9/11

There will be a ton of posts today about 9/11, most yanking at already bruised and war buffeted nationalistic heartstrings.  I will not look at these.  My heart remembers the sadness all too well.

Twelve years after the fact, I am more interested in what I learned that day.

I learned about a world that existed "out there" in places like Israel, Afghanistan, Korea in a way that made out there suddenly much more in here.  Over the last 12 years I see there is no difference in those places.  What happens out there, happens in here and vice versa.  I can't control out there, but I can garden in here and know that it is reflected outward.

I learned that you should listen to a little voice that says "not today" that some will call chance, but I believe to be intervention.  That sometimes you are late or sick or need to be somewhere else and it's OK.  It may even save your life.

I learned about randomness.  Unpredictability.  Those things remind me to live in the moment.  To tell people that I love how I feel and not wait or think that they know.  They might, but who doesn't like to hear that?

I learned to see the US from a place outside my 1960's upbringing, began to see it the way someone in a different country might.  That we are not always right.  What we are is stronger, better equipped and louder than other countries.  12 years later, I'm not at all sure that the Jeffersonian thoughts that worked so well for us, are translatable to other countries.  I'm even less sure why we aren't letting them figure out what works for themselves.  Helping, yes.  But directing/funding/sending soldiers, ummmm no.

I learned that there is a hero in each of us.  And that there's a coward in each of us.  Which one am I?  Like the story of the internal wolves - whichever one I feed.