ash was intrigued by the story of a young woman who managed to elude disaster on the part of the same man who allegedly killed another young woman several days later. In contemplating the difference between the two cases, ash's first letter speculated the outcome in the earlier incident was determined by the victim's actions, for which she deserved a great deal of credit.
Note how the second letter, a reply from ash's detractor, misunderstood ash's point, indicated by the phrase "as well," as opposed to the "instead" he imagined it to be, precipitating the final letter, in which ash sets the record straight with one of her favorite rhetorical devices: flipping his logic to dismantle his argument.
ash's original letter:
God as savior and saver who helps us when we can’t fully help ourselves came to my mind while reading the article about Beth Bates, the young woman who ultimately escaped the deathly grip of alleged rapist and murderer Jerry Inman.
But there is another interpretation to this gut-wrenching story: that as she wept and prayed, Ms. Bates humanized herself to the potential killer, connecting with whatever remnants of compassion remained in his rotting soul. By so doing, and perhaps without realizing it, she rescued herself from a gruesome outcome, not because she evoked religion but because she summoned her own power to survive.
Tragically, and perhaps in a scenario the details of which will never be known, Tiffany Souers did not survive her ordeal. It might be that she was unaware of Mr. Inman‘s presence until it was already too late to appeal to the humanity within him, or because, by then, he had “graduated” to more ruthless behavior as is a common pattern in criminals.
Ms. Bates has thanked God and Jesus for the fact that she is alive. I suggest it is time to thank herself as well. In fact, having played the largest role in sparing herself the worst possible fate, she fits my description of a heroine.
Response from newspaper reader:
Letter Writer Can’t Get Over Chutzpah of Another
I can’t get over the chutzpah of [ash] for second guessing the personal testimony of Beth Bates, who, she says, escaped imminent rape and murder by appealing to God. Cormulley’s view obviously comes from one who believes there is really no one out there to hear the prayers of the desperate. It is easy for her to so objectively reinterpret the near rape/murder experience of another.
But if, God forbid (excuse me) a similar thing should happen to her, I wonder if she would then rely solely on the power of her own personality? Or would the “no atheists in foxholes” principle apply as she cried out, “Oh, God!”
It takes a more than a bit of arrogance to think of ourselves on this single planet, warmed by a perfectly placed star in a galaxy of millions of stars, in a universe of millions of galaxies, hosting, as far as we know, the only life in the universe, to still believe there is no One in it all greater than ourselves. And because this One we call God cannot at our beck and call be seen, heard, tasted or touched, can live and move in a realm beyond our comprehension. But [ash] joins [another frequent liberal correspondent] in not even being able to imagine such a One! It says more about them than it does about God.
ash's rebuttal:
A recent letter writer has evoked my name. Here’s my response to his assertion that I would be hard-pressed to spare my life in exigent circumstances:
If one believes in experts, the consensus of expert opinion is that, indeed, facing a would-be assailant, the potential victim stands a greater chance of survival by connecting with whatever shred of humanity resides in the attacker and exploiting that fellow human status for all it’s worth.
As an agnostic, I really don’t know whether I would invoke God in a life-and-death situation. If I didn’t freeze altogether, I would probably assess whether my would-be rapist or murderer himself believed in a higher power, the better to appeal to his own sense of conscience and morality. I might even reflexively cry out, “Oh God,” as I have been known to do on less urgent occasions.
However, if there is a God, and I were not to summon the ultimate rescuer from dire straits, I would like to think that God would take the initiative to intervene and is not so arrogant as to wait for me to acknowledge his existence. Or isn’t that how it works?