Today's Thoughts

A friend of mine posted a link on her Facebook page yesterday; I found it quite interesting. Surprisingly, the link is to a blog written by a minister in an Indiana church, a church affiliated with American Baptist Churches and the Church of Christ. Anyone who knows me as the heathen I am might wonder what I could admire about a sermon. Let me tell you.

While the Christian platform upon which the post was based is at odds with my own beliefs (or lack thereof, I should say), I found the writer's comments to be rooted deeply in "truth" as I believe it to be (which is to say "humanity," but outside the religious framework).

I did not post any "blather" about 9/11 yesterday, but I'm posting this today because it struck a chord with me. In response to another friend who expressed appreciation that I did not post any such "blather" yesterday, I said "If I had chosen to write about September 11, it would not have been required reading. If someone decides to mark the anniversary of something meaningful or painful by putting up blather, so be it."

Unlike many people, who deliberately chose not to watch or listen to any of the ceremeonial tributes to the 9/11 attacks, I watched and listened to more than one. I found some of what I watched and heard profoundly moving. I do not consider all the victims of those attacks to be "heroes," but I do consider the events of that horrific day worth recalling. The arguments made in the blog linked above that I found particularly appealing were those that acknowledged our own responsibilities, as a country, for our role in a global maelstorm. This, in particular, appealed to me:

When presented with an opportunity for humility, an opportunity to turn the other cheek and respond with lovingkindness, we as a people did not do so. When presented with an opportunity to look seriously at our shortcomings as players on the global stage and reconsider our historic methods of coercion, we as a people did not do so.

Instead, we have spent the better part of ten years responding from a place of fear and intolerance. We have waged wars that have not made us safer. We have said things that cannot be unsaid.

In short, we have dug ourselves further and further into debt. We have shamed ourselves.

Oh, by the way, another piece about 9/11 I watched yesterday intrigued me. It was a short (about 11 minute) video about the "boatlift" of people from lower Manhattan that day. According to the video, the boatlift was the largest water evacuation of people in human history, dwarfing the Dunkirk evacuation.

So, there you have just a sampling of where my thoughts about 9/11 were yesterday.