If you pause today to remember the horrible events of nine years ago, I certainly hope that you are able to keep your thoughts away from the political and insidious gamesmanship that is currently going on around the anniversary. Over 3000 people lost their lives that day because others decided to kill them using their religion as a shield, a weapon, and a justification. Many others have since in response to those events. The perpetrators not only took innocent lives, but forever wounded their own religion with scars that will always be apparent in a world that is all too slowly and incrementally inching closer, albeit in fits and starts, from acknowledging its differences and its sameness. That day can't come soon enough. But that day nine years ago brought not only immediate tragedy, but a boiling to the surface of the baser and selfish instincts that our species is capable of. We're seeing that on brilliant display this year. In that sense the bad guys won.
It's tough to watch the circuses surrounding this year's anniversary of 9/11 because the actions and emotions of so many just reminds me how fragile the balance of humanity and what we call civilization really is, and how easy it is to tip it.
The acts of the murderers on that day can never be defended in any fashion, but then in my view neither can the actions of those who currently prey on the wounds still very raw from that day. The only solace I can take in any of this is to keep in mind that while many suffered horrible tragedy that day, others heard the call of the better side of our nature and responded with heroism and sacrifice that proved we are capable of rising while others seek to make us fall through their own ascendancy.
