It’s hard to believe that it was only eight years ago that the world watched in horror as 110 stories of glass and steel and hopes and dreams and visions and human lives came crashing down to Earth, not once but twice. Those of us who were there to see it will never forget it. The scars which it left on our psyches and in our hearts may never be completely healed. And while a lot has changed since then, we now have a Department of Homeland Security and long lines at airport check-ins, sad to say, the energies and fears, hatreds and self-righteousness that allowed 911 to happen have only gotten worse.
Since then, no single incident may have captured the headlines and twisted the guts of those who watched helplessly like that of 911, but it’s only because of the scale of the atrocities being carried out, not for lack of trying, nor lack of evil. Trains have been blown up in Spain, subways bombed in England and Japan, tourist hotels attacked in Bali and India, and that’s not even counting the day to day murder and mayhem occurring in the “war-torn” nations, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Middle East. And can we deny that bombs falling out of the sky on civilian targets and causing “collateral damage” is a terror attack to those on the ground?
Has nothing been learned by anyone on either side of the equation about actions producing equal but opposite reactions, about evil is as evil does, about as ye sow so shall ye reap? Have we learned nothing about honoring diversity, respecting opposing viewpoints, loving thy neighbor as thyself?
It has always amazed me that in science-fiction movies when we are attacked from outer space it is by “Martians”, not North Martians or South Martians, or Holy Roller Martians or Grand Poobah Martians. What have they learned that we have not? Why can they hang together as a planetary unit while we can’t make it beyond our national boundaries or theological ideologies? How can we possibly believe we were crafted in the image of the Creator of the Universe if we further believe the person over there was not? And that goes for the being from the other planet as well.
Many years ago I saw a political cartoon that made such a strong impression I remember it to this day. The first panel showed a beautiful farmhouse sitting in the middle of an open field. In the next panel, the porch had been removed and the lumber used to erect a split rail fence around the house. In the third panel, the split rail fence had become a picket fence using the boards from the roof to make up the difference. The house, itself, now had only walls. In the final panel, even the walls were gone and only a foundation remained, the lumber used to create a full stockade that now surrounded and protected an empty space where the beautiful house had once stood.
How much could be done with the money we use to protect ourselves from others if there were suddenly an outbreak of peace and understanding? How many people could be fed, diseases eliminated, oceans cleaned up, potentialities realized? Let us remember 911 not by isolating ourselves from others, but by showing them they have nothing to fear from us. Maybe then we will have nothing to fear from them.
peace……………………..ag
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