BABEL, BABEL, BABEL

The title of my homily for this 6th Friday in Ordinary Time is, “Babel, Babel, Babel.”

In today’s first reading we have the famous, “Tower of Babel” story from the Book of Genesis 11:1-9.

It’s a great story for so many reasons.

We know that the purpose of these early stories in Genesis is to try to answer basic questions:

• Where do we come from?;
• Who started all this?;
• If God makes only the good, where does evil come from?;
• How come people mess up and kill each other?;
• Why are there floods and natural disasters?; etc. etc. etc.

We were taught that this story evolved in an attempt to answer the question: where and why do the different languages of the world come from? If we all descended from Adam and Eve – how come we’re all speaking different languages?

Last night I checked how many languages there are in our world. The New York Times Almanac said there are approximately 100 languages in the world and Wikipedia on line said there were from 3000 to 6000 languages. That’s quite a difference. I assume it’s one more example of, “It all depends on how we’re seeing or understanding a question.”

The answer from the author of this text in Genesis explains it all by the sin of pride. Adam and Eve went it without God – and here now are people trying to build a tower to reach the heavens – on their own – without the help of God.

I did it my way!

We’ve all heard the saying: “The bigger they are; the harder they fall.”

We’ve seen little kids at the beach trying to build a bigger and better sand castle than the other kids. We laughed when the kid with the biggest castle was standing there – tall – filled with pride – and then the whole thing came crumbling down by a big wave. We didn’t know it then, but we were learning one of life’s big lessons: things crumble – especially when we think we’re solid sure and bigger and better than others.

The symbol for pride in the Tarot Cards is the tower.

Unfortunately and fortunately, it’s when we fall that we crawl to God. So it’s not just Christmas and Ash Wednesday that some people come to church and to God. It’s when they experience powerlessness and sickness and crumble and crash and crush. It’s when something has gone wrong with our body or our health or our family that we turn to God.

The sounds, “Uh oh” – are sometimes the beginning of real prayer.

It’s a no brainer that the human brain knows to tell us to fall on our knees when we know we need a power greater than ourselves.

It’s a no brainer that the human brain knows that those who imitate the proud, imitate them by sticking their noses up in the air. There’s the tower image again. And we know that the word for “humble” comes from the Latin word “humus”. We are made from the dirt of the earth and it will be rubbed into our foreheads this year on March 9th, 2011. That’s Ash Wednesday this year. And we’ll hear the ancient words, “Remember you are dust, dirt, earth, and into dust you shall return.”

Notice in today’s first reading that the people stopped building the tower – made of clay bricks – and each went their own way. Like everything, in time the tower disintegrated and disappeared. Remember towers of power, you are dirt and into dirt you shall return.

I dare say that this was part of the motive for the two times others tried to bomb the World Trade Center – the second time they succeeded and there was the horrible carnage and death that resulted. Obviously some thought: “Let’s destroy two great United States symbols of power: the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. What was the other target?

Let me close with a poem that tells the story of the Tower of Babel in other words. It’s called, “Blue Girls” A man saw some beautiful young school girls on a green lawn running and playing and dressed in Blue and it triggered for the poet, the memory of a beautiful woman who fell from grace.

Instead of saying a few words on how today’s gospel – Mark 8 to 9:1, where Jesus talks about just the opposite of pride, emptying and denying oneself, I would like to close with a poem.

The poem is by John Crowe Ransom – and it has a few words to explain before reciting and closing with this poem.

Sward – S W A R D – is a section of ground covered with grass. The word “sward” goes nicely with twirling and skirts.

Fillets - F I L L E T S – a fillet is a strip of material that is a headband – in this poem there are “white fillets” in the girls’ hair.

Seminary – is an old word for “school”.

Here’s the poem:

BLUE GIRLS

by John Crowe Ransom

Twirling your blue skirts, traveling the sward

Under the towers of your seminary,

Go listen to your teachers old and contrary

Without believing a word.

Tie the white fillets then about your hair

And think no more of what will come to pass

Than bluebirds that go walking on the grass

And chattering on the air.

Practice your beauty, blue girls, before it fail;

And I will cry with my loud lips and publish

Beauty which all our power shall never establish,

It is so frail.

For I could tell you a story which is true;

I know a lady with a terrible tongue,

Blear eyes fallen from blue,

All her perfections tarnished—yet it is not long

Since she was lovelier than any of you.

* Painting on top: The Tower of Babel [1563] by Peter Brugel the Elder [c. 1526 / 1530 - 1569]