Nine Eleven

"No doubt what sometimes appears to us as evil is the very explosion necessary to blast us awake to the destructiveness of our habits. Sickness and tragedy are, unfortunately, at times indispensable messengers that recall to us life's purpose."

--Walter Wink

So I came into work today, and everyone was huddled around a television, watching footage of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center. We listened to speculations, we saw one of our central financial institutions smolder, and we watched as New York City, a symbol of all the mind-boggling accomplishments of Western Civilization, was reduced to rubble, chaos, and death.

We were reduced to panic. We were encouraged to give blood, to pray, to stay at home and go about our business. We were promised that those evil, inhuman individuals who brought on this apocalyptic act of terrorism would be hunted down and brought to justice.

We found little comfort in this. We continued to watch, over and over, hoping that if we just see the crash one more time, from one more angle, that the reason, the justification will come clear. But there turned out to be none. What we saw today was terrorism in its truest sense: we were disrupted, not only financially and militarily, but psychologically and spiritually. We were reduced to rubble.

And I'm left to wonder: what are the choices the United States has made that has led us to this situation? Are we truly and honestly the Just Society we make ourselves out to be? How do we cause harm, what have we done to perpetuate the same violence we just had committed against us today? Or, what have we done to work for peace? To fight for human rights and equality for the world? How has our complicity led us here as well?

The most terrifying thing for me was to look at all that chaos, all that smoke and dust and death, and see it not as a situation in which we are the victims and they are the villains (whoever "they" may be), but as evidence of a world built on violence and oppression and abject human suffering. I saw the unspeakable truth of ourselves and what we have become.

So I tried to give blood today, because what I saw was a reminder of how far away we are from life's purpose. In the face of everything, I felt it was my responsibility to make it a bit more habitable, more human. But when I called the blood center, I found the lines busy, the voice mail boxes overflowing. I was thankful for this, for the main problem the Blood Center being that there were just too many people trying to help.

So tomorrow, then.

I left work early. Everyone was freaked, many of them were trying to hide it, to bury themselves in menial tasks to waste time, to forget about the things they saw, the fear they couldn't shake. I told them, "minor family emergency; have to go." They asked no questions. I sat with my sister at our parents' house, we talked. We yelled, we ranted and raved. We tried to come up with our own explanations, but none of them really seemed to fit.

I drove home, and everything was silent. Christie Front Drive was on the stereo. I usually hear jets, but there were none. I got out of the car in front of my house, I smelled the lake for the first time in I don't know how long. It was a perfect September evening.

I'm hoping this will remind me of life's purpose. I hope it will stick with me. I hope it will for you, too.