they
stopped building the city.
Genesis 11: 1-8
Looking ahead in the Sunday missalette last week, I noticed that the narrative
of the tower of Babel is the first reading on the vigil of Pentecost.
I had not thought about that story in a long time. Its juxtaposition with
the feast of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the young Christian community
piqued my interest. What might it mean today?
“Babel.” The word jumped into my head again the next morning
as I navigated the aisles of a block-long supermarket in search of the
last two ingredients for a pasta dish. Bone-shaking rock music from ubiquitous
ceiling speakers competed with periodic pitches for compelling “specials.”
The produce aisle blared with noise from a big-screen video on which a
garrulous chef hacked away at a pineapple. Was it peppers or garlic I
meant to get? Pale tendrils of memory faded in the noise.
Then, in the car radio on the way home news bites followed each other,
fast and frenzied — the credit crunch, super delegates, presidential
candidates’ stump speeches — and finally, as I pulled up to
the house, a report by a representative of the World Bank on the worsening
global hunger crisis. There is enough food, he said. It is just not reaching
human stomachs. I turned off the engine and sat listening.
One hundred million people will be newly pushed to the brink of starvation
because the price of grain is rising beyond their reach. Why? Grain is
being diverted both to feed animals for the first world’s consumption,
and to make the fastest food of all, biofuels.
He offered an an eye-popping image: The grain required to fill the tank
of a sports utility vehicle with ethanol could feed one person for a year.
Presumably the owner of that SUV will drive to a supermarket, such as
the one I had just come from, and ponder its endless choices, while half
the world wonders whether it will eat at all.
How could this disconnect have happened? How could human beings have so
profoundly lost sight of one another’s needs?
The story from Genesis is no less fresh than it was many thousands of
years ago. Babel is alive and well. In the noise and stimulation of our
culture, we have taken our eyes off the heavens and focused on our surreal
structure of wealth, consumption, and “making a name for ourselves.”
In losing sight of God, we fellow creatures on this lovely blue planet
have lost one another. We are confounded. And our lavish structure is
making ominous, creaking sounds.
As grim news alternates with meaningless distractions, it’s a bleak
picture. Guilt will only take us so far before it becomes tiresome. Politics
will not save us. We, shut up here in the collective upper room, need
something completely new, unheard of, undreamed. Another Pentecost.
Perhaps, scared and in the dark like this, it is more than time to ask.
Veni, veni Sancte Spiritus.
Let
us pray that the Holy Spirit may bring peace and unity to all mankind.
Almighty and ever-living God, You fulfilled the Easter promise by
sending us Your Holy Spirit.
May that Spirit unite the races and nations on earth to proclaim Your
glory.
Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and
reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.