A Perspective on Man and a Century

A Perspective on Man and a Century 
By James A. Langley

[Dr. James A. Langley is former Executive Director of the District of Columbia Baptist Convention.]

                       I

Humankind by reason lifted
    To new heights of hope untrammeled,

    Throwing all, dreamers had gambled
Science would prove how man was gifted,

And usher in a brave new day
    Of peace and progress non-pareil,
    Sparing the race the scourge of hell
By ceaseless wars and evil`s play.

They knew not the greatness of man
    Is deep-joined with his misery,
    His genius and philosophy
Marred by hubris and selfish plan.

Prospects had never seemed more bright
    For bettering the lot of all,
    Breaking down each dividing wall,
Hailing the dawn of endless light.

                       II

Instead the new age would witness
    Death stalking the world grim visaged,
    Civilization near pillaged,
Man shown greater but also less.

Devastating successive wars
    Brought the killing fields from the Somme[i]
    To Hiroshima, Vietnam–
The victories less man`s than Mars`.

The depth of the abyss came not
    From clashes on land, sea or air;
    Sheer malevolence was laid bare
By genocide, a hell-hatched plot:

Blind hatred of others by birth,
    Race or religion, with fiendish
    Scheming, ruthlessness and relish,
Damning their total human worth.

                       III

Infamous names!  Hitler, Stalin,
    Lenin, Mao Tse-tung, Mobutu,
    Pol Pot, Idi Amin–fat`d due:
0 how are the mighty fallen!

The long, dark annals of man show
    No like age of such terror, grief
    And ruin. Yet `tis also chief
Of all spans changing status quo.

Down with tyrants!Up with freedom!
    Ran the cry, with liberating
    Power, tho` misrule unbending
Still grips millions, spurs martyrdom.

Valor will we long remember   
    By the Marne and in Flanders fields;
    Who can measure the bloody yields,
Fame more than a dying ember?

Stalingrad, Alamein, Midway,
    Normandy–bat`les that turned the tide
    For forces of `freedom` allied,
And raised strong hopes for a new day.

In the Great War`s train came the rise–
    And fire-fall of Nazism`s far-flung
    Sway, like a Gotterdammerung[ii]
With vict’ry in Cold War disguise.

Since Bolsheviks seized the Tower,
    Tyranny worse than the Czars` reigned
    In Russia; higher Force ordained
The Soviets` fall from power.

                       IV

Titanic`s voyage, glorious
    Epic feat to show man master
    of Neptune`s realm–its disaster
Made ship, and pride, notorious.

Yet here too heroism would shine
    Thro` some, as with the Dorchester,[iii]
    And send signals by this gesture
That men may rise to the sublime.

The dustbowl, earthquakes, storms and floods
    Ravaged the earth, scarred survivors;
    Galveston, `Frisco, sent tremors
Long and deep, touching human moods.

The Great Depression wrenched masses
    So deeply they would not forget;
    A new wave of wealth rose and set
Highs, wider dividing classes.

Assassinations–Ferdinand`s,[iv]
    Of President Kennedy, King,
    And great statesman Rabin, would bring
Reactions across many lands.

                       V

With science`s sev`n-league boots, time-space
    Became more friendly, the whole world
    A village; medicine unfurled
New flags of health and healing grace.

Scientists thro` fusion and fission
    Found secrets of atoms, unleashed
    Powers of Armageddon–or peace,
Raised the question of man`s mission.

Sputnik gallvanized the space race,
    ‘Til man`s `one giant leap` to the moon;
    Probes unmanned brought many a boon,
Tho` of like-being signs no trace.

Computers` modest beginnings
    Hardly showed mega-quantum strides
    In micro chips now used as guides,
For all things the underpinnings.

Linked to the world by web world wide,
    Information ever-flowing,
    Instant, pervasive, all-knowing–[v]
Wise, then good, oth`rwise a fool`s guide.


                       VI

"Greatest woman since Joan of Arc,"
    This was Mark Twain`s unique tribute
    To Helen Keller, deaf, blind, mute,
Who inspired transcending world spark.

How indebted humanity
    Is to selfless Marie Curie`s[vi]
    Epoch making discoveries
For diagnostic clarity

And much more; Einstein`s formulas
    And theories, herculean
    Break-throughs for all empyrean
Science, atomic avatars.

The Wrights` machines, Lindbergh flying
    The Atlantic, Bartok`s dances,
    Yeats` and Eliot`s insights, fancies,
Salk`s cure for crippling and dying;

Gandhi richly earned the title[vii]
    Accorded him; the strength, vision
    And courage of Cady Stanton,
Anthony, later won their bat`le[viii]

Fermi`s mind, the gift of Anne Frank,
    Stravinsky`s fire, Picasso`s art,
    Mother Teresa`s loving heart,
These such are they we have to thank.

Hemingway`s skill with a story,
    But Mann the loftier writer;
    Solzhenitsyn, the grand fighter
For truth, deserves higher glory.

Courageous Mandela and King,
    Prophets of justice, the caring
    Of Schweitzer, Bonhoeffer`s daring,
Gave hope and grace authentic ring.

Nixon who resigned as Pres`dent,
    Charged with grave abuse of power,
    Will be known too for a dower
Of foreign actions prescience.

Wilson, Franklin Roos`velt, loom tall,
    Yet Churchill, resolved, defiant,
    Sounding `the lion`s roar,` triumphant
`Gainst monstrous evil, stands o`er all.

                      VII

Era images still remain–[ix]
    The Hindenburg crashing in flames,
    Montana, Gretsky, winning games,
Truman, victor, mocks Dewey`s claim.

Darker images sear from far-
    Apocalyptic mushroom cloud,
    Wretched souls beyond trapped and cowed:
Auschwitz, Katyn9 and Babi Yar.[x]

Children`s bloated bellies, spindly limbs,
    Mocked by first world`s surfeit of fat,
    And weak policies that stand pat–
Dark blight on an age–its victims.

`Stars-stripes` on Iwo Jima raised,
    Marchers attacked in quest of right,
    `Challenger` explodes soon in flight,
Raoul Wallenberg justly praised.[xi]

                      VIII

Simpson case, pros`cutorial,
    Police and judicial wreck;
    Lindbergh kidnapping trial trek
Played to media carnival.

Brown-Board wrought justice long deferred;
    The High Court in Roe versus Wade
    Broke new judicial ground, made
Strong controversy undeterred.

                       IX

Billy Graham preached to large throngs,
    Christianity grew world wide,
    Tho` some saw its weight at ebb-tide;
Late gain to Muslim faith belongs.

Religion`s Grand Inquisitors
    Undermined the freedom of soul,
    Long the free church`s cherished goal,
Of true faith made themselves gov`rnors.

Rome`s Vatican Two gave promise
    Of deep reforms in `Peter`s seat`;
    John Paul Second held them discreet,
Leaves a record sui generis.

                       X

Garlands many to wide acclaim,
    Yet few so enduring and bold
    As Ruth`s heroics, Jesse`s gold,[xii]
Or Bobby Jones` grand slamming fame.

Nurmi,[xiii] Nicklaus, define merit,
    Pele, legend in his own time;
    None is like Jordan in his prime,
The Armstrongs` triumphs of spirit.[xiv]

Nolan Ryan`s pitching prowess,
    Ripken`s endurance, McGwire`s clout,
    Aaron`s record–the lure about
Their game with such will not grow less.[xv]

                       XI

Movie fame has gone with the wind:
    Garbo, Gable, Taylor, Monroe,
    Fade; only affairs soul-size go
On and enduringly contend.

Films, television, internet
    May entertain, inform, inspire;
    But where`s the light and where the fire
If `wasteland` grows, virulence set?

                       XII

Symbols of hope, faith and courage
    Abound: democracy`s wide rise,
    Life span grows, apartheid`s demise,
Berlin Wall`s fall, Beijing`s rampage.[xvi]

Amundsen first at the South Pole,
    Hillary, Tenzing climb Ev`rest,
    Piccard–altitude, ocean test
Pioneer, pushing mankind`s goal.

Lend-lease aid and the Marshall Plan,
    Debts of poorer nations forgiv`n,
    The hurting helped, many have striv`n;
Chapters of man`s concern for man.

Women`s and civil rights at last
    Gained thro` hard struggle over wrong,
    Shame and prejudice ages-long;
Human rights key the future`s cast.

                       XIII

If it was `the American
    Century,`[xvii] America still
    Confronted much to test her will
For good, where`er her writ still ran.

The mind of man so rich in gifts
    Wrought works of genius, brilliant, deft,
    Still at century`s end has left
Mankind plagued by ominous rifts.

If man would conquer his heart`s flaw,
    By Divine grace he must recov`r
    Selflessness with greatness, discov`r
His brother in love, God in awe.

Endnotes


[i] The British alone suffered 60,000 casualties (killed and wounded) on the first day of the Battle of the Somme "without gaining a single yard." (William Manchester, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill–Alone, 1932-1940, 47)

[ii] The finale of Wagner`s magnum opus, The Ring of the Nibelung, of which the central motif is the mythical figure Wotan`s love of power. Hitler, as William L. Shirer noted in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (p. 101), "worshiped Wagner". He was a close friend of the Wagner family and frequented performances of Wagner at Beyreuth. Gotterdammerung (Twilight of the Gods), the last opera Hitler ever attended, which he saw shortly after the fall of France (Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, 351), climaxes with Valhalla—the castle built to consolidate Wotan s rule–crashing in flames and total catastrophe. Shirer adds: "It is not at all surprising that Hitler tried to emulate Wotan when in 1945 he willed the destruction of Germany so that it might go down in flames with him" (Op. cit., 102).

[iii] In World War II in the North Atlantic, four chaplains (Protestant, Catholic and Jewish) aboard the torpedoed troopship USS Dorchester (February 3, 1943) gave their life jackets to servicemen who had none, and went down with the ship, survivors said, with their arms linked and heads bowed in prayer.

[iv] The assassination of Austrian crown prince Archduke Ferdinand (and his wife Countess Sophie) in Sarajevo, June 28, 1914, was the immediate and ostensible cause of World War I.

[v] Joel Achenbach (The Washington Post, March 12, 1999) referred to the late 20th century as "The Too-Much-Information Age"–commenting that "today`s data glut jams libraries and lives, but is anyone getting any wiser?" Librarian of Congress, James Billington, calls it "the Tower of Babel syndrome."

[vi] Marie Curie and her husband Pierre Curie jointly discovered polonium and radium in 1898. Pierre was killed in a street accident in 1906; Mme. Curie continued her scientific work well into the 20th century, and was the first person to be awarded two Nobel Prizes (in Physics–shared with her husband and A.H. Becqueral, 1903, and in Chemistry, 1911). The Curies refused to patent their processes or otherwise profit from the commercial exploitation of radium.

[vii]Mahatma means `great soul`. Indian spiritual and political leader, Gandhi was the catalyst for his nation`s independence from British rule. His insistence on non-violence powerfully influenced the Civil Rights Movement in America. Eschewing material possessions, he strove to improve the lot of the poor, and for the abolition of untouchability–the lowest caste.

[viii] The decades of labors for women`s rights in the 19th century by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) and Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) finally led to the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1920), guaranteeing women`s suffrage.

[ix] During World War II some 4,250 Polish officers were executed in a forest near the Russian village of Katyn. Though the Soviets tried to blame the Germans for the atrocity, in 1989 Soviet scholars revealed that Stalin had ordered the massacre.

[x] Babi Yar, a ravine near Kiev, where Nazis machine-gunned about 35,000 Jews on September 29-30, 1941, by 1943 had become a mass grave for more than 100,000 persons, mostly Jews.

[xi] Swedish diplomat and businessman assigned to Sweden`s legation in Budapest, Wallenberg helped save approximately 100,000 Jews from the Holocaust. He issued Swedish passports to some 20,000 Jews, and sheltered others in places he bought or rented. Wallenberg survived a Nazi attempt on his life, but in 1945 the Soviets imprisoned him, possibly because of work he was doing for the U.S. secret service. In 1957 the Soviet government announced that he had died of a heart attack in a Moscow prison in 1947, though he was reported seen at later dates. (Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition)

[xii] African-American Jesse Owens upset Nazi Aryan racial theories in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, breaking two world track records, equaling another, and shared in winning a relay race, as Hitler looked on but left before medal presentations.

[xiii] Paavo Nurmi, Finnish track star, set 20 world running records, and won nine Olympic gold medals and three gold medals in team events between 1920 and 1932.

[xiv] Astronaut Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon. American Lance Armstrong battled back over cancer to win the grueling Tour de France in 1999.

[xv] Nolan Ryan holds major league baseball`s all-time strikeout record–5,714. Cal Ripken, Jr. played in 2,632 consecutive games (Lou Gehrig had held the record at 2,130), and is the only short-stop in major league history to have more than 2,800 hits, 350 home runs and 1,500 RBI. Mark McGwire`s 70 home runs is the single season record, and his 180 homers in three consecutive seasons is the best in history. Henry (Hank) Aaron holds the career record for homers at 755 (eclipsing Ruth`s 714), for RBI–2,297, and total bases-6,856.

[xvi] The tragic crushing by Chinese army forces of pro-democracy demonstrations in April, 1989, in Beijing`s Tiananmen Square, and the killing of hundreds of students, highlights the regimc`s determination to prevent the rise of political freedom, but also the extraordinary courage of the demonstrators, exemplified in particular by a lone unarmed man standing down a column of tanks, an image sent round the world.

[xvii] A phrase coined by Henry Luce, head of Time, Inc., in a famously triumphalist editorial in Life magazine.

 

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