Sunday, Sep 11, 2016

It’s been 15 years since the tragic attack on US soil by terrorists. My friend, Roy Sherrid, was in New York City that day and captured his experience. You can read about it on his blog Retired Hippie Travelers.

So much death that day, and in the many years of war that followed. My country has never been the same since. I don’t expect it ever will be. It was a sentinel event for the United States of America, citizens living here, and the new paradigm for us living together on this planet.

What strikes me heavily today is how different our behavior, interactions, and conversations with each other are now, than in the days and weeks that followed that horrific event. Then, we joined together as Americans helping one another, helping our country, moving forward together regardless of our differences of race, religion, and political affiliations.

Today our conversations and behaviors with one another, because of these same differences, have hamstrung our country and created a hateful dialogue between us. Why does it take an epic act of war for us to find kindness in ourselves and show goodness to one another?

Those killed, either as civilians, military, or rescuers, represented many races, religions, political affiliations, and even non-US nationals. Terror had no respect for any of these differences among people.

As I honor the memories of the 2,977 people killed, I want to be mindful that honoring includes being respectful of who each one was, which includes their race, their faith, and their political affiliation, to name only a few. When I think about it, being respectful doesn’t seem something limited to only these who have lost their lives in a country declaring “liberty and justice for all”. Being respectful of one another is something done because of liberty and justice for all.

So here I am writing this blog post as I live in Ecuador, not the US.

I think the events of 9/11 and the following years of war, with the many nations and people involved trying to find stable ground among differing ideologies of life, created a desire in me to know more of my world and the people in it.

people-47452_1280I am doing that. I am learning we are, more than anything, all just people navigating, in the best way we can what is in front of us . Being respectful with one another in our words and deeds will help us all to find our way.

Chau.