My piece for Culture11 on September 11 and the country we had briefly, then lost to everydayness. Excerpt:
Let me tell you a story about another country, one that used to be my own - and, in a way, yours too.I lived there on September 11, 2001, and in the days and weeks that followed. In this country, people didn't hate each other for political or cultural reasons. People didn't hate each other, period. Everyday spite seemed a luxury we couldn't afford in New York City in those dark and anxious days. I remember standing shoulder to shoulder with all my Brooklyn neighbors on the Promenade, staring across the East River at the pyre, silent, grieving and praying.
We'd see each other at the local firehouse. We kept going back, all of us in our part of New York, to take food and donations to the guys there, who'd lost eight of their own when the towers came down. The things you'd see, and hear!
One evening there was a young man there with white gauze over his left eye, holding a pan of baked ziti in one hand, and his wife's arm with the other. He told me he was temporarily blinded by the first tower collapse when powdered glass abraded his eyes. A stranger led him across the Brooklyn Bridge, back to his building, up his stairs and into his apartment before telling him goodbye. And he never found out the stranger's name. Cooking food for the surviving firefighters down the street - that was his way of saying thanks.
Later, I met a guy at the firehouse - Engine 205 & Ladder 118, on Middagh Street - who'd driven in from Pennsylvania with his three young sons. The boys had read my column in the New York Post about this firehouse and its loss, and decided they wanted to give something to the firefighters. For ages, they'd been saving their coins in an empty water cooler jug; their dad told them when it got full, they could cash it in and he'd take them all to Disneyworld.
They were inches from the top on 9/11.
The boys gave every last penny to the firefighters of Middagh Street.
That was the kind of place we lived in then. Remember?
The essay ends with the question: Did we see our true selves on September 11, 2001 -- a day that, well, will live in infamy? Or do we see our true selves today, September 11, 2008 -- a day like any other?
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For a brief time, following the terrorist attacks, we saw one another as vulnerable, fragile, precious children of God.
Today, we are still vulnerable, fragile and beloved. Yet, tragically, we have returned to labeling one another as the enemy. Exhibit A= "redneck" versus "liberal elite." And, it has been my observation, when you treat people as enemies, it is almost guaranteed that they will react as enemies in response.
Lamech, from Genesis, desired endless revenge and retaliation and power over against his enemies (77).
Jesus, in Matthew's Gospel, called for endless reconciliation (77).
As a "liberal elite"- I extend the hand of friendship to the "rednecks" and conservatives. You are precious and beloved of God!!!
Peace, Duh-sciple, wannabe Jesus follower
This is somewhat OT, but I don't know where else to post it, and I think it's worth remembering today (my apologies if someone has already mentioned it and I missed it):
September 11 is also the anniversary of the day in 1683 when Jan Sobieski and his army defeated the Turks outside the walls of Vienna. Along with Tours and Lepanto, this was one of the great Western military victories over the Muslims.
Jude,
Thank you.
Brendan Moran,
I agree with much of what you say except the last bit that more divides us than unites us. I think, even on those issues where we disagree, we are in more agreement than we usually see. Both sides want this country safe, both want to see peace around the world, both want to see democracy, freedom and an absence of tyranny take place in more and more countries around the world. We disagree with how to do it. Which leads me to
Watcher,
Who says being the city on the hill at the end of WWII did not get us anywhere? At the beginning of WWII, there were basically 3 "first world" democracies, us and England and Canada. Democracy was almost unheard of in third world countries (even lip service to democracy). Now most of Europe is democratic in reality, and the rest is democratic in theory. Most of the "third world" is democratic in theory, and often in reality as well. Those that arent' are, for the most part, generally moving towards democracy. In addition there are at least three major countries that are either economic powers or emerging; South Korea, Japan, and Germany, oh and Italy. Several countries that had disappeared from the world map because of imperialism exist again, and most of them are democratic (for example, Poland).
In short, if our actions from the end of WWII till 2000 were failure, let's have more of it, and less of the "success" we've had since.
Who says being the city on the hill at the end of WWII did not get us anywhere? At the beginning of WWII, there were basically 3 "first world" democracies, us and England and Canada. Democracy was almost unheard of in third world countries (even lip service to democracy).
Hmmm. I'm not sure what I said that might have misled you about what I think or mean, but I'll try again.
I said we enjoyed great success during and after WWII (the successes you mention, such as Europe, Japan, etc) because of our determination and our strident belief in the higher angels of liberty, freedom, self-determination. We seem to agree on this.
However, when I mention that is not exactly the case since then, I refer to the Vietnam era till now. Whatever the motivation of JFK to enter that conflict, LBJ's unwillingness to win and to win for a moral and high cause, has resulted in the widespread loss of respect, and a deep cynicism about our commitment to freedom and self government.
The rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the backwards momentum of civil rights and personal freedom in the Middle East is easily paralleled by our loss of commitment to winning to win for these noble ideas. Not that such decay was started in Vietnam, it started before Korea, it started at the conclusion of WWII, when we as a nation, war-weary, acceeded to the control of Eastern Europe under the tyrannical regime of an "enemy of our enemy is our friend" ally Stalin.
Not knowing the characters, and having only read some small inputs from Truman about that time, I can only observe what happened, and not why. But we can observe the results. An obvious lack of continued dedication to those things we fought so hard for just immediately prior to the conclusion of WWII, as the cold war and the 50's through the 70's passed put the lie to our resolve and our belief in the universality of the rights of mankind. We became complacent and "comfortable" with divvying up with the tyrants who got to be free and who did not.
We created the very cynicism that has fueled the anti-American sentiment that often pervades the third world when we failed to be ever-vigilant in defense of humanity.
Reagan's time was a bright spot in that gloom, as we simply gave a little nudge to the groaning USSR and it collapsed under its own weight. But then we did nothing. We allowed that vacuum, that hunger for justice and the higher angels of our moral beliefs to remain subject to expedience, and we denied them completely and repeatedly, as we failed to in any signficant matter attempt to promote them as a matter of national policy.
While Bush I gave lip service, Clinton actually and actively betrayed those ideals. Bush II committed us, and we nationally split over them, and apparently, the majority again, found expedience, convenience, and political expediency far more valuable than the humanity of anyone "not like us" around the globe,and invented many sophistries to explain and justify our lack of any moral foundational principles, or at least why we should not act on any of them.
The left, and the creeping onslaught of modern liberalism fueled the cynicism and charges of "imperialism" and "decadence" levelled at us by the likes of Bin Ladin, who observed that as a matter of official policy resulting in action, we were as seriously committed to our stated ideals as the Slickster was to chastity while in office.
The result, then, is not to further betray, by removing ourselves from any confrontation with tyranny, but to actually stand up for those things we believe and engage relentlessly, that ALONE is the only means by which faith in our country will see any restoration.
Seeing as how one political party, part of the other, and even supposedly seriously committed to right folks like Rod can't summon the courage to stand for ANY action, much less a dedicated long term campaign for them, the prognosis for the future is grim indeed.
On the other hand, the culture war might be won within our nation, and we can again, be an actual force for good, rather than a discredit to the notions we eloquently, but almost totally ignore, pay homage to in our founding documents.
As Chesterton once put it, saying my country right or wrong is like saying my mother drunk or sober.
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