9/11

I'm watching archival 9/11 footage shot by a diverse range of people, professional and nonprofessional, on the History Channel. It's like it's happening right now, once again. I don't think anyone will ever forget where they were on September 11, 2001. The catastrophic events of that day will never leave me, even though I've never visited New York City or Washington, D.C., don't know anyone who lives in either city, but I suppose that doesn't matter.

Ten years ago today, at a little after 9:00am, I turned on the TV to watch Martha Stewart. The program wasn't on; instead there was a news report. At first I was perturbed that my programming had been interrupted, but then I listened to the news. Just about 30 minutes before, a commercial plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. Just a few minutes before I turned on the TV, a second commercial airliner had plowed into the second World Trade Center tower. This wasn't a disaster movie. This was real and it was happening right now, live, in front of me, me who was sitting in my family room, still in my pjs, my bowl of cereal in my lap, uneaten. Even though I was thousands of miles away from the disaster, I didn't feel safe. Shocked. Nauseated. Tense. Scared. Totally not believing what I was seeing, yet drawn into the intense drama of life and death, of shock and awe in the truest sense. The scenes playing out before me on my little TV enveloped me, captured me, drained me, and I sat cemented to my sofa, watching, watching, watching, unable to look away hour after hour after hour.

Some of what the NYC observers said bothered me then, bothers me now -- the idea for the U.S. to go to the Middle East and blow up everything. I understand the anger of the moment, but not every Muslim is a terrorist, just as not every Christian is a fundamentalist willing to burn another religion's Holy Book. What happened on 9/11 is the work of a group of Muslim nazis who have twisted the words of the Koran to create their agenda of terrorism. It's not the first time that people have killed in the name of their god. This is not meant to minimize the death and destruction perpetrated by al-Quaeda on American soil ten years ago. But if we lose our humanity through hatred, then we're walking on the same path as the Muslim extremists who have lost all sense of what makes them human and humane. There is no god on this planet or in the universe who wants, requires, welcomes the death of humans at the hands of humans.

So, I remember 9/11, I live 9/11, I am 9/11 because it's now an inevitable part of the American experience. We can never forget, but hopefully we can move forward with the understanding that most people, of all religions, colors, world views, are spirits of light and we will prevail against those who create the dark hours of our lives.