We humans almost always have five fingers on each of two hands. As a
result, base ten is the numeral
system chosen by most modern civilizations (Chinese, Roman, Brahmi-Hindu, and our
own adopted Arabic, for example). We are therefore accustomed to assigning
significance to groupings in multiples of five and ten. We are culturally –
indeed, biologically – predisposed to
see a 10th anniversary as more significant than a seventh or 11th
for no other reason beyond our anatomy. Biology then dictates that this
year is a particular time to look back and reflect on an historic, shocking series
of events and their aftermath. So be it.
As a pastor, it is sometimes my job to prayerfully reflect
and comment on things plaguing us en masse spiritually and psychologically…
even physically. This is the case for the 10th anniversary of the
9-11 attacks. I felt I couldn’t do so with integrity without first re-opening
the wound and reliving the horror of that day. I have just spent the past hour watching the twin
towers get hit, listening to 911 and airline dispatch recordings of the last
moments of some who would perish that tragic day, the FAA recordings of calls
between air-traffic controllers, airline and government officials, and Betty
Ong (a brave, frightened stewardess on American Flight 11), and the
still-tearful remembrances of a young man who was in his first days of
kindergarten the day he lost his grandpa, and a father who lost two sons: a firefighter and a cop.
My initial reaction are as follows:
POLITICAL
- To all my progressive friends: Watch footage of people hanging out of the burning WTC and jumping to their deaths, then tell me if it is appropriate to label tea-party activists and their representatives terrorists, even as a “rhetorical device.”
- To all my conservative friends: Listen to Mohammad Atta’s cold, condescending voice from the cockpit of American Flight 11, and then tell me if even the most obnoxious liberals really hate America.
With much of our initial response in the hands of ordinary
citizens, fear, hubris, violence and bureaucratic ineptitude did not rule the
day on September 11, 2001, Neither should they now. It’s all bread and
circuses, my friends, in combination with Orwellian reports of
double-plus-ungood happenings on all the faceless fronts around the world. Our
whole political system and our major media are fueled by fear and hubris.
Figures, since they’re both owned and operated by the same lot.
But please don’t accuse me of government bashing, as a good
number of those who died that day ten fingers ago were government employees.
Their actions were self-less, expert and performed without flinching. God bless
the Civil Servants! It's all over without them.
HUMANITARIAN
Because we have five fingers on each of two hands, a
broadcasting corporation recently thought it would be a good idea to ask
Afghanis for their thoughts on the approaching 10th anniversary of
the September 11th attacks. To their shock, they found that 90% of
Aghan citizens apparently had no knowledge of the attacks, and, when shown
footage of the fiery WTC collapse, many mistakenly guessed it was happening in Kabul. In other words, the list of innocent victims of 9-11 continues to
grow by the tens of thousands. On this, our 10-finger anniversary of 3000
innocent deaths, why do we not feel the same or even greater horror when we
consider the six-figure-and-counting death toll of innocent Iraqis, Afghanis and
Pakistanis killed through our ongoing massive, sledge-hammer response to 9-11?
If that question angers you, try to think of these people as
human beings, not simply foreigners (they aren't, as they are in their own countries) or “collateral damage” (relegating their right to life as inferior to our "security and strategic interests"). Our representative democracy has visited hell on millions
of innocent human beings. We are accountable.
RELIGIOUS
Crackpots will use any tool they can find to wreak their
havoc. I sure do wish they’d leave
off religion for a while. Our churches, synagogues, temples and mosques are
frequented mostly by people with good heads on their shoulders and the best of
intentions in their hearts. Sadly, that in turn attracts both the desperately mindless, and the nasty people with anti-christ complexes, too.
A few of the nasties are adept at attracting the gullible and desperate, pushing
buttons and tripping wires, leading to the carnage-inducing freak-parade we
have suffered through these past few thousand years. God weeps.
“Remember. Reflect. Revive.” Is the theme of our church’s
Rally Day program this Sunday. We will be following these three Rs for a lot
more than the ten-finger anniversary of a brutal terrorist attack. We will also
be remembering
- · our duty to cultivate and educate our minds as we confirm several youths into our church,
- · our gifts from God when we sing a ridiculous number of wonderful songs on Sunday, including my personal favorite hymn of national life: O God of Every Nation,
- · our obligation to seek and embrace the hard, unvarnished truth when we preach, teach and converse about these issues,
- · our responsibility as compassionate Christians when we send our folks out into the world to love it back into shape.
You’re welcome to join us if you find yourself in the area
Sunday morning. Beyond that, I would suggest the best antidote to violent
zealotry is to pick up and read the holy books for yourself. Even better, find
some other folks and look through them together.
As always, I invite your feedback on this post. In this
case, I’d like to focus it a bit with two simple questions:
Where were you as 9-11 unfolded?
Where are you now as a result?
This is Daegan.
ReplyDeleteWhere I was-
Mrs. Pitoniak told us that "lots of grown-ups were walking around with sad faces" because some planes had crashed into buildings in New York City. We were eight, so that was all we could really understand at that point.
Where I am now-
Studying my third language in a foreign country with people from all over the world.
Oddly enough, I think that the shadow of 9-11 has made me embrace diversity rather than shrink from it. A fear of diversity is what made those 19 men hijack those planes, and I want to fight that fear by taking part in intercultural exchange. I remember when my friend Cansu, a Turkish Muslim, first came to America to study. I wondered how her faith would make her different. But it turned out that our different cultural backgrounds did not get in the way of our forming a bond in the least. She might pray a little differently, but she had all the same interests as any other teenage girl. I talked about school, music, fashion, boys, clubs, and t.v. shows with her, just as I would with any other friend. She wasn`t one of the "America-hating Muslims" they talk about; she loved America- where else can you buy outlet designer shoes or the latest Apple product when it first comes out!
I am where I am now because I want to be that person to someone else- one who reveals the ten finger principal on a personal basis.
The morning of 9-11-01 I was flitting around here at home with 'Good Morning America' on in the background. I was on the couch staring at the TV by the time the plane hit the 2nd WTC tower. And I watched it pretty much nonstop for the next few days.
ReplyDeleteI think I have become MORE tolerant of people---except those with bad southern drawls!!!! I know most people don't want to blow up Winston-Salem, so I feel safe here.
I am truly only inconvenienced when I fly----3-1-1 rule concerning liquids seems silly and not being able to carry on bottles of wine from the great destinations we've been too over the last 10 years. And having to take our shoes off and what seems like silliness of getting through security. I know it is for my benefit and hope they are preventing lots of potential acts of terrorism that we never hear about. I am no longer afraid or suspicious of people on my flights. For the first 3 years after 9-11 Scott almost always got pulled for an extra special inspection at the gate. He doesn't look Muslim to me, but there must be a reason why they did it.
I've been trying to post this for a while, but I've said waaaay too much and it won't let me post. So, I'm breaking this in two.
ReplyDeleteWhere I was-
I was getting ready for school. I was in my first semester at RIT, as I had returned to school after getting laid off from work. So I was in my morning routine, and Tony called telling me a plane hit the Twin Towers. I didn't have the tv on at the time, so I thought he meant like a Cesna plane, and I'm ashamed to say I laughed. It wasn't until I arrived on campus and saw the horror on the television that I realized what was going on. All the rest of the day, I went from class to class, my professors were just numb, as was the rest of us. They would tell us to take care of ourselves; if we needed to leave, leave, if we needed to stay, stay. Some would start class with a moment of silence, some just cancelled class altogether. We were a campus of "grownups walking around with sad faces". I remember at one point walking around outside and looking up, and feeling this eerie awareness of a plane free sky and this foreboding sense that the world wasn't going to be right for a while.
Later that evening I called mom because she used to work in those towers, and for while that morning, she was hysterical because she thought she'd lost all her former colleagues and friends. Then someone got in touch with her to let her know that they were okay, and they had changed locations a few years back. So she and I reminisced about being in those buildings, which if I close my eyes I can still recall where I used to enter and take the elevator to her office.
After all the candlelight vigils, and memorial services and rallies, I had an encounter that I can only attribute to God helping set my heart right. I was taking a cultural anthropology class where we were assigned to interview an international student about their culture. I was paired with a woman who was Turkish and Muslim and who shared with me her 9-11 experiences, hearing of friends being beat or even killed, being held and interrogated, or just the overwhelming fear of coming to a country who didn't know you, but feared and hated you because of how you looked, the religion you practiced, or your name. Talking with her gave me chance to move from what the media wanted me to think, to relate to what was the human experience behind this tragedy from multiple angles and it helped me establish, as Helen Keller says, "An understanding that brings peace"
Which brings me to where I am now-
ReplyDeleteI struggle with all the banners, and flags, and magnets and stickers that say, "NEVER FORGET". Not that I feel we should (or even can) forget, but in my mind "never forget" has also meant that we constantly discern who is our "enemy" even if it means we recreate new social constructions about who is a "terrorist" (while forgetting who else has systematically practiced terrorism in this country for centuries e.g. the KKK), or what Islam is about, or who Muslims are (as if they are all the same people), or what the Middle East is about (as though it's just one big mass of land with the same exact ideology). To me, NEVER FORGET is not too far behind the pain in my gut when I also see a subsequent sticker with an outline of a pistol that is someone's "terrorist killing permit" and left wondering why that depth of hatred is continuously acceptable. I know what it's like to be the outsider looking in, to have people despise you before they even know who you are, or operate out of their cognitive dissonance about who they think you are. Who would I be to live my life doing the same to others? If I NEVER FORGET, then how can I come to know people for who they are individually? If I NEVER FORGET, when do I stop living in fear of those of whom I am repeatedly told to not forget is my enemy?
All the elements and situations that motivated those 19 men and the people behind that that horror ten digits ago, is truly beyond my comprehension, and my heart aches for the legacy of pain it's left behind, as well as the continued impact from the two wars it's initiated. But I desperately yearn for a time when we truly not only remember, but FORGIVE AND FORGE PEACE. As Desmond Tutu says, “Without forgiveness, there is no future.” I would add that without forgiveness, there is no humanity.
Here is a video that inspires me and how I choose to move forward from here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/9_11_healing_the_mothers_who_found_forgiveness_friendship.html
Sorry, for the dual posts. I had a lot to say about this. It's been sitting in my heart for 10 years.