The other night I sat down in our living room to watch the movie Flight 93 for the first time. It recently came out on DVD and I felt like I might be ready to face the realities of 9/11 again. I was shocked at how much emotion was stirred up by watching that movie. I felt as if I had rushed back to September 11, 2001 and was reliving the whole thing. I was in a fog for at least 24 hours. When I came out of the fog, I realized that we have forgotten so many things that we should have learned from that black day in our history. We have lost our sense of unity, our patriotism, our desire to help one another get through the day. In the weeks after 9/11 strangers were lending a hand to help others deal with the pain of the loss that we all felt as Americans. We didn't see political, economic or racial standings. What we saw were other Americans who were reeling from the devestation of being so violated, of having our security and our peace ripped from our very lives. We were what Americans were always meant to be, united.
Today I look around us and I see a very different sort of America. It seems we are more divided than we have been in decades. We draw lines between one another and demand that no one crosses those lines. We cannot find peace among ourselves yet we scream for peace everywhere else. Lines of protestors stand in front of the post office while I attempt to ship a care package to my dear soldier, a soldier who fights so that people can hate him freely. I remember after 9/11 when the wife of a soldier was lifted up by her fellow countrymen. Now I feel like we must defend our husbands' honor.
It isn't that I think all Americans must tow the same party line or believe in the same things. It is more that I pray that we might be able to understand one another as human beings, as children of God. We are all fragile and fallen. We are all suceptible to the same vulnerabilities and the same sorrows. When our safety is threatened, when we are attacked and violated, we come together out of our shared pain. It saddens me that we cannot come together out of our shared humanity. It saddens me that my husband, my dear sweet Nathan, risks his life to ensure that nothing like 9/11 will ever happen to us again and that people hate him for doing so. The same people who cried with he and I after the towers fell are the people who cannot seem to support the sacrifice he makes now. What saddens me more than anything is that our forgetfulness has resulted in outright disrespect for those who haven't forgotten and who brave the desert war in order to ensure that our enemy has not forgotten either.
I'll end today with a quote I received in an email this week and with thanks to God that my husband hasn't forgotten.
"If you don't stand behind the troops, feel free to stand in front of them."
