I find myself feeling traitorous towards my own kind. Like going vegan when your dad is the Head Cannibal.
The past few weeks have been 9-11, 9-11, 9-11. I do not underestimate the horror of the event. I do not think it is possible to COMPREHEND the enormity of the event enough to underestimate it. I think you have to adapt to it at the level of your understanding.
So I am a firefighter. 9-11 came and I thought, "Is it really that big a deal?" Then I was horrified. 343 firefighters lost their lives. 2974 dead and 24 presumably dead but missing. $970 million in FEMA money. Approximately $1.4 billion given to 9-11 associated charities. Lives the world over were affected. It was no small thing.
In New York I went to the site where the Twin Towers were and it was astonishing in pondering the logistics of the collapse itself. However, I wandered around a bit but never felt the seemingly heart-wrenching every one else was experiencing. I thought, "It will come." I climbed my several too many flights of stairs for 9-11 like I always do with people I love and admire. I told some people I work with who put their lives on the line in between reading the sale ads at Krogers and breaking into B-shift's food locker. I read some news reports. I looked at some pictures. I read "God Bless One and All" several dozen times.
Still nothing. I wonder if it was that for every 9-11 article I read (He was wonderful. We still set the table space for him. Her last words were... apparently there was the greatest concentration of nearly sainted people on the planet in the disaster sites on 9-11-2001) I read some hate-filled blog about the poor of the country, Muslims in general, and general Tea Party rhetoric.
So we are willing to be compassionate and on our knees and eyes-swollen like boiled eggs with tears of the ages for those that are dead. It seems we are unwilling to give of our compassion to our living neighbors. We will not educate our children to compete in a global market for fear they will/will not learn about God and will/will not be given scientific information on basic human biology. We will kill a man for the words he says. We do not believe that every person deserves equal rights and we are far too concerned with whether two pee-pees are touching rather than concentrating on eradicating common disease and malnutrion.
So perhaps it is merely a crisis of faith. Or a disaster of lack of faith. I do not think that the firefighters died in vain. Never that. But what I do wonder is if our faith can carry us from anniversary to anniversary.
The past few weeks have been 9-11, 9-11, 9-11. I do not underestimate the horror of the event. I do not think it is possible to COMPREHEND the enormity of the event enough to underestimate it. I think you have to adapt to it at the level of your understanding.
So I am a firefighter. 9-11 came and I thought, "Is it really that big a deal?" Then I was horrified. 343 firefighters lost their lives. 2974 dead and 24 presumably dead but missing. $970 million in FEMA money. Approximately $1.4 billion given to 9-11 associated charities. Lives the world over were affected. It was no small thing.
In New York I went to the site where the Twin Towers were and it was astonishing in pondering the logistics of the collapse itself. However, I wandered around a bit but never felt the seemingly heart-wrenching every one else was experiencing. I thought, "It will come." I climbed my several too many flights of stairs for 9-11 like I always do with people I love and admire. I told some people I work with who put their lives on the line in between reading the sale ads at Krogers and breaking into B-shift's food locker. I read some news reports. I looked at some pictures. I read "God Bless One and All" several dozen times.
Still nothing. I wonder if it was that for every 9-11 article I read (He was wonderful. We still set the table space for him. Her last words were... apparently there was the greatest concentration of nearly sainted people on the planet in the disaster sites on 9-11-2001) I read some hate-filled blog about the poor of the country, Muslims in general, and general Tea Party rhetoric.
So we are willing to be compassionate and on our knees and eyes-swollen like boiled eggs with tears of the ages for those that are dead. It seems we are unwilling to give of our compassion to our living neighbors. We will not educate our children to compete in a global market for fear they will/will not learn about God and will/will not be given scientific information on basic human biology. We will kill a man for the words he says. We do not believe that every person deserves equal rights and we are far too concerned with whether two pee-pees are touching rather than concentrating on eradicating common disease and malnutrion.
So perhaps it is merely a crisis of faith. Or a disaster of lack of faith. I do not think that the firefighters died in vain. Never that. But what I do wonder is if our faith can carry us from anniversary to anniversary.
I think its disappointment. You are disappointed, as we all should be, not by the tragic memory of 9-11, but by the more tragic loss of the potential we discovered by September 12, 2001. That was the day when we were Americans without any hyphens. We were, “all in it together” for the common good. It was the day some of my friends who never really “got it” when it came to discussions of race, realized for the first time how much someone could hate you for being different. It was a tragic time that spawned great hope.
ReplyDeleteBut it wasn’t long before people started to cash in on the tragedy and the hope. Not long before politicians wrapped themselves in the flag and advanced their agendas; not long before people whose hearts were filled with hate convinced others to hate too; not long before profiteers started turning a buck and not too long before we sent our finest young people to die in a war with the wrong country. I’m not often one to quote the Bible but a verse comes to mind: Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
I still have hope. I know we’re not dreaming, but I hope that everyone who is asleep will soon wake up. I still have hope. I have to.
I still have hope. I know we’re not dreaming, but I hope that everyone who is asleep will soon wake up. I still have hope because I have to.