Thursday, September 11, 2008

The Shadow of September 11

It's been seven years since planes crashed into the twin towers. And we're all thinking about it a little less as time passes.

A plane crashed into one of the World Trade Center Buildings. Maybe it was an accident? Then another one came, crashed, demolished--no one dared to look away from the television.

Was it the Arabs? The personalities debated on the big networks who would have done this, why. And there were more planes to ground, more planes to worry about.

Afterward the towers fell, we stared at the television for days. A coalition of the willing was formed. War was declared once, twice. Words like terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, death became everyday and familiar. Part of our shared consciousness and experience is this familiarity with uncertainty, fear, mutually assured destruction.

So what is there to do? We raise the flag. We volunteer. And we talk of the many world problems we may solve: global warming, hunger, poverty, AIDs--you know the causes well.

We're looking for the good in the world because we're left to wonder what happened to it on that day, 9/11/01. How can man do such unthinkable things to one another? The answer is disconcerting, so we look for the best in each other, ourselves. If nothing else, we can prevent ourselves from doing the unthinkable.

Right?

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