30 Minutes and It Will Have Been 5 Years...

It's hard to believe that in half an hour it will be 5 years since the 9/11 attacks back in 2001. I just turned 19 a few days earlier and before that I had just arrived on campus to start a brand new college career. I know the last thing the world needs now is another "I remember where I was on 9/11" story so I'll stop there as far as that is concerned. The reason I bring it up is because it's amazing how that event happened right at the beginning of a sort of "coming of age" period in my life. The world had changed forever and I was old enough to know what was happening, how the world was before then and would probably live long enough afterwards to know how the world would be. I was thinking of this a couple days ago and started tearing up thinking about it all. How do you describe what happened to those who weren't around yet or weren't old enough to know what happened? How do you get across how much that changed everything? How many lives it changed? How just over 5 short years ago, families used to wait at airport gates for their loved ones, and how just over 5 years ago, there was a set of twin towers that towered the NYC skyline. I remember studying about Pearl Harbor, the different wars and even about what Hitler did to the Jews, but I remember this veil of fictionousness that still clouds what I know about those events. It's not that I think the events weren't important or happened, it's just that I was, at best, years from even existing in the world and all I knew about these events were from worn and stale pages of text books growing up. I don't want future generations to see 9/11 like that. So back to my original question - How do you tell someone about this? How do you convey how tragic this was? How do you show how even through the tragedy, this brought out the true heroes from our society? How do we try and show future generations that it doesn't have to be this way again? If we can learn from our past, we can finally see these huge historical tragedies always trail back to the human incapability of compromising and learning to love each other. In the end someone somewhere was so selfish and so sure that they were right and that the world needed to be at their hands, they gave the signal and in moments, the world would change forever. It's stupid. If you think about it, there's not much evolution there from the caveman resolving issues with clubs and dragging away their spoils. The only thing that has evolved is the club, not the heart. The only thing that can change is with me. Only I can love someone more. Only I can choose to smile at someone today. Only I can choose to be better than those before me. I can wish the world would change all I want, but only the individuals in the world can choose to love, to smile and be better than those before. It's all any of use can do. Maybe if there's enough of us that are willing to love eachother just because it's the right thing to do, we'll finally be able to see this world for what a potentially beautiful creation it is.

With this 5-year Anniversary coming up, a lot is running through my head. A couple days ago I went to see the new film, "World Trade Center" and was pleasantly surprised. The film did have some big names in it, and a large budget, but it still managed to keep the story focused on the positive light. It wasn't about terrorists or even the buildings coming down, it was about two of twenty survivors and their families. There are millions of stories, and it's a shame we won't ever know all of them, but at least here we can see a glimpse of a few.

Now, as I've been writing, it's 6 minutes past the new day. Today I think will be the greatest tribute to all of those victimized that day. I will attend a brief memorial service in the morning, but I will still go to work go on with my normal day, just with them in mind. As Margaret Cho said, "No matter what the terrorists do, I refuse to be terrorized." And I hold that philosophy, I have learned, and I have those lost in my thoughts, but I refuse to live terrorized or in fear of those whom will, in the end, finally see how self-righteous they were. None of us can change the world by trying to change others or force others into what we believe, only by living by what we know is right. I hope I never forget that lesson and that those after I am long gone will always remember.

Soli Deo Gloria,
-Rod