Saturday, September 11, 2010

Unity

I guess that everyone remembers what they were doing on September 11,  2001. I had taken my mother for an ECT treatment for her depression and was sitting in the family lounge at the hospital when the TV announced that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Then the second plane flew in and the rest is history, as they say.

I didn't know the repercussions of what had happened and how far reaching the aftermath would be, but I felt a sick feeling that this act would bring about a war, more bloodshed, and perhaps threaten the world as no other conflict had. Some of my earliest thoughts weren't off the mark. We have a war, we have more bloodshed. Although our world continues to revolve around the sun, I feel restless about the well-being of this country and the state of the world in general.

I thought that the days immediately after 9/11 were ones of unity for the country.  It was as if the tragedy brought us together.  We didn't really care whether we were Democrat or Republican.  I thought that spirit of unity would continue but alas, it seems that the unity has become replaced by separatism.  Many are suspicious of others because they have a different religion or a different skin color.  The years of spending on war have come at great cost to the social, educational, environmental, and health conditions of the country and world. Our fabric has begun to unravel.

I was hoping that the tragedy of 9/11 would be the kind of wake up call to this country that would bring about something positive in the world. That we would be looked upon with respect because we had learned to take care of each other here so that people would be better educated, have better health care, housing, and a feeling of connection to the other nations in the world.

Yet, now we seem more divisive as a nation than ever.  I don't understand the hatred that we exhibit towards others who think differently or act differently.  I think that the real tragedy these years after 9/11 is that we haven't learned real lessons about the rest of the world and how to take the best of this country and use it to the benefit of our own people and other nations.  President Kennedy, in his speech inaugurating the Peace Corps, said something like: "Those who have so much will not be able to keep it if they are unwilling to share with those who have so little." In other words, we have to give it away, in order to keep it.

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Genuine, national self examination would be a tribute to those who tragically died on 9/11. Perhaps we need to think about what unites us together and not what our differences are.  Maybe if we each do our best to understand and not condemn, to speak our own truth and not what we are fed by entertainers, and to pull together with compassion today, it will be a small but powerful start.

12 comments:

  1. I wondered recently, as I was reading the 12 traditions, what would happen if our country worked the same.

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  2. I agree totally. And I believe that the aftermath of 911 was not helped by a president who fed the flames of hatred and fear and talked Big Bully War Talk and who sent Americans off to the mall.
    But that's just me.

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  3. i agree..i was just commenting on another is tht i wish we remembered how we came together in those days following many strangers before, now friends...i wish we could remember that...there is much to be done but we have to lay down our self interest...

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  4. I know I was at work. It seemed like everyone I knew knew someone or knew someone who knew someone that was either a victim or a survivor. The weather was beautiful. The sky was silent. It was all very surreal.

    Still is.

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  5. It seems to me that collectively we have not learned much from the destruction and loss of life 9 years ago.

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  6. I popped over from Babara's blog.

    This is one of the best posts I've read about this tragic day.

    Unity is what we should all strive to achieve, but I can't see that ever happening.

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  7. We will never make any progress until we face our differences honestly. Not being able to speak about anything is not contributing to unity. It only divides us.

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  8. I recently was told that when change is taking place there is a long period of just ugly. A time that feels like it will never end and then it does. Just like the evolution that takes place when we work the steps. It always gets really ugly before a break-through. We will never be the same after 9/11 but sometimes that is a good thing. We will get through this because we are evolving some willingly and some not.

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  9. I agree with your first commentator. Wouldn't it be great if the whole world could operate on the 12 Traditions?
    We, who have so much, must be willing to use it for the betterment of the world if we are to see progress.

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  10. Glad you share your perspective on 9-11. For me, Syd, it was the ensuing war, and the way W misrepresented the reason for that war...that pushed me over my emotional edge. The shock wave in my psyche from 9-11 did not show itself until nearly two summers later. It was the lie, the misrepresentation of the weapons of mass destruction, that "got" me. Triggered me. Today I try to know better to step back and not take others' mistruths quite so personally.

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  11. Thanks Syd. I was disappointed by W's lies to justify a war. The costs we are paying as a country have harmed us both financially for generations and spiritually.
    Killing does not bring about peace.

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Let me know what you think. I like reading what you have to say.