Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
I Think We Ought To Try

I Think We Ought To Try

Last updated on: September 11, 2017 at 6:14 pm by Mary Pezzulo

I Think We Ought To Try 2017-09-11T18:14:51-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

South_Tower_gets_hit_on_911

It was a sunny Tuesday morning. On the news, someone was interviewing the Duchess of York. She had just smiled and nodded demurely, and referred to “making a complete nonsense of my life.” The reporter interviewing her remarked upon the phrase, “a complete nonsense.’ The Duchess nodded demurely again.

Then they broke in with a live news story.

Diane Sawyer said, in guarded terms, that there was ‘some sort of explosion at the World Trade Center.” It was exactly 8:51 AM.

At first, reporters kept on repeating they had no idea whether the “explosion” was the result of terrorism or some sort of accident. There were rumors of an aircraft, but they were loath to admit that either.

The question was settled twelve minutes later, on live television, when a second plane hit the other tower.

The rest is history, chillingly preserved for us on a thousand videos and photographs. I didn’t watch all the television coverage at the time; as I’ve written before, I didn’t know what was happening until after the first tower had fallen– the events were halfway over.

Today I’ve been watching videos of everything I missed and the things I saw trying to remember the way that it felt. That surreal, gripping anxiety, anxiety so sudden and deep it overrode all of my senses, like the shock of gallons of ice water poured suddenly over a prisoner’s head. We didn’t know what was happening. We didn’t know, at first, who our enemy was. The people who lived close by had no idea whether their loved ones were dead or alive. People in other states had no idea if they, too, would be attacked. Nobody knew anything.

Then we got the word that the Pentagon was also burning. Then a report, which turned out to be false, of a car bomb at the White House. Terrorist attacks in multiple states; not one or two terrorist attacks but more. No one knew how many it would be. The whole country was under attack.

The planes were grounded. The phone lines were jammed. We were all stranded.

Then the first tower collapsed. The facade, the burned skin of the building, flaked off in puffs of dust that descended as they expanded like some kind of reverse firework, and Manhattan was enveloped in a cloud.

And everyone was running.

We who were far away saw it on television: cameramen deserting newscasters and running, the camera showing dress shoes vainly struggling to outrun the dust. People in their good clothes, screaming and running away– they emerged from the cloud several blocks away, shocked, dirty, covered in a uniform layer of white particles. Some of them looked as if they’d been turned to stone.

I was petrified myself, just watching on television. I can’t imagine what they themselves felt.

And then the second tower collapsed.

And then the report came in that another plane had crashed, this one into a field instead of a building.

We had no idea whether that would be the end or not.

Do you remember that feeling? That horrible fear, the grief, the trauma? Remember how quickly trauma was turned to anger, and anger aggravated paranoia and bigotry? How so many of us had that anger maneuvered into crying for blood, declaring wars on abstract nouns, wars on countries whose citizens hadn’t hijacked those planes? How long it took so many to admit the wars were at minimum horrendously handled, if they hadn’t been wrong from the start?

I was the worst of anyone. I was a red-hot conservative in those days, inasmuch as a homeschooled sixteen-year-old can really be said to hold serious political views rather than parroting her surroundings. I was fond of phrases like “law and order” and “patriot.” I was eager for any war that would give me a feeling of safety, of agency, of not being vulnerable to that trauma and grief ever again. I wanted those bloodthirsty foreigners to be stopped, at any cost. I wanted war.

Quite a few of us wanted war, and war is what we got.

Those wars are still ongoing, sixteen years later. Millions of lives have been lost. Children who were infants when their parents left home to fight that war are old enough to fight it themselves, now.

Suffering ought to deepen our empathy. So I beg you to remember: some people feel the terror of 9/11 all the time.

There are countries where terrorist attacks happen all the time. There are countries where the news is regularly interrupted by horrors; where the citizens regularly watch in mounting shock, wondering where their loved ones are, wondering how long this attack will last. There are places in this world where every day, you hear of a bombing and civilians killed. There are places where every day is 9/11.

In some of those places, we are the aggressor. We, the United States, and the choices we made in our fear.

There are teenagers here in the United States, going to High School, worrying about their drivers’ exam, who have never lived in a pre-9/11 world. There are other teenagers, of no less value in the eyes of God, in other parts of the world, who have never lived a day of their lives without the fear of an American drone attack. And there are those who have lived their whole lives in fear of suicide bombers, drug cartels, gangs; and in fear of the military and law enforcement trying to curtail those bombers, cartels and gangs and not caring who they kill along the way.

There are people all over the world who say goodbye to their families on the way to work, and don’t know if they’ll see them again in the evening. There are families who quake in terror when their loved ones are late coming home from work, just as we were in terror on that day, because there’s a very good chance that they have been killed.

Knowing this– remembering how it felt, how it turned so many hearts to violence– can we lack compassion for anyone? Even for the violent and for those who wish us harm?

And if we can find compassion… might we act differently?

I don’t know. It could be that everything would turn out the same way: the same fear, the same grief and anxiety, the same mounting anger. Perhaps, in the end, the numbers of the dead and suffering would be the same.

Well, of course they would. One way or another, everyone suffers and dies.

But it could be that the world would look completely different, if enough of us remembered empathy. If we remembered what it’s like to suffer that fear, and that people around the world are suffering it all the time. And if we let that, rather than the anger dictated by fear, govern our actions– perhaps there could be a significant change.

It could be.

I think we ought to try.

(image via Wikimedia Commons)

preferential option for non-violence

Previous Post

September 10, 2017

To Laugh at the Devil

Next Post

September 12, 2017 A Library for the Friendship Room

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Abuse Advent America American Christianity angel angels Annunciation Appalachia apparition apparition chaser apparition chasers apparition culture art art review babies baby baby Jesus Bad Lip Reading bad statue contest bath beauty Bible story blog blogkeeping blood book review Brandon Sanderson breastfeeding bus Catholic catholic conspiracy alarmism Catholic Oppositional Disorder Charismatic Renewal Charlie the Cat chastity Christ Christian idenitity Christianity and Judaism Chronic Illness clean clothing COD piece comedy compassion conscience conspiracy theory conversion cop-on-black violence Crucifixion cry of the poor culture Daesh Daily Saints death death penalty devotional diaconate diaper diapers dirty disability Donald Trump Dorothy Day dream drugs Eastern Catholicism Eastern Christianity education election election update Elsewhere on Patheos empathy environment Fear feminism film review fish flashback fluffy buns food Franciscan University of Steubenville Friendship Room fun Gabriel gardening gospel hair-splitting Heaven hell heresy Hillary Clinton history Holly the Witch Holy Spirit holy war Homeschooling homosexuality horror human dignity humor Icon idol immigrants infection inter-religious dialogue Interpretation of Scripture Islam Jesus Jihad Joseph joy laity and lay vocations lamb dinner laundry lent lgbtq literature love manners Mary Medicine and Science Meditation mercy mess milk misogyny Missouri monasticism monster motherhood mourn with those mourn movies movis music mystery nature neurodiversity New Pro-Life Movement news nonsense nostalgia O antiphons obituary objectification Ohio Valley Ordinary Time ordination Ordo Amoris parable paradox Passover peanut butter personal beliefs pets philosophy Planet Charismatic poetry politics polls poop Pope Francis Pope Leo power in the Church prayer prayer request prayers preferential option for non-violence president presidential election priest primary private revelation pro-life prophecy Public face of Catholicism Pure Flix Q and A race racism random rape rape. sexuality reader's request Reckoners refugee religious trauma ressurrection Right to life Saints saints and celebrations same-sex same-sex marriage satire scandal secular feasts seder Seven Joys Seven Last Words sex sexual ethics sexuality silencing six months skid row slavery social justice Speculative fiction spiritual abuse spoon stain story suffering suffrage suffragette Sunday Gospel temple Tenebrae Responsories Terror the exorcist The Friendship Room The New Pro-Life Movement Things I Learned on the Internet tin cup traffic true story tv review Uncategorized USCCB vice and temptation violence Virtue virtue and vice war Way of the Cross whimsy whole life women's ordination work of mercy Year A

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

How many men did Joshua initially send to Ai?

Select your answer to see how you score.

3,000 4,000 2,000 5,000