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What is different about you today? In what way is the world in which you live not the same as it used to be five years ago. Five years ago today was the day before September 11th. That is the September 11th, the one that no longer requires the designation of a year to determine which day is being referenced. That was the day we were attacked.
In the aftermath of that attack, there was a collective realization that something had changed. Not since Pearl Harbor had America suffered such an attack. Never before had the continental United States been attacked with such a devastating effect. On September 11, 2001, we were exposed to a vulnerability that before might have been suspected but remained hidden beneath the surface of our everyday living.
What is different about us today? In the days after the attack, church attendance shot up across the country. Americans were searching for assurance, comfort, and security. Evidently, they found what they were looking for quickly because attendance returned to pre-9/11 levels in a matter of weeks.
More likely, we are still looking for answers — still learning to live with the uncertainties of a post-9/11 world. Five years is not a long time in the grand scheme of things. While time has a way of helping sort through events and hold onto the lessons provided in them, perhaps not enough time has passed. Perhaps the best thing we can do now is remember. Remember those who died that day and remember those who still grieve their deaths.
But we remember with hope. We remember that sometimes changes for the better come out of trying circumstances. September 11, 1906, is another 9/11. One that most of us would not recognize as being significant. That day, Mohandas Gandhi launched the first major nonviolent campaign against race prejudice in South Africa.
As a young lawyer from India, Gandhi experienced racial discrimination at the hands of white South Africans. His personal encounters and mistreatment by a culture where racism was the norm led him to respond with opposition and resistance, but not violence. Gandhi’s movement was peaceful, but determined; and because of it, life changed for many people throughout the British Empire.
Years later, Dr. Martin Luther King would employ the writings and experience of Gandhi in leading the civil rights movement in this country. As a result of that movement, life changed in dramatic ways for many people.
How are you different as a result of the events of 9/11? Time will provide a fuller answer to that question. In the meantime, keep this thought from Gandhi in mind, “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems…”
Joy and peace,
Ed
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