MY 13-month-old nephew is the cutest little sponge. He has absorbed the concept that hurling a ball at someone usually results in the person playfully throwing it back. He has soaked up the names, faces and assorted idiosyncrasies of doting relatives. Soon he'll be hogging the best sections of the newspaper at dinner time. Don’t feel sorry
for the Heaven’s Gate 39For now, though, my favorite toddler is unable to read the headlines. Good. How does one explain last week's mass suicide at Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., where 39 Heaven's Gate followers killed themselves to rendezvous with an alien spaceship behind the Hale-Bopp comet?
Since the bizarre event defies easy justification, it's become a national obsession. Better to make fun of it or dub the deceased as computer weirdos or sci-fi freaks than to be spooked by the enigma. It's scary being reminded that all human beings are potentially thirsty sponges for revolutionary ideals.
Individuals partially imbibe whatever is observed or experienced, from cradle to rocking chair, whether they want to or not. It's just fate that most of us didn't have the time, interest or opportunity to fall under the influence of Marshall Applewhite, the now-deceased leader of the Heaven's Gate cult.
Admit it, nearly everyone becomes passionate about something, whether a sport, hobby, TV show, person or pet project. The capacity to go overboard is humankind's most endearing strength as well as its greatest failing. And as long as we're not physically hurting anyone else or creating havoc in the streets, what's wrong with that? Maybe instead of shaking our heads over Heaven's Gate, looking to the skies and lamenting, "Why, why, why?" perhaps the real question should be, "Why not?"
All 39 people who overdosed or suffocated themselves last week were adults who willingly embraced Applewhite's teachings. They agreed that the moment had arrived to shed their earthly "containers" and rise to a higher level of existence.
At least they died happily, at peace with themselves and secure in the knowledge that what they were doing was right. They didn't take a bunch of children with them like in Waco or at Jonestown, nor did they go house-to-house in the neighborhood to drag others, kicking and screaming, to join their journey.
They realized their blissful dream to terminate mortality in a private, dignified way. Granted, it's hard not to feel sympathy for their families and friends, many of whom hadn't seen their estranged loved ones for years, yet there's no need for judgmental clucking, either.
WHILE personal grief over these deaths can be genuine, mass condemnation is unnecessary. Those Heaven's Gate members -- each lying quietly in bed, fully clothed with new shoes, suitcase packed, in a million-dollar mansion -- would hardly characterize their passing as morbid or tragic.
To them, the real tragedy is the thousands of others, of all races and ages, doing painful battle with disease, drugs, starvation, guns or violence, or who fall victim to abuse and neglect nearly every day. The true worry is a precarious community like ours -- scared about crime, worried over jobs, frustrated by government, anxious about the future and in danger of losing its aloha spirit any minute.
Since the ultimate bane is an existence without heartfelt, unequivocal beliefs that possibly supersede the norm, don't pity the Heaven's Gate 39. Heck, they felt sorry for us.
