day of remembrance

While I'm waiting for my bus to Walla Walla University (navigation proved to be pretty easy, Becky-- thanks), I thought I'd write a bit about September 11. Some folks say they don't want to "dwell" on that date, and I can understand that. I'd rather not dwell on it, either, but like it or not, it now stands alongside December 7 as "a day that will live in infamy."

On that day in 2001, I was in DC, a grad student in the Master's program of the School of Religious Studies at the Catholic University of America. I had stepped out of a morning Messianism and Redemption class and entered the nearby Mullen Library when I heard some of the front desk staffers saying something about the Twin Towers collapsing.

It wasn't long after that that DC was plunged into chaos: the Pentagon, almost literally down the street from National Airport where my father worked, had been hit, and the buzz was that the White House and/or the Capitol were likely targets as well. My mother worked at an office within sight of the Capitol; with both my parents so close to harm's way, I called them and found out they were fine.

Mom noted, though, that getting out of DC was going to be a problem. We found out later, with the rest of the country, that DC's disaster plans-- the ones for evacuating the city in a crisis-- hadn't been updated since the 1970s. The few bridges that connected DC to Virginia across the Potomac River instantly became choke points that day. The whole city was in gridlock, especially southbound traffic. How much worse this all could have been had terrorists decided to destroy the bridges!

I was lucky: no friends or relatives were directly involved in any of the tragedies that unfolded on that beautiful morning. But even those of us not directly touched by the events of that day remember it as a day of suffering, anguish, and great, smoldering anger.

The issues that came to dominate the American consciousness after 2001 spanned all categories-- political, religious, cultural, philosophical, artistic, and scientific. Should we consider ourselves at war? Was this a return of the old "Islamdom versus Christendom" paradigm? Is it morally consistent for us to insist on a blind respect for all cultures when it's clear that certain other cultures have no interest in showing the same respect to ours? Is it possible to prosecute a "just war"? When does art cross the line into something politically inflammatory, or culturally insensitive, or religiously bigoted? What technologies need to be developed to respond to situations that are either similar to or corollaries of the events of 9/11?

Seven years on, we have a multitude of such questions, and an even greater number of often conflicting answers. To be honest, I wouldn't want it any other way: diversity is one of our culture's greatest strengths; there's nothing to stop us from working multiple angles.

What Americans need to remember, however, is that we are, at least in theory, united by certain core values. Rediscovering that unity, fleshing out its nature so that those values remain meaningful for the twenty-first century, is essential for our culture's survival. As things stand, there's a real chance that we may undo ourselves from within. Diversity undergirded by unity is not the same as brokenness and Balkanization, and I think we're currently skewing toward the latter.

Some people reject the above way of thinking as too primitive, too "bunker" style, too focused on boundaries and separation. While I'd agree that most of our social, political, cultural, and even physical boundaries are in constant flux, we can't pretend that we live in a world without boundaries.* It's all well and good to say, as many do, that we need to destroy the boundaries that hold us back from each other, but such people, usually well-fed and somewhat isolated from reality, have never visited a homeless shelter or talked to the folks in it. Those folks can tell you what life without boundaries is like-- no privacy, your possessions always at risk of being stolen, no walls to spare you from the screams, the fights, and the filth. In such a world, it's hard to find peace. Peace isn't necessarily what results from dropping all boundaries.

I apologize if the above comes off as too abstract, but one of the great mistakes we make as a nation of 300 million very different people is to believe that a handful of simple formulae, developed by people at the top and allowed to trickle down to the rest of us, will solve current problems. It's not for me to write this nation's prescription, nor is it the exclusive job of any single person. In this age, we are, all of us, called to be the healers. Together.

In memory of the nearly 3,000 people who lost their lives seven years ago, and of those who felt their loss most keenly.

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*People often make the same mistake when approaching the process metaphysics of Buddhism: they focus on flux at the expense of continuity. Things do change, but change is often gradual.

Imagine living in a body that morphed into different animal shapes every five seconds. How could you eat your dinner if your hand became a claw, then a tentacle, then a paw? Change and continuity go together; you can't talk about one without implying the other.

And just as it's rational for you to eat and exercise to maintain your body, it's rational for a given nation or culture to think about its own maintenance and self-preservation.


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