Doers of the Word
Friday, Sept. 11
I was in Bogota, Colombia that fateful day. I heard the news just before classes began at our school. The first news that hit my ears sent me to the news reports on television. I sat in front of that box the rest of the day. I was exhausted and sad.
The first statistics were alarming: 350 firefighters, 200 Port Authority employees, 40 police officers, 700 workers from various financial companies, 266 people on airplanes, nearly 200 at the Pentagon. I remember people holding up photographs, “Have you seen my husband?” “Have you seen my daughter?” “have you seen my father?” “Have you seen my friend?”
Every year since we remember the day. Like we remember Hiroshima, D-day, the day President Kennedy was shot. The events pile up to be remembered. And today 19 years later what are we seeing? Riots in major US cities, crashing of historical monuments, politicians at adds, building of walls, politics spawning hate and division, fading religious practice, financial and social inequality, racism, wondering what North Korea, Russia, China, Iran will do next. What the USA will do next!
On the other hand. We have rebuilt what was destroyed. We recognize the heroes of the day. We look up to the sky and echo the words of Ann Frank before her death in 1945, “It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe in spite of everything that people are truly good at heart.”
Remember one of those fairy tales we learned as children? Chicken Little? The story had gotten around that the sky was falling. One day the proud and haughty rooster was walking home and saw Chicken Little lying on his back with his tiny spindly legs sticking upwards. “What in the world are you doing?” asked the rooster. “The sky is falling,” replied Chicken Little, “and I am holding it up.” The rooster sneered, “What? You think a little twerp like you can hold back the sky?” Ha!” Chicken Little replied with those immortal words, “One does what one can.”