9/11 Memorial Day Eve

Today is the day before what is now an annual memorial day for the tragedy of terrorist attacks on US soil on September 11th, 2001.  I'm preparing for  all the emotions and thoughts that go with it. Our church (Unity in Marin) is hosting an all day Peace Symposium with speakers and a Kids Peace Camp for which peace is the focus, not revenge. Mother Theresa was reported to have said she wouldn't go to any anti war march but she would go to a peace march.  It is a matter of what one stands for rather than against.

As with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, most of us remember where we were when we got news of the attack.  I was in the kitchen fiddling with dishes and breakfast when my husband rushed in with the dog after their walk.  He'd heard the news on the car radio and said something about a terrorist attack in New York.  I dismissed his anxiety in my usual offhand way, presuming the media had hyped up something that wasn't really all that bad.  "Americans !" I thought, and rolled my eyes at their sense of drama about little things, having no idea what he was really talking about. He turned on the tv and I sauntered in just as the second plane flew into the Twin Towers.  We froze, unable to move or speak.    Like so many millions, were glued, spellbound in horror as events unfolded onscreen.

It is a blur now how the rest of the day proceeded but I recall speaking to my mother in London, both of us in tears.  She said how very, very sorry she was for the American people because they have never had to endure an attack on their own soil, unlike other countries.   She was remembering the years of war when Americans helped abroad but at home, apart from Pearl Harbor, the citizenry were unaffected in their own beds.  I was surprised and moved at her compassion as she's never been especially pro American and during the McCarthy witchhunt era, she was just the opposite. Yet, here she was now, changed by tragedy, as we all inevitably are.

Whatever emerges on Saturday either between Rev Jones from Florida with his proposed or postponed Koran bonfire and the Imam whose vision for an Interfaith Center near Ground Zero, who may or may not meet with him, and all the other events, planned or unplanned, one thing is cleara.   We all want the same.  We want peace, we want it now.  We want freedom, we want it now, and we don't want others telling us what peace and freedom should look like.  Political, religious and territorial disputes are all manmade horrors.  May peace prevail, always.

Peace begins at home.  May yours be filled with peace, on purpose, today and every day.