The Way We Were

All over the world--or at least in America--religious leaders and bloggers are sharing their words and arguable wisdom about the events that happened in this country ten years ago. And people are recalling where they were and what they were doing when they heard about what was happening in New York and Washington, DC and Pennsylvania. Some are remembering the event and some are wishing they could forget.

I was doing pretty much what I am doing right now, except in a journal. I had been working part time at my current job for about a month. I wasn't working that Tuesday morning, and I was at my outdoor table--as I am today--at Bear Rock Cafe, down the street from home. A young woman sitting at the only other occupied table was talking on her cell phone. This was before cell phones were pervasive--it would be a few years before I had one--so that in itself was of some interest. It was 

her conversation that was really getting my attention, though. She was talking about an airplane and fire. Her voice was serious, but calm. I thought "There must have been a plane crash somewhere," and I said a prayer for the pain the loved ones of those lost were experiencing. I finished my journaling and my coffee and scone, and walked toward home, stopping at the Hallmark store, perhaps for a card for my nephew's birthday. Over the radio piped through the store, I heard what really happened. I abandoned my search for the perfect card and ran the rest of the way home, where I turned on the TV. I watched in horror the live view of what was happening in New York City, and the replay over and over and over of the planes hitting the skyscrapers. And then I saw the second tower fall.

Yesterday on NPR the news anchor said it was the "worst terrorist attack in history." And that is what I have been thinking about for the last 24 hours. Who decides, I wonder, what is "worst"? Who defines "terrorist"? Nature's terrorist attacks have changed lives this year: floods, tornadoes, typhoons, earthquakes, hurricanes, and fire. Certainly those cataclysmic events have changed the people they affected far more than 9/11 did. The holocaust was surely the worst terrorist attack for European Jews in the 1930s and 40s, when nearly 6 million of them were murdered. Surely two atomic bombs dropped on Japan was the worst terrorist attack if you lived in Japan in 1945. Being black in the US south in the 1950s was daily terror. The Vietnamese in the 1960s and the Americans who involuntarily joined them there could not possibly have imagined more terror. And we didn't and don't have to live in those places at those times to be horrified at what human beings can do their brothers and sisters.

And that, to me, defines terrorism: one person treating another person with disrespect for their humanity. Any act of physical or emotional aggression is a terrorist attack, one-on-one or many-against-many. A husband against a wife, a mother against a child, a boss against a subordinate--just because they can. Some straight married people who think their way of life is threatened by love between two gay people. And gay people who are terrorized because of who they love. One religion or one political party thwarting the efforts of another just on principle. One socio-economic group holding another down just so it can stay on top.

But, one could argue, flying planes into skyscrapers changed the whole world. Did it? Or did it just change for privileged Americans? The vast majority of the world's people have never and will never fly in an airplane. They don't care that people have to stand in line to take off their shoes and go through security now. I admit to waxing nostalgic at not being met at the gate by someone who loves me, but already my children barely remember that. We grow accustomed to such change. I don't mean to make light of what happened ten years ago, but is keeping me safe from a terrorist more important than feeding people in the Democratic Republic of Congo? Women and children in Africa were starving before 9/11, and they are still starving. It didn't change their world. In fact they are dying in greater numbers, perhaps because money is being diverted to killing the terrorists we can see, rather than the invisible killers--the one that kills a child somewhere in the world every six seconds. Yes, for some--for my children's generation--it was the beginning of a loss of innocence and feeling safe in their own land. But generations of people in the Middle East and many other places--including America--have never experienced that. Not in their country, nor in their cities, nor in their own homes--if they have one. They didn't have innocence and safety to lose that day.

And was it the attacks that changed us, or our reaction to them? We in America certainly had the opportunity to change the world because of that day. The whole world was watching to see what we would do. The whole world was in our corner that day. Yep, we changed the world alright. For the better? Each of us must decide what we believe about that.

Defining moments. Moments that changed the way we were.  The historical event that defined the moment of lost innocence for me was November 22, 1963. I was sitting at my desk in my sixth grade classroom when the principal came in and, without speaking, put the radio on my desk near the door. We heard that the President had been shot. That was the day I knew there was evil in the world.

I am also thinking today of the good things that changed the world in ways we will never return from. I just feel like looking at the positive and hopeful on this day of remembering sadness. Penicillin. The electric light bulb. The automobile. Air travel. The telephone. Internet. These were not events, of course, but all were tied to someone's aha moment. Moments when everything changed.  Some days even some of those things seem evil, but there is no stopping ideas from blooming. Plastic! Environmentalists may disdain that aha moment, but I am glad not to have the slippery glass Breck shampoo bottle to deal with. "What?" my children might ask. "Whoever thought glass in a ceramic bathtub was a good idea?" My dears, plastic was not affordable to the masses until I was nearly through my teenage years. And now, of course, most bathtubs are plastic, too. It is hard to believe. What we so recently thought was life-changing, like airport screening, quickly becomes "the way it has always been."

Air travel, television, and the internet have made the world smaller. And mostly that is a good thing. It brings with it the opportunity to see the terror in the daily lives of others; and what we know about we can potentially do something about. And it sometimes brings the opportunity to perpetuate terror. Unfortunately we have spent more time and money dealing with those who hurt us than we have on the more prevalent issues that face our world. I fear that we have only brought more terror into the garden.

For good or evil, our world changes with great frequency. It is not just a single biggest or worst event. I believe, or at least I hope, that the events of September 11, 2001, eventually will prove to have strengthened the search for love and hope and compassion among all the world's peoples.

“A pattern that others made may prevail in the world
And following the wrong god home we may miss our star.”
                                        --William Safford