Monday Moanings - September 10, 2018

On the Eve of a Seventeenth Anniversary

I'm a little surprised to find myself writing about this today. Until this morning the anniversary of September 11, 2001 wasn't on my radar. But a dreary weather day encouraged a longer than usual perusal of newsfeeds and there it was. Not front page news, but neither buried too deep to find.

Tomorrow will mark an astounding SEVENTEEN years since that frightful day. I suppose it is the realization of just how long ago it was and how that simply doesn't jive with so sharp a memory, that makes this anniversary so captivating.  As I think about tomorrow,  September 11, 2018 questions pop up, the biggest one being, "What have we learned?"

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I struggle to find an answer, any answer.  The best I've come up with so far is that we have learned to be afraid. I don't find that very helpful nor encouraging. How are we better people than we were seventeen years ago? I don't believe for a moment that we are any safer and I can find little evidence that we are truly any wiser. The world is just as vulnerable as it has always been and as human beings in the world, we are pretty much as we've always been -- generous yet also stingy, compassionate and also indifferent, forgiving but also vengeful, loving when we're not hating, capable of great good but just as great (and even greater?) evil.

I believe our greatest freedom is that of choice.  I can choose the better part of whatever a day brings, or not. By a fortunate accident of birth, I got to be brought up and live in a good land and I am privileged to live well here. A few years ago my husband and I traveled to India. I was surprised and utterly amazed by the joyful energy I saw in the faces of Mumbai's poor. The people I saw in the streets, living under the bridges worked hard to make the best of their day and their space in it.

We were told by our guide that the day always begins with an act of gratitude, whether it be a flower or garland brought to the temple, a spice offering at the neighbourhood shrine or a prayer and incense in one's own sacred space.

Perhaps the best thing that I can do on this 9/11 anniversary is to re-dedicate myself to beginning each and every day with gratitude and then consciously choosing the better part whenever I can. The better thoughts -- even when, perhaps even especially when, that means working to reconcile with worst-case scenarios; the better words in all conversations including the ones with myself; the better actions in response to the people and the world I meet.

All life is precious. Handle with care.

©2018 April Hoeller