I have this habit of sometimes saving clippings or sections from old newspapers and magazines. The other day, as I started to go through some of them to clean them out, I was struck by how different the world had become for us in only a short time. The normally, abnormal world we had come to accept was gone. Concerns about things like road construction, or sports, or congressional bickering, or local politics somehow now seemed insignificant and almost trivial.

And as I perused the papers, devoutly wishing for a return to those halcyon days of triviality, I came across an old article in the New York Times that made me realize just how insulated we in this country have been from some of the world's horrors.

The article was about the small farming village of Chittisinghpora in Kashmir, India. On a quiet evening in March of 2000 it was settling down for the night. Made up almost entirely of non-militant Sikh farmers, the village had just finished its evening prayers at the temple and its members were going home for their evening meal.

Now Chittisinghpora by any standards is poor. Two hundred families manage to scratch out a bare existence beneath the rugged beauty of the Himalayas as their ancestors had done for countless generations. And for countless generations the villagers had said their evening prayers at the temple and gone home for their evening meal.

But this night was to be different for many reasons. For one thing, many would be listening on the few radios they had to the accounts of an American president who was visiting India for the first time in 22 years. For another, 35 men and boys would not live to see the morning.

The little village was in partial darkness because of a power failure in parts of it, apparently a frequent occurrence there. And it was this darkness that covered the movement of a band of heavily-armed, masked men. Methodically, the intruders rounded up men and boys who were making their way home from prayers. And just as methodically, they massacred them.

Now Kashmir has been the focal point of bloody insurrection since India and Pakistan received their independence. Moslem militants continuously attempt to wrench control of the province away from India. However, this was the first time Sikhs had been targeted since they were largely neutral in the conflict.

A few weeks later, a young Moslem militant who allegedly took part in the murders was captured. He was a member of an extreme militant group called Lashkar-e-Taiba that had been waging a jihad or Holy War in the region. He showed absolutely no remorse for what had been done, nor did he deny his part in it.

When he was told that the people they killed were peaceful farmers and innocent civilians, he said that they may have been civilians but they could not have been innocent. "The Koran, teaches us not to kill innocents," he said. "If Lashkar told us to kill those people, then it was the right thing to do. I have no regrets." You see in Holy Wars the leader's orders always come directly from God.

For the most part, events like this in far away places go unnoticed. We read about it in the newspaper and we think, what a tragedy, and then we go about our daily lives. But this week was different. We were numbed by the horror of what happened right here in the United States. Thousands of people killed or maimed, buildings destroyed, our sense of security and well being shattered, perhaps forever. Yet, in terms of personal loss to their loved ones and the community in which they lived, it was no greater a tragedy than the disaster at Chittisinhgpora.

While we in this country have lived lives of comparative safety and security, these types of episodes are not new to the rest of humankind because the roots of hatred go deep into the past. Only the scale and dimensions have changed as we allow 21st Century technology to fall into the hands of individuals with 5th Century mentalities, prejudices, and hatreds.

So, how do we deal with the enormity of this tragedy on any rational level. The answer is we can't deal with it on a rational level. Nor is it at all comforting to say, "It's God's will." Because once we accept that premise, we have to accept that irrational argument as justification for almost every horror humans have visited on themselves throughout history.

In his work, "Essay on Man," Alexander Pope wrote:
"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, the proper study of mankind is man."
Political correctness aside in using words like mankind and man, Pope was reflecting on the fact that since their appearance on earth, humans have constantly sought to determine divine intent or direction instead of searching within themselves for answers. Why? Possibly out of fear that we may have to face some truths about ourselves too painful to bear.

We might finally have to admit that down through the centuries we alone were responsible for the acts of violence and, the atrocities committed. We might finally have to admit that our marching orders were not given by God but by those who abuse their positions as spiritual or secular leaders to create fear, to trade on prejudice, to feed our insecurity about what lies ahead after the here-and-now of our lives is over.
We might finally have to admit that with our acquiescence they hold us captive to our beliefs, dangling the promise of eternity before our eyes as if it were theirs to give or take away.

How many acts of violence, how many atrocities have been committed by those who trade on insecurity, fear, prejudices and secure our obedience through the belief that only they are capable of understanding the unfathomable mind of God. That their words are universal verities.

Can we really believe that if a supreme, omnipotent, omniscient being truly exists it is incapable of communicating with us and requires such intermediaries? Can we really believe that if a supreme, omnipotent, omniscient being truly exists it would be culpable in instigating or directing these tragedies?

But so as long as those who keep God as their own personal domain continue to perform, as Jean Paul Sartre calls it, their "slow ritual dance before men's eyes so that they fail to look into themselves" their power over the mind and will remains intact. And have no illusions, power not holiness is what it is really all about.

This obscene sarabande of hatred, this slow ritual dance has wound its way through the centuries, from ancient times to the present. The God-Keepers were there when God directed the Crusaders to drive out or kill the Moslems occupying Jerusalem during the Middle Ages. They were also there when God urged the Moslems to drive out and kill the infidels?

Was it the same God?

And in the Middle East today there are God-Keepers to tell Jewish settlers in Israel that God gave them the land upon which they build their settlements. Is that the same God that tells a Palestinian militant to blow himself up in a market place killing innocent people?

Is the God that urges Catholics in Ireland to kill Protestants, the same one that urges Protestants to kill Catholics?

What God directs the bloody, internecine warfare in Sri Lanka, in the Philippines, in the Sudan, as well as other countries in Africa and around the world?

And what God spoke to the terrorists that flew planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center killing thousands of innocent people and themselves? Was it the same God that spoke to the terrorists at Chittisinghpora?

All scriptures, including the Koran, consider suicide a mortal sin. And yet the God-Keepers convince their followers that it is a one-way ticket to heaven.
Do you see the pattern here? God seems only to tell people to do what they are already hell-bent on doing anyway, or at least what the God-Keepers tell them they must do. He rarely says, "Don't do it. It is wrong."

Often through sheer charisma backed up by perverted religiosity and playing on discontent or deprivation, these leaders are able to mold hatred into conviction and conviction into violence. To convince their followers that what they are doing is done under direct orders from God? The question is, when do we stop blaming God for what we do to ourselves and to each other?

Throughout history and in many cultures, the deity has often been represented as a father or mother figure, the creator of all life. And yet doesn't one really have to wonder exactly what type of parent sets its children against each other and orders the destruction of some?

Unfortunately, whether we see God as the "illimitable superior spirit," that Einstein referred to or simply that spark of divinity within ourselves that we call life, the concept of divinity becomes either trivialized or dangerous by those who claim intimate knowledge of the Devine.

Because once we step across that particular line and as Pope said, "presume God to scan," we are in danger of journeying to that rigid fundamentalist worldview that tolerates no other. A worldview that sees life only as a staging point for eternity, not something valuable in itself.

And whether the fundamentalistic worldview is based on Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or yes, even atheism, it shares a common tragic flaw with all the others. The flaw is that those who choose to make this journey use a faulty compass. A compass that points always to absolute certainty when such certainty is not possible. This is as true of the fundamentalist believer as it is of the unbeliever. The only difference is that the one indulges his wishes or fears, the other indulges his ego.
It is like living in a house with no windows, with doors shut tightly and which open only to those who know the code. We hear sounds coming from the outside, but attempt to shut them out. We make up stories to feed our imagination and our prejudices, our fears. We live by rules and philosophies that we make up to keep anything, even light, from entering and disturbing the beliefs we have convinced ourselves are true.
And often, we live apart in these houses not knowing, touching, or interconnecting with the vast spirit of humanity that inhabits this planet. Not daring to open a door lest the vast mysterious universe overwhelms us with questions we are not able to answer. But worst of all, we turn over our will to question and our natural instinct to understand to others and fail to search for that spark of divinity that resides within us all.

If we are to survive on this beautiful little planet we call Earth, we must throw open those doors and glory in the contending voices and ideas, not hide under a blanket of fear or be motivated by promises of eternity. For what someone tells us God said or didn't say is really irrelevant.

If there is a Supreme Being presiding over the universe, it has obviously endowed us with free will, with brains to think with, and emotions to feel with. And with these wonderful gifts come awesome responsibilities. Responsibilities to use these gifts wisely for humankind's betterment.

Our relations with God, should he or she exist, is in our own hands, not the hands of the chosen few. In their hands, we have often seen scriptures perverted and become a weapon rather than a key to our humanity. A key to who we are, where we came from, how we once thought about the world and the universe.

A key that can provide either an ethical basis for our existence or, when misused, open the door to an abyss of rigidity and darkness, moving the clock backward with every attempted step by humankind to move forward. Unquestioning belief as well as fear of the unknown is the coin by which the God-Keepers buy our obedience and create tragedies such as the one this week.

God may be a reality or merely a concept, a wish our hearts make. A need to know that we are not alone in a vast indifferent and largely unforgiving universe. A need to know that this spark of awareness we call life does not end with death. This is best left to individual thought and belief and ultimately will only be decided by our own mortality. But however we approach our belief system, it must be founded on the indispensable principle of human dignity and the value of all life.

I do not know, nor do I believe anyone has the power to tell us what lies behind the final door. But let's, for a moment, assume that at the end of it all, there is nothing but the final merging of our cells with the star matter from which we came.
Will we, at the final moment before that long uninterrupted sleep remember and take joy in the lives we led, the people we loved and who loved us, and those we helped along the way? Or will we, as the poet Dylan Thomas wrote, "rage against the dying of the light," pained by thoughts of the people we have hurt, regretting the missed opportunities to help others, despairing over the precious hours of life wasted in hate and intolerance?

On the other hand, suppose we do have a unique and privileged place in the universe and that the final lapse into unconsciousness which we call death is only a transition to some greater consciousness. A consciousness in which our eternal existence, our reward or punishment, is determined by a Supreme Being.

Will we be rewarded only for the number of times we have been on our knees, hands clasped in prayer and singing hosannas? Will we be rewarded for the lives we destroy in the name of holiness as I am sure those who piloted the planes into the World Trade Center or those who murdered at Chittisinghpora were convinced they would be?
Or rather will our reward come from the number of times we were on our feet willing to bear witness against hate and oppression? The number of times our unclasped hands reached out to help not hurt. The number of times we have used our voices to unambiguously reach out with words of comfort and love?

No one can tell us now what the final resolution of the terrible events of this past week will be. Yes, there is unimaginable grief. Yes, there is anger. Yes, there will undoubtedly be retribution. But something more must come from the insanity and chaos of this terrible tragedy if we are not to see it repeated again and again.
We must seek a new covenant for humanity. A covenant based on understanding and compassion. A new covenant that attempts to sweep away the ancient hatreds and fears that still plague us. A covenant in which there is no place for those who use our beliefs and our insecurities to further their own ambitions.

A new covenant for humanity that speaks to our willingness to define ourselves in terms of what each contributes to the betterment of humanity rather than where or how one seeks his or her personal salvation or reason for existence.

Dylan Thomas urged that we "do not go gentle into that good night." However, I believe we do go gentle into that good night when the path we choose in life includes love, understanding, and compassion. And when we choose that path, we need not fear the morning's awakening, if there is to be one. Or if there is to be none, the peace we earn from a life full and rich and built on the principle of caring.

Seeking a New Covenant for Humanity by Howard Masters-Sept. 16, 2001