Tonight Aaron and I ventured from the comfort of our apartment to a theater 15 wet miles away. We saw was a film depicting the morning hours of 9/11. We walked out silently holding hands.
I still don’t know what I feel and think. This blog is an attempt to put words to something inside me. My response is immediately fearful. The attacks on 9/11 were evil and horrific, but how do they lead us to where we are? Our country was attacked so we attacked Afghanistan then Iraq. When I remember late 2001, I remember thinking that we’d fight wars, first Afghanistan, then Iraq, Iran and finally Saudi Arabia. Right now, we’re fighting and killing thousands, as thousands more American soldiers are killed. Somehow the thousands killed on 9/11 caused our nation to go into mourning and our way of life is changed, but those dying of hunger one every 3.6 seconds, goes unnoticed. I don’t mean that the carnage that happened on 9/11 is forgettable or doesn’t matter, but somehow because it happened to people like me, people who were going about their daily routines good people who had jobs, spouses, parents and children. They were friends and uncles and they died. People like my friends and family, people like me died. It could happen to me. If it could happen to me then we must take action. Someone must die to avenge the deaths. Someone must die to make me feel safe. I’ll deal with hunger and poverty later, right now I’m not safe. At least I don't feel safe.
I write this realizing that I only want to protect myself by protecting those I care about. I don’t care who is hurt and what it will cost. I want to feel safe and secure. It is so easy to make the enemy the other to say they are pure evil. But, the hijackers didn’t birth themselves they must have parents and they probably have spouses and children too. They cry and love and pray. This is not to say that they were not wrong, but they were human too. They were created in God’s image just like me and just like you.
