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

Supta Baddha Konasana

One year ago this month I took my first yoga class. Today, in the supta baddha konasana pose--one of my favorites in which the body is reclined with the soles of the feet touching and the knees splayed to opposite sides of the mat--my knees are six inches closer to the floor than they were a year ago. My hips have opened up, as have my shoulders. My flexibility, balance, and muscle tone have improved. Sometimes when Julie says, "One more breath here," I don’t suddenly remember to breathe; I have been breathing. At a time of life when bodies begin to shrink, I am ¾ of an inch taller than I have ever been--I attribute it to better posture, and better self-regard; both gifts of yoga. Perhaps this will be the year my always-tight hamstrings will loosen. And this week I learned that the English name for the supta baddha konasana position is "The Goddess." And that is all I will say about that.

I am opening up.

The other day I went out to check on my three volunteer cantaloupes, the ones growing far from their roots that do not seem to be maturing, but for whose growth I remain hopeful. I lifted the first one, and discovered it was cracked open, exposing its inner flesh and seeds. I lifted the second one and it collapsed in my hand. It was nothing but the shell. The third one is still intact. As I sat with my three cantaloupes, I thought about my fears of cracking open. I have spent the past five years becoming strong within myself. I have learned to live, and to love living, in relative solitude. I have explored who I have been and how I got there; who I want to be and how to get there; and, most importantly, I have learned to love who I am today. Now, as I explore tiptoeing out into the world again, and being open to new relationships, I am looking fear in the face. What am I afraid of?

The cantaloupes provided a clue. Am I afraid that if I open up myself to outside forces, all that I love about my life and who I am in it will come slithering out onto the ground? Perhaps to be trampled under foot by someone who may not appreciate me as much as I do? Am I afraid I will become an empty shell, or discover I was empty all along--exposed for a fraud? Do I fear that I will go right back into my enneagram nine tendencies and compromise myself away? Or, will I discover that I can let someone else in and still be true to myself; just as they let me in and stay true to the best that they are? We cannot ever just sit back and rest in who we are. The mature cantaloupe is worthless if it isn't at last cracked open and shared. A whole, tender, flavorful cantaloupe thrown onto the compost intact is no different from the cracked open one or the empty shell.

In my last post I said that I didn't know who read my blog. There is a comment at the end of the post, left by a woman in my beloved Pacific Northwest. She found my blog when she googled something that happened to be one of my label words. Email conversations have followed this past week. We discover that we have led, in some regards, parallel lives. I have enjoyed reading her blog. Friends can be found far from the root. My sister also left a comment, referring to my reference to something she had said a few years ago that hurt me, but that I had never been able to talk to her about. (We learned from the cradle in our family to avoid conflict.) In the last 24 hours we have begun to talk about it. Of course, I heard only the words of her original comment, and made it into a whole piece of chick-lit fiction, when actually it was a book of philosophy of which I had missed the point.

Just as I discovered that through the wonders of the internet all kinds of relationships can be found far from our roots, I am learning to accept that beauty in the garden can be found in other people's gardens. I can try to grow it in mine, but sometimes it is not to be a part of my garden. We need others to be whole. Two of the plants I planted that have not bloomed are alium and passion flower. I thank the One who is More that just as people are diverse, so are gardens. It would be a dull world otherwise.  


Yesterday was the ninth anniversary of the attacks on the United States in the name of Islam. A "Christian" "minister" threatened all week to burn the Qur'an on the anniversary because "it is what God wants." (Fortunately his fifteen minutes of fame were achieved without having to carry through his threat to destroy that which is sacred to a body of people.) Yesterday my church hosted a gathering of Christians, Muslims, and Jews for readings of the Qur'an and for expressions of love for one another, even in our diversity--or because of it. We came together to crack open. I had intended to go for thirty minutes of the two hour service. Afterall, I needed to get an oil change and get my dirty car washed and vacuumed. As a young blond boy, dressed in a brocade robe and thick yellow socks, sang sections of the Qur'an in Arabic, I remained in my seat, weeping. I did not know the words he was singing, and it didn't matter. The strength of his love for his God--our God--rose out of his heart and soul with a passion beyond my understanding. For two hours I did not cross and uncross my legs; I did not shift in my seat. I did not move other than occasionally wiping the tears from my cheeks. One of the speakers, a Muslim, said that "on September 11, 2001, nineteen men hijacked the Islam faith." On September 11, 2010, a Florida minister hijacked the Christian faith. That he didn't do the deed doesn't matter. He professed to speak for all Christians in the name of God; no different from those attempting to speak for all Muslims by doing cowardly deeds in the name of Allah. I cracked open yesterday. Cracked open in the name of the One who is More, no matter what that name is.

E.B. White wrote, "Creative writing is communication through revelation--it is the self escaping into the open." And so I write. I write to crack open. Supta baddha konasana. We are made in the image of the Goddess--one name for the One who is More--it is our calling and our responsibility to open up and let ourselves out.